Teacher as a Pedagogical Inquirer (8 cr)

Evaluation scale

Pass/Fail

Objective

The purpose of the study unit
This course gives you the opportunity to acquire tools for the promotion of an exploratory and a development-oriented approach as a part of your teacher ship. During this course, this is done by planning, implementing and evaluating a suitable developmental task that promotes pedagogical activities in cooperation with others. Your partners can be etc. your fellow students or a colleague at your workplace.

Study unit competences
In this study unit, you will promote and develop your developmental skills, reflection skills and agency skills.

The objective of developmental skills in teacher education is that you are able to work in cooperation with others in order to develop both your own and your partners’ pedagogical, working life and entrepreneurship competence. You are also able to acquire researched and appropriate information and use the information to support your pedagogical development work.

The objective for reflective skills is to be able to recognise and assess one’s pedagogical assumptions, and work methods as facilitators of learning. You will be able to realistically assess your own learning and competence and set yourself new goals as a facilitator of learning.

The objective of agency skills in teacher education is that you are able to systematically develop your professional competence as a facilitator of learning. You will actively participate in the development of different learning environments on the basis of professional pedagogical knowledge in cooperation with others.

Learning objectives
You are able to systematically develop your own and/or your pedagogical community’s activities in cooperation with others and based on professional pedagogical knowledge. You can also evaluate the results of your development work and set new objectives for development activities.

Content

The content of this course is the implementation of the pedagogical developmental task that you have defined in cooperation with others.  You will reflect on your own learning based on the goals you have set in your personal learning plan and the feedback you have received from peer teachers.

Location and time

The study unit is possible to start and implement according to the schedule agreed by the development team.

Teaching methods

The study unit is implemented as multidisciplinary development teams. Development teams meet either face-to-face or online. The study unit includes development team-specific online guidance.

To complete the study unit, you will complete a pedagogical development assignment. It means a developmental assignment that helps you develop learning, studying and / or enabling them. You complete the assignment in a small group that is appropriate for the assignment.

Completion alternatives

Acquiring competence:
During this course, you will acquire the competence objectives by planning, implementing and evaluating a developmental task related to the pedagogical activities in cooperation with others. 

Demonstration of competence:
You will demonstrate your competence by doing a developmental task report that includes the arguments for the developmental task, the stages of the implementation of the developmental task and its results as well as your own evaluation on the success of the task.

Alternatively:
You may already have acquired the competence that is the objective of this course in working life or other contexts before or during teacher studies. A certificate of completed education is not sufficient for the accreditation of competence; other types of assessment material and demonstration of competence are needed. The teacher educators of the course assess your competence in relation to the competence of teacher education and decide on the accreditation.

Student workload

In total, the course consists of 8 credits, that equal 216 hours (8 x 27h) of students’ work. The actual workload of the course depends on your own starting point and how demanding the learning assignments are for you.

Assessment criteria, approved/failed

The criteria for assessing the approved level are as follows:

Developmental skills
- You will work in cooperation with others in order to develop pedagogical activities and acquire researched and appropriate information and use the information to support your pedagogical development work.

Reflection skills
- You assess your own learning and competence realistically and with justification and you will set yourself new goals as a facilitator of learning.

Agency skills
- You will actively participate in the development of different learning environments based on professional pedagogical knowledge in cooperation with others.

Further information

The assessment is based on learning objectives and is qualitative. The methods for assessing the learning process include different types of feedback and self-assessment.

Competence assessment is criteria based and the teacher educator makes the assessment decision once all the learning tasks have been completed. The assessment material consists of the learning tasks of the study unit.