Please make sure you answer all parts of the question. At every opportunity, give examples. Make links to your own company policies, theories, legislation and any regulatory requirements. Use Harvard referencing and acknowledge all sources you use.
In order to define the concepts of professionalism you might like to consider the various aspects, traits and behaviour which make us see an individual as a professional. How is a professional defined by professional bodies and their codes of conduct? What is a dual professional?
Reviewing the key features and benefits of an inclusive learning environment requires you in the first instance to define the aspects which make a learning environment inclusive such that you can then take a critical look at them, their strengths and their limitations. What hurdles might you face when aiming to create an inclusive learning environment? Where od its benefits lie? What would happen if you did not manage to create such an environment? How do learners’ personal, social and cultural factors and their differing cognitive, physical and sensory abilities affect their learning? What impact do they have on your teaching?
Analysing your roles and responsibilities invites you to take a critical look at your various duties. How do they compliment or contradict each other? What are the various expectations others (your learners, your organisation, external bodies etc) have of you? How do they impact your practice? What are your responsibilities in relation to inclusive practice? Where do your boundaries lie? How are your duties influencing your boundaries or how do these boundaries force you to work in co-operation with other professionals? How do you liaise with other professionals? Where do the pros and cons of each of the methods to liaise you use lie?
In order to analyse the influence of social, political and economic factors on education policy and the impact of current education policies on your curriculum you might be best to select two education policies which have had, are having or will be having an impact on your specialist area and to discuss why they are in place and how they have shaped, are shaping or will be shaping the curriculum in your specialist area. What are the benefits and limitations of these changes?
To conclude your assignment please identify the external bodies and stakeholders your organisation works with. What are their roles? In what way is your organisation accountable to these external bodies and stakeholders? How do their requirements shape your curriculum, delivery and assessment in a positive and in a negative manner?
Please choose two or three pedagogical principles you regularly employ in your practice (e.g. scaffolded learning, multisensory learning) and analyse how you apply them in your practice as well as discuss why you employ them. Why are they effective? Why do they work for you and your learners?
In order to explain ways in which professional values influence your practice you could reflect which professional values you hold or are required to uphold (as dictated by organisational ethos, mission statements and codes of practice). Explain how these values shape your practice. If, for example, an educational institution’s ethos was that all learners are individuals, how does this belief feature in your practice?
Which curriculum models and theories are your courses’ designs based upon? Why these models and theories represent the most appropriate designs for your courses? Apart from theories and models of curriculum design what other factors influence the course design in your area of practice? What expectations do your employers hold? Set completion time? Expected targets? Predicted grades? Funding constraints? How do these expectations influence course design and delivery?
Please choose two or three creative and innovative approaches (creative and innovative to you) you adopt in your delivery and discuss why they are effective. What are their benefits? Where do their limitations lie?
You should also undertake such an evaluation of effectiveness for the communication methods and media (in the broadest sense), teaching and learning approaches and resources. What are their strengths and limitations?
Some of these aspects might already have been referred to in an earlier part of the assignment, e.g. when analysing the application of pedagogical principles or evaluating the effectiveness of creative and innovative approaches. Please however ensure that all aspects of communication methods, media, resources, teaching and learning approaches are being discussed.
To conclude please explore the purposes of the four main types of assessment, i.e. initial, diagnostic, formative and summative. You might like to consider how you yourself, your learners, your employer and any other body or stakeholder uses the outcomes of these types of assessment. E.g. summative assessment is often used for data gathering and statistical analysis and often drawn upon for funding purposes.
You might like to combine instructions one and two as, of course, statutory and regulatory requirements and professional codes of practice shape organizational policies. Please do however make this interrelation clear.
As a minimum it would be good if you discussed the three main statutory guidelines, i.e. H&S, E&D and Data Protection, depending on your work area also Safeguarding and/or the SEND Code of Practice.
In regards to regulatory requirements you might like to comment on Ofsted and/or Ofqual and/or area specific regulatory requirements. Any regulatory requirements, which are made reference to, should also be explored in relation to inclusive practice, i.e. the focus Ofqual or Ofsted take on inclusive practice. How does this view influence organizational policies and own practice?
In terms of codes of practice you might like to discuss the expectations in relation to the teaching profession and/or in relation to their specialist area. This should also be done in view of inclusive practice.
Policy refers to government policies in relation to inclusive practice, e.g. Tomlinson Report, Moser Report etc or more recent Leitch, Wolf. Please summarise the policy requirements in relation to inclusive practice? How do these requirements influence your organisational policies and your practice in relation to inclusion?
Whilst the very last instruction of the assignment brief asks for the implications of intellectual property rights and copyright for the development and use of resources to be reviewed – here questions like “What do the requirements mean in practice (for the learner, their learners, their organizations)? For what reasons are they in place? What would happen if they were not observed? could be explored – the first part looks at all statutory requirements and could hence include reference to H&S (PAT testing) and E&D, possibly safeguarding (non-upsetting material) as well as to intellectual property rights and copyright. It might be worthwhile to consider the range of resources you use (books, internet sources, software, video). How and when can these resources be used? What needs to be done prior to employing them? When can they not be used? To whom belong the resources you design? What does that mean for you? It would be good if you considered the positive and negative impact of these statutory requirements on resources development and use.
When you explain why it is important to identify and meet the needs of learners you could discuss the benefits this has for you and your planning, delivery and assessment, but also for your learners. You might also like to establish links to current equality and diversity legislation.
One aspect which you are likely to highlight is the fact that initial and diagnostic assessments highlight support needs. This should lead to you identifying and describing the internal and external sources of support available to your learners. For what reasons do you co-operate with stakeholders and employers? What benefits does such a co-operation have for you and your learners?
How do both types of assessment assist you in setting goals with your learners? How do you use the findings from initial and diagnostic assessments to plan your learners’ learning journey with them? How do they, in particular identifying your learners’ learning preferences, help you in facilitating inclusive, teaching, learning and assessment?
When you explain how teaching and learning plans can be adapted please consider how your session planning can be amended. Later in the assignment you will be providing examples of adaptions you have made to approaches and resources.
In order to explain why it is important to promote appropriate behaviour and respect for others you might like to ask yourself for what reasons we as teachers manage behaviour. What are the benefits for us and for our learners now and in future? How is the need echoed in equality and diversity legislation? How do you promote appropriate behaviour and respect? In what other ways do you aim to create a safe and inclusive learning environment? How does your approach to communication with your learners and other professionals support this?
When analysing ways in which minimum core elements can be demonstrated in planning, delivering and assessing inclusive teaching and learning you might have to explore the topic beyond your practice as, depending on your job role, the way in which you integrate the minimum core into your planning in particular might not require you to take all possible aspects like outcomes of initial and diagnostic assessments, the specific requirements of each subject (e.g. Preparation for employment and CV writing requiring formal language, which might have to be taught), the assessment requirements of the course (e.g. GCSE Science requiring learners to be able to respond to written questions, which also might have to be taught) and learners personal ambitions into consideration. You might also like to discuss how your specific subjects might not naturally integrate certain aspects of the minimum core (e.g. sewing and ICT) which will mean for you that you will need to create opportunities to integrate these elements of the minimum core. How do learners include the minimum core into your planning? What factors are you taking into consideration when reflecting how to integrate the minimum core into your planning? What is their (positive and negative) impact?
With the embedding of the minimum core in planning explored the discussion as to how it could be integrated into delivery should naturally follow and could be further illustrated through examples from your practice.
The majority of opportunities to integrate the minimum core into assessment will naturally derive from the activities undertaken during delivery as part of formative assessment. It would however be interesting to learn how you could integrate and are embedding the minimum core beyond formative assessment through summative assessment or peer and self assessment. How could the minimum core be embedded further by making small changes? What aspects of the minimum core can you assess (e.g. aspects which re-occur, e.g. the studying of timelines in History)?
When exploring how questioning contributes to the assessment process please consider this from the broadest point of view possible. Reflect when and what questions you ask throughout a session and how these questions support your learners’ progress and achievement. E.g. questions to check the understanding of the objectives, of tasks set, of aspects discussed, of feedback provided, to invite learners to self-assess or provide feedback, to assess learning.
Analysing the quality improvement and quality assurance arrangements requires you in the first instance to identify and briefly explain your organisation’s arrangements such that they can be analysed by highlighted their pros and cons, by exploring how they compliment each other (e.g. a staff’s KPIs tend to be derived from the organisation’s QIP), by discussing their purposes. Are these arrangements effective? Why or why not? What would happen if they were not in place?
Self-assessment and self-evaluation enable individuals to identify areas for development and decided on ways to address these, however both also facilitate reflection in the process of and after implementing any changes. Links could be made to the organisational use of self-assessment (SAR) and self-evaluation (QIP).
To conclude this assignment please choose one the courses you deliver and critically evaluate it. Apart from drawing on your own views as to what is effective and what is not you should include the views of others (e.g. learner feedback, feedback from observations) and/or relevant data (e.g. attendance data, assessment data).
In order to analyse theories and models of reflection please choose two or three theories and/or models of reflection, briefly present them and thereafter discuss their strengths and limitations. How do they compare? How and when could they be applied? How does their application differ? Why? How do you use them? For what reasons have you chosen to employ these theories and/or models to review your practice? On what other ways do you draw to improve your practice (e.g.: learner feedback, observations etc)? Where do their strengths and limitations lie? How effective do you view your practice in planning, delivering and assessing? For what reasons?
In the second part of your assignment you are requested to reflect on the effectiveness of your inclusive practice and your practice in developing and using resources? What works well? Where do you see areas for development? Where do you feel your strengths and your areas for development in relation to both aspects of your practice? How do you intend to improve your practice in both areas?
With the focus of this assignment being on you demonstrating your understanding of the theory behind teaching and learning and taking a critical look at a number of theories it would be good if you could choose two or three theories, principles and models for each section (behaviour management, learning, learning preferences, communication, assessment and curriculum development) and briefly present them. Thereafter please analyse them by highlighting their strengths and limitations. You might also like to compare them. Equally you could comment on their application and compare their application. When would each theory/model/principle be most effective? For what reasons? When would their application not be beneficial? For what reasons? You could also consider how they might compliment each other.
You will need to discuss the application in teaching, learning and assessment for theories, principles and models of learning, communication and assessment.
For your review of the historic and cultural developments of mathematics please present and then critically analyse key developments in mathematics with the emphasis being placed on the critical analysis. In order to achieve this critical outlook you might like to consider the (positive and/or negative) influence this development had on mathematics and on mathematics teaching and learning. What impact has the development had?
In order to evaluate perceptions of mathematics and numeracy including popular views, learner attitudes and trends in learner attainment you could consider the following questions: How is Maths seen by the general public and by learners in particular? What does achievement in Maths/numeracy look like (compared to English/literacy for example)? You could consult your own or your establishment’s data. Equally it would be good to consider national data available (for example available from LSIS).
What language and concepts do learners need to acquire when studying Maths/numeracy? What difficulties might they face when doing so? How does this impact their learning and your teaching? What common errors and misconceptions can be developed? For what reasons do they occur? How do they impact teaching and learning?
Evaluating written, mental and diagrammatic mathematical strategies and the use of measurement systems within problem solving including definition, conversion and representation requires you to identify written, mental and diagrammatic strategies, measurement system as well as strategies for problem solving and to briefly explain them in order to then discuss their strengths and limitations or to compare them and/or their application or to highlight any difficulties which learners might experience. Please also take a critical look the use, interpretation and representation of data. What metalanguage do learners need to acquire? How does this impact your teaching and their learning? When you consider the metalanguage you might like to make links to the history of mathematics and modes of representation, which, to some degree, encompasses the majority of the topics you discussed so far.
What role does numeracy play within society? To what degree is this role positive? Can you see negatives? In order to analyse the role of mathematics in society you could also reflect whether the role and the way in which mathematics is perceived are aligned.
How are mathematics and numeracy taught? What strategies are used to make conceptual linkages and to solve problems? What activities are used? Where do their strengths and limitations lie? How do the historic development and the status of mathematics (in society) influence the curriculum? What about teaching and learning theories? Which theories would be most suitable to effectively and efficiently deliver the mathematics/numeracy curriculum? For what reasons?
When you identify the numeracy skills and knowledge needed by learners across contexts and subjects you might like to take a number of subjects as examples to illustrate what maths skills are needed in these. Equally it might be worthwhile to comment how good mathematical skills are useful within personal and professional life. How do good mathematical skills facilitate progression? Why is it important to encourage learners to see the benefits of possessing good mathematical skills?
How does a learner’s personal and social life influence his/her progression in Maths positively and negatively? In what ways do political and economic factors create opportunities for and interest in Maths, but on the other put pressure on learners to develop their knowledge and skills? Also consider what Maths learning might look like for learners who have good literacy and language skills and for learners who struggle with literacy and language. It would be good if you could illustrate how literacy and language and numeracy are linked. If a learner possess good literacy and language skills what benefits does this have on his/her numeracy learning? How would low level skills impact their numeracy development? It might be worthwhile to outline what literacy and language skills are needed in Maths. What does this mean for communication in Maths/ What different communication approaches exist? How does each (positively or negatively) affect numeracy learning?
In order to analyse approaches to initial and diagnostic assessment you will need to identify in the first instance the various approaches which exist. Where do their pros and cons lie? What skills, knowledge and understanding can be assessed through numeracy initial and diagnostic assessment? What about formative and summative assessment? What assessment tools are available to you to assess your learners at the beginning of, throughout and at the end of their course? Where do their strengths and limitations lie? What approaches do you employ to deliver your Maths/numeracy course? Could you discuss their pros and cons? What about technology? How do you use technology? What advantages and disadvantages can you see?
To conclude please consider what learning opportunities are available within your organisation. How is their facilitation shared or how could it be shared between numeracy/Maths specialists and other professionals? What other learning opportunities could be created? How could they be shared? You might even like to consider how external specialists might assist you and your learners. How could you effectively liaise with these professionals? Where do the boundaries between yourself and other specialists and professionals lie?
