Options offered in the first year (2009-10) 

Option 1: Learners and learning

Key issues to be explored include:

• Theories of mind and learning: analysis of key theories and exploration of the ways in which they influence policies and practices in schools. 
• Critical analysis of the most influential theories about learning ‘styles’ and strategies, and of the implications of their use in schools.
• Understanding differences in learning and the specific barriers to learning created by particular kinds of special educational needs.
• Assessing learning: the different purposes and forms of assessment and the nature of progression within specific subject disciplines.
• Consulting pupils about their learning: exploration and critical analysis of research claims and practical strategies for eliciting students’ views and of their implications for students, teachers and schools.

Option 2:  Responsive Teaching

Key issues to be explored include:

• Competing definitions of ‘personalised learning’ and exploration of pedagogical solutions designed to address perceived differences among students.
• Exploration and critique of approaches to transforming learning capacity.
  
• Examination of the role and nature of authority in the classroom, the importance of developing pupil autonomy and the extent to which classrooms can or should operate democratically.
  
• The role of language and classroom talk in relation to learning: classrooms as learning communities; the role of dialogic teaching and the development of oracy as a means of enhancing learning across all areas of the curriculum.
  
• Curriculum design and development: critical exploration of the tensions between notions of an entitlement curriculum and the imperative to be responsive to students’ diverse needs and interests.
  
• New technologies and their integration into classroom practice as learning tools.