Future options  

In the second and subsequent years of the course a wider range of options will be offered. The current proposal for 2010-11 is to offer four further options, although this may vary depending on demand, especially within curriculum areas.

Option 3:  Learners, Diversity and Inclusion

• Data analysis in relation to achievement and diversity
• Understanding and addressing issues of social justice and inclusion related to differences of gender, class, ethnicity, disability and sexuality
• Citizenship and school ethos: the role of democracy in schools and students as partners in change
• Building community cohesion: expectations, strategies and challenges.

Option 4:  Professional Learning: Communities and Networks

• Mentoring and coaching
• Intra/inter-professional collaboration
• Roles of parents and carers as co-educators
• Subject departments as learning communities.

Option 5:  Mathematics Education

Principles of mathematics teaching:

• The nature of mathematics and mathematics education
• Key research issues in mathematics teaching
• Understanding mathematics – models and frameworks of understanding and their relationship to curriculum and assessment models
• Theories of learning mathematics
• Variation in teaching, learning, interpretation of policy and task design.

Design of teaching and learning in mathematics:

• Histories of curriculum development
• Implications of cognitive and neural science for practice and research  in mathematics education   
• Critical analysis of approaches to design
• Elements of mathematics lessons – effectively combining content, task, examples, questioning, mathematical activity with students’ ideas. 

Option 6: Science Education

This follows a similar framework to that outlined for mathematics education with particular emphasis on the nature of scientific knowledge, scientific learning and critical exploration of the underlying rationale and implications of current curriculum reform.