Education: Creative & Academic Practices in Higher Education MA

Entry requirements

MA Education is open to University College Falmouth staff only and no longer accepts external applications. 

Entry requirements through the university sector include Honours Degrees, Foundation Degrees and HNDs in a related subject. If you have solid professional industry experience rather than academic achievement, this may be acceptable for entry to study at this level through a process called APEL (Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning).

A minimum of 90 hours teaching is required in the academic year of the course (60 hours for Associate Teacher route). Arrangements for this teaching are participants' own responsibility.

Tell me more about the MA Education course

The best teachers are also learners, so learning about teaching provides an opportunity to take a scholarly look at teaching and to reflect on the literature, practices and contexts of the creative curriculum.

The higher education (HE) sector increasingly recognises the need to develop informed professionalism to support the teaching and learning of an increasingly diverse student group. This course is designed to meet the requirements of the Professional Standards Framework for Teaching and Supporting Learning in HE (2006) and is accredited by the Higher Education Academy. It provides a recognised teaching qualification for those involved in key roles that impact on student learning in higher education.

The course is intended for those in existing teaching and/or learning support roles, in order to facilitate reflection on teaching events. During the course students will be supported by subject-specific mentors who will encourage students to apply learning and teaching knowledge to their subject.

The complete MA Education is studied part-time across three years, providing opportunity for flexible study and allowing the broadest range of practicing professional educators to participate in the programme. 

The three stages of the course comprise the Postgraduate Certificate (PGCHE), Postgraduate Diploma (PGDipHE) and the Masters research project. It is anticipated that students will achieve the Certificate stage within one year of study, the Diploma within two years and the Masters after three. The Certificate stage has a January start, allowing new staff to familiarise themselves with institutional processes and contexts before embarking on the course.

Students who have a circumscribed role in teaching and/or supporting learning may follow the Associate Teaching route through undertaking two units of the PGCHE, which will enable them to apply for Associate status of the Higher Education Academy. This may be appropriate for postgraduate teaching assistants and staff whose professional role includes a small range of teaching and learning support activity.

Course staff

Caroline Cash, MA, FHEA, Award Leader

With an MA in Modern Poetry and a keen interest in the written word, Caroline's teaching career includes a range of English literature and creative writing courses. Managing an academic support service across a multi-university campus has given insight into a range of learning and teaching initiatives related to academic literacy and effective learning.

Caroline is currently undertaking doctoral research with key interest in teaching and assessing in a creative and academic context. Caroline is a member of the steering group for the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education and, in 2005, a founder member of the LearnHigher CETL

Course structure

The ten-week units are delivered on Wednesday afternoons, with other units comprising a range of online, intensive and group teaching methods, including video conferencing. This will be further supported through the use of the VLE, where students will be encouraged to engage with the forum to discuss and debate supplied readings. In addition, there will be two research days each year to be attended by participants from all stages of the MA course.

Stage 1: PGCHE

Three units of 20 credits each assessed through a teaching portfolio and peer observation.

• Planning of teaching and learning in creative and academic practices in higher education. This unit, delivered as a ten-week course, introduces the theories and practices of planning teaching, learning and assessment that are current in creative subjects in higher education.
• Teaching and supporting learning explores key policies and practices of teaching and supporting learning particularly those aspects relating to a diverse student population within a creative curriculum. Again delivered as a ten-week course of weekly seminar and workshop sessions.
• Learning environments in creative and academic practices is a week-long intensive unit that explores teaching practices appropriate to a range of educational environments including studio, seminar, lecture and virtual spaces.

Stage 2: PGDipHE

Three 20-credit units extending the teaching portfolio through scholarship and research.

• Extending learner horizons allows participants to explore their teaching practice by engaging in innovative and contextualised teaching through peer observation activities in order to extend learner horizons within a creative context.
• Scholarship and research introduces education research methods and provides the opportunity to explore aspects of teaching practice through case study research. This unit is introduced through a two-day intensive course and sustained through action learning sets
• Continuing professional development for advanced practice allows participants to engage with professional standards and currency in their subject area, which informs their own teaching practice in HE.

Stage 3: MA

This comprises a negotiated 60-credit supervised research project into an aspect of teaching and/or learning in creative disciplines in HE.

Assessment

By the end of the PGCHE, you'll have compiled a teaching portfolio comprising individual assignments that encourage critical reflection on teaching in your subject area. This portfolio is designed to provide a relevant and meaningful resource for future reference and will be extended through the scholarship and research of the PGDip stage of the course in preparation for the final MA research project.

Facilities

Recognising the strategic aspiration to develop innovative teachers who are responsive to all the needs of learners, the MA Education utilises the Learning and Teaching Research Centre as a base room for small group sessions, tutorials and individual study. This centre will operate as a flexible space in which you can engage with a range of learning technologies and experiment with new pedagogies in a supportive environment, before applying what you have learnt in your actual teaching.

Through Falmouth's excellent library resources, you'll have access to a wide range of journals (online and printed), current publications (including e-books) and may also order books from Exeter University. IT support and workshops are available for you to enhance your computing skills and the Academic Skills (ASK) team are available to support those less confident in academic writing.

Answers and advice about the course

If you have any queries about the course please visit our HelpMe Forum. 

HelpMe Forum: MA Education

Career opportunities

The course is accredited by the Higher Education Academy and graduates of the course will be able to apply for Fellowship of the HEA, indicated by the post-nominal FHEA. This is a nationally recognised indication of the professional status of teaching and supporting learning in higher education.

Interview

Interviews are arranged for all those applying to the course. They are held with one or more members of the course team, and are very informal.