Course Options
No course offerings available at the moment.
Overview
This course is remote, asynchronous, distance learning.
The Teaching Practice in Vocational Education course provides you with the Professional Development Award (PDA) Teaching Practice in Scotland's Colleges. The course is ideal if you are currently employed in a teaching role in professional, technical, vocational or further education, or equivalent. This is an online course, with remote, distance learning theory and synchronous, online tutorials and meetings.
Further details of the topics covered are provided in the section "what you study" below.
Minimum entry requirements
Entrance qualifications are given below, but please note that relevant work experience will be taken into consideration.
This course is for those with under two years' teaching experience in teaching adult learners. It is aimed at those teaching or training in vocational contexts, the workplace, colleges and in universities.
You must be teaching groups of at least six adult learners in professional, technical, vocational or further education, or equivalent. You need to make your own arrangements for your teaching and have this in place before signing up for this course. This will not be arranged by the tutor team. You must be teaching courses which lead to qualifications awarded by external bodies e.g. SQA, City and Guilds, or the national awarding body in your country. You must please give details of the teaching practice arrangements which you will have in place during the course, on application, in the personal statement section of the application.
In addition, you are expected to have the equivalent of the following:
- Communication skills at SCQF level 6.
- Numeracy skills at SCQF level 4.
- IT skills at level 5.
Additional selection requirements
- You'll have an online interview where you can find out more about the course and tell us why you're interested in this subject area.
- You must be teaching (online or face-to-face) a minimum class contact time of 2 hours per week throughout the course and be delivering assessed qualifications to classes of at least 6 adult learners.
-
You need to make your own arrangements for your teaching class contact time. This will not be arranged by the tutor team.
What you study
On successful completion of this course, you will be awarded the Group Award comprising of two Scottish Qualifications Authority Higher National (SCQF Level 9) units based on the professional standards for educators in Further Education Colleges.
This SCQF Level 9 course is made up of 2 SQA units J4N536 and J4N636. It is organised in modules with a variety of assessed tasks in:
-
Class group profiling.
-
Planning programmes.
-
Planning learning sessions.
-
Critical reflection on practice.
-
Learning environment and resources.
-
Assessing learning.
In addition, you will be observed teaching groups by a tutor in your own teaching situation. Observations are conducted via videos of teaching rather than face-to-face. Face-to-face observations can however be arranged in certain circumstances. However, an additional charge may be incurred, depending on location and restrictions in place at the time of the observation.
How the course is taught
This distance learning course is available for students who wish to complete their studies online.
This mode is made up of four components:
-
Approximately 165 hours of self-study, using our Virtual Learning Environment. A breakdown of course hours and assessment schedule are provided.
-
Assessments prepared and submitted throughout the course.
-
Two observations of teaching.
-
There is a sychronous, live, online course induction and online support meetings in each module. These are strongly recommended, to ensure your course success.