How is Education Studies taught?

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great week!

In this post I'm going to try my best to talk you all through the different teaching aspects of my course, 'Education Studies' so I hope this will tell you all a little bit more about the way the course is set out and hopefully give those of you looking to start this course a little more insight into it rather than feeling like you're going in blind as that can seem extremely scary!

First things first this course is mainly about lectures and seminars, in your second year there is one unit which requires you to go out and find a placement however other than that you can either do a placement as well as your university studies but you will have to find this yourself. There are careers advisors who you can talk to who will be able to put you in the right direction of a placement so you're not entirely alone on this part. However, I would suggest if you think this would be for you to write a letter and/or a generic email and send it to several different schools in the area or wherever you can travel to asking if they would take you for some voluntary work experience and I'm sure some will get back to you.

So, the course is split up into three years and I thought I'd explain year by year:

• Year 1: This consists of four units all of which are core which I know some have changed since I was a first year but basically this year will be entirely lecture based with assignments dotted about in each term. For most units you will have two to three assignments, so around I'd say between 8 and 12 for your first year. This year is not difficult and no it does not count towards your final university grade, however you do need to put effort in because if you don't pass your first year you will not be allowed into second year which you obviously need if you want a degree. The assignments will most probably be mainly essays, but also presentations too. 
• Year 2: This year also consists of four units, two of which are core and two are optional. So, you do get to choose two out of your four units this year. The two core units for me this year were 'Comparative Education' which was all about different countries education and history of education and 'Research Methods' which is a unit dedicated to preparing you for your dissertations. There were several options to choose from including 'SEND' which is special educational needs teaching, 'Understanding the Workplace' which is the one that requires you to find a placement, and the two that I picked are 'Lifelong curriculum' which supports this wanting to go straight into a PGCE or some kind of teacher training, its basically all about the curriculum, 'Children and young people in the Digital Age' which is all about technologies influences on children and young people. This particular unit assesses you through a web folio which you work on throughout the whole unit and the final deadline is at the end of your second year, I really enjoyed this assignment. 
• Year 3: Now I can't tell you much about year 3 in detail as I haven't actually started it yet however as you all will know this year consists of your dissertation and a few other assignments within your units. The main thing this year though is the 8,000 word dissertation. 

There is a lot of use of facilities throughout the degree, the library is used a lot and particularly for m in second year there was a lot of computer suite use for my digital age unit as the web folio assignment is all online there's no paper submission for this assignment. 

If you go onto the universities website and search for 'Education Studies BA Hons this is the overview it gives you: 

Choose Education Studies BA (Hons) degree at Bedfordshire and:

• Learn about the workplace and choose optional themes depending on your own interests
• 
  
• Study inclusion, disability and special needs education, education and technology, sociology of childhood and education, philosophy and psychology of education
• 
  
• Develop your employability skills through work placements, volunteering and a research project
• 
  
• Gain a qualification that allows you to progress to a teacher training course such as postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) or graduate teacher programme (GTP)
• 
  
• Benefit from studying with staff with extensive experience in teacher training and education, with teaching informed by the Education Research Institute
• 
  

- See more at: http://www.beds.ac.uk/howtoapply/courses/undergraduate/education-studies#sthash.dwysHULF.dpuf 

I hope this post has given you a bit more information about how this course is taught. 

Until next time, 

M

Social Constructions of Childhood (Exam Overview)

Ok, so I think I need to go into more detail about which subjects my exams are on and what the revision I'm doing entails.

Social Constructions of Childhood is one of the four subjects that I have been studying for my first year of university. It involves a lot to do with the history of education and the theorists supporting these views. I'm going to break this post down into two parts.. firstly I will talk about section A of the exam and secondly section B.

There are four questions in total, two for each section and we have to answer one question from each section.

Section A
This is examining part two of the unit and the first question supposedly deals with older sociological thoughts which therefore means we have to talk about theorists and their ideas about childhood, dating back to historical childhood.

The second question is dealing more with recent sociological thought. So, new theorists ideas on childhood and perhaps linking back to the ideas from previous years and seeing if there are links? Well that's my thoughts on how I would answer that question anyway..however even though I will look over this question I am mostly going to be revising for the first question as I feel this will be the easiest option for myself.

So, for my revision I have made a mind map containing a section for each theorist/idea that may come up under the first question in section A, and I have included a few bullet points of the most important things for each theorist/idea.

Section B
This is all to do with part three of the social constructions unit.
The first question focuses on images, culture or literature. So, how the child is perceived in these views.

The second question, which is the one I have chosen to write about focuses on children in film, TV or news. I decided to pick this one because I remember enjoying this particular lecture the most out of the two and I find it overall more interesting to talk about.

I think it is so important to pick the question that you feel most comfortable talking and writing about, there is no point picking the one that you think the examiners will 'like most' because there is no such thing. It should be interesting to you and therefore encourage you to revise more and come out with a good result in the end because you took the time and made the effort to construct a good response to your specific question.

I hope this blog post gives you an idea into the structure and layout of what you will experience in terms of exams if you are coming to education studies at the University of Bedfordshire next year.

On another note I think I should inform you all that I was able to choose my optional units for next year. It took a while but I am happy with the options I have chosen and I think these are definitely the best ones for me.

If you don't already know, in year two of education studies everyone has the same two core subjects and we are given about five or six optional units to choose from so I chose 'Lifelong Curriculum' because it is recommended for anyone wanting to study a PGCE (which gives you qualified teaching status) after their degree which is what I want to do, and also 'Children and Young people in the Digital Age' which is briefly described on our unit selection document as these three questions:

1. What are the challenges and opportunities experienced by children and young people in the digital age?

2. How are these constructed and understood in different media, settings, policies and practices?

3. What are the potential implications of new technologies for children and young people’s welfare, education, employment and social experiences?

I decided on this other option because it seemed the most interesting for me and I enjoy working with computers and this is one of the main things we will be using, it also involves a 5000 word e-portfolio for our only form of assessment which encouraged me even more because exams are not for me! 

How I felt when trying to choose my options!

Speak soon!