Program Overview

Pre-Service Secondary Postgraduate Diploma in Education

The Pre-Service Secondary Postgraduate Diploma in Education is a comprehensive program designed to equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge to become effective secondary school teachers. The program focuses on developing students' expertise in teaching, learning, and assessment, as well as their ability to create a supportive and inclusive learning environment.

Course Description

In this course, interns will take an increasingly significant role in the secondary learning environment with their university tutors' and school-based mentor's guidance and support. The SPPP3 culminates with interns leading the classroom for an extended period, demonstrating their readiness to join the teaching profession as reflective practitioners. A key focus of SPPP-3 is to support interns in extending and deepening the range of their developing expertise and expanding repertoires of tried-and-tested pedagogical practices through repeated Try-and-Assess Practice (TAP) cycles undertaken by interns in the context of teaching a series of full lessons to meet the learning outcomes of a curriculum unit.

Course Resources

The following books are recommended for the course:

• Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher by Stephen D. Brookfield
• School-Based Research by Elaine Wilson (Editor)
• Learning to Teach in the Secondary School by Julia Lawrence (Editor), Susan Capel (Editor), Marilyn Leask (Editor), Sarah Younie (Editor), and Elizabeth Hidson (Editor)
• Visible Learning: Feedback by John Hattie and Shirley Clarke
• Transforming Assessment by Jens Dolin (Editor) and Robert Evans (Editor)

Weekly Topics

The course covers the following topics:

1. Week 1: Recap on Reflective Practice, Test-and-Assess Practice (TAP) Cycles
   • Required Reading: Brookfield, S. D. (2017). What is critically reflective teaching? In Becoming a critically reflective teacher. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapters 1)
   • Recommended Reading: Wilson, E. (Ed.). (2017). Becoming a reflexive teacher. In School-based research: A guide for education students. Sage. (Chapter 1)
2. Week 2: Annotated Lesson Planning, Modeling Reflection in and on Action through Lesson Video Analysis
   • Required Reading: Basset-Dubsky, S., Bowler, M., & Newton, A. (2022). Schemes of learning, units of learning, and lesson planning. In Capel, S., Leask, M., Younie, S., Hidson, E., & Lawrence, J (Eds.), Learning to teach in the secondary school: A companion to school experience (9th Ed., pp.). Routledge.
   • Recommended Reading: Sawyer, A. G., Dredger, K., Myers, J., Barnes, S., Wilson, R., Sullivan, J., & Sawyer, D. (2020). Developing teachers as critical curators: Investigating elementary preservice teachers' inspirations for lesson planning. Journal of Teacher Education, (5), 518-536.
3. Week 3: Seeing our Teaching through Students' Eyes, Dialogic Teaching- Facilitating Classroom Discussions
   • Required Reading: Brookfield, S. D. (2017). Seeing ourselves through students' eyes. In Becoming a critically reflective teacher. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapter 6)
   • Recommended Reading: Kim, M. Y., & Wilkinson, I. A. (2019). What is dialogic teaching? Constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing a pedagogy of classroom talk. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 70-86.
4. Week 4: Teachers as Collaborative Thinkers- Joint Planning and Reflection, Metacognitive Strategies in Teaching and Learning
   • Required Reading: Brookfield, S.D. (2017). Learning from colleagues' perceptions. In Becoming a critically reflective teacher. John Wiley & Sons. (Chapter 7; pp. 115-134).
   • Recommended Reading: Gutierez, S. B. (2021). Collaborative lesson planning as a positive 'dissonance' to the teachers' individual planning practices: characterizing the features through reflections-on-action. Teacher Development, (1), 37-52.
5. Week 5: Facilitating Student Engagement, Active Learning Strategies
   • Required Reading: Harris, C. (2022). Active learning. In Capel, S., Leask, M., Younie, S., Hidson, E., & Lawrence, J (Eds.), Learning to teach in the secondary school: A companion to school experience (9th Ed., pp.). Routledge.
   • Recommended Reading: Bond, M., & Bedenlier, S. (2019). Facilitating student engagement through educational technology: Towards a conceptual framework. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, (1), 11.
6. Week 6: Formative Assessment or Assessment for Learning (AfL), Meaningful Feedback
   • Required Reading: Booth, N. (2022). Developing formative assessment practice for high-impact teaching. In Capel, S., Leask, M., Younie, S., Hidson, E., & Lawrence, J (Eds.), Learning to teach in the secondary school: A companion to school experience (9th Ed., pp.). Routledge.
   • Recommended Reading: Hattie, J., & Clarke, S. (2018). Visible learning: feedback. Routledge. (Chapters 1 and 2)
7. Week 7: Summative Assessment or Assessment of Learning (AoL)
   • Required Reading: Booth, N. (2022). Using assessment data effectively: Making better decisions for teaching and learning. In Capel, S., Leask, M., Younie, S., Hidson, E., & Lawrence, J (Eds.), Learning to teach in the secondary school: A companion to school experience (9th Ed., pp.). Routledge.
   • Recommended Reading: Dolin, J., Black, P., Harlen, W., & Tiberghien, A. (2018). Exploring relations between formative and summative assessment. In Transforming assessment (pp. 53-80). Springer.
8. Week 8: Elements of a Unit Plan, Unit Plan Analysis
   • Required Reading: Lawes, S. & Leask, M. (2022). The secondary school curriculum. In Capel, S., Leask, M., Younie, S., Hidson, E., & Lawrence, J (Eds.), Learning to teach in the secondary school: A companion to school experience (9th Ed., pp.). Routledge.
   • Recommended Reading: Dobber, M., Zwart, R., Tanis, M., & van Oers, B. (2017). Literature review: The role of the teacher in inquiry-based education. Educational Research Review, 22, 194-214.
9. Week 9: One Size Does Not Fit All: Pedagogic Differentiation, Inclusive Teaching Practices
   • Required Reading: Winstanley, C. (2022). Closing the achievement gap: self-regulation and personalising learning. In Capel, S., Leask, M., Younie, S., Hidson, E., & Lawrence, J (Eds.), Learning to teach in the secondary school: A companion to school experience (9th Ed., pp.). Routledge.
   • Recommended Reading: Bondie, R. S., Dahnke, C., & Zusho, A. (2019). How does changing "one-size-fits-all" to differentiated instruction affect teaching? Review of Research in Education, 43(1), 336-362.
10. Week 10: Teacher Values and Beliefs Questionnaire (TVB questionnaire, Part 2), Revisit TVB Questionnaire, Part 1
    • Required Reading: Beijaard, D. (2019). Teacher learning as identity learning: Models, practices, and topics. Teachers and Teaching, 25(1), 1-6.
    • Recommended Reading: Menter, I., Elliot, D., Hulme, M., Lewin, J., & Lowden, K. (2011). Getting it right! Values and the ethical dimensions of practitioner research. In A guide to practitioner research in education. Sage. (Chapter 4)
11. Week 11: Teachers as Life-Long Learners, Teachers as Researchers
    • Required Reading: Brookfield, S. (2017). Practicing critically reflective leadership. Becoming a critically reflective teacher (pp. 115-134). Jossey Bass. (Chapter 14)
    • Recommended Reading: Wilson, E. (Ed.). (2017). How to do action research? In School-based research: A guide for education students. Sage. (Chapter 7)