Humanities Undergraduate Ambassador Scheme Yr 3

Learning Outcomes

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• recognise that effective teamwork relies upon a readiness to collaborate and compromise;
• provide reflective feedback in a genuinely systematic, evaluative, and diagnostic fashion
• demonstrate greater confidence when presenting your ideas and opinions in public, and when conveying a clear, unequivocal notion of what you require;
• match your improved capacity for communication with improved organisational skills;
• display a greater readiness to initiate and improvise, responding calmly to an unexpected change of circumstance;

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• be responsible and confident in your supporting role to teachers and classroom assistants;
• generate documentation that records fully your specific and overall experience(s) across the period you are working within the school/college;
• manage a small-scale project related to the prominence of Humanities subjects within the curriculum
• function within a classroom in an non-intrusive but productive manner;
• create basic lesson plans, and relevant teaching material(s);
• interact positively, individually and collectively, with children/young people; while retaining a suitable degree of distance, and fully respecting the teaching ethos of the school/college;

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• the practical and pedagogic challenges encountered when asked to teach a group of students who are within a particular age range yet display a diversity of learning requirements;
• the skills and attributes required of a Humanities graduate embarking upon a formal programme of pedagogic training, and consequent entry into the teaching profession
• the unique role of Humanities subjects within the curriculum;
• how, within a particular teaching environment (whether primary, secondary, or tertiary), teaching methods and approaches are ideally tailored to the specific needs of individual learners;

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• reflect upon the nature of teaching in a suitably informed, critical, and analytical fashion
• recognise how the methods and material of teaching must properly acknowledge the age and the range of abilities of a particular class or group of students;
• identify the means by which appropriate teaching material, properly utilised, can generate student interest, engagement, and performance;
• comprehend, in broad terms, how children/young people acquire knowledge and understanding at a particular point in their school/college experience;
• gain an insight into the diverse nature of attainment and achievement;

This module requires you to undertake a placement, spending time outside of the University within a local school (primary or secondary) or college (tertiary) for ten half-days (3 – 4 hours each), supported by tutorials on campus and by a mentor (teacher) within the school. At the start of your placement you will observe teaching, gradually becoming more involved in the classroom as you get to know the school, teaching staff and pupils. As your placement progresses, you will work towards carrying out a special project with your pupils. The project will be an activity of your choice, in consultation with the teacher, for example organising a visit or overseeing presentation of a group project to the rest of the class.

While working in the school or college you are an ambassador and a role model, providing staff and pupils in your placement with an opportunity to interact on a regular basis with a University of Southampton undergraduate. You have a certain responsibility, working as you are with children/young children.

Standards and expectations are high and you are expected to match the demands of both your placement institution and the University. If you are applying to secure a postgraduate teaching qualification then this is invaluable experience, complementing any voluntary work you may undertake in primary or secondary schools.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods:

• induction sessions in weeks 0 and 1 introduce you to the UAS and thoroughly prepare you for your placement;
• group tutorials in weeks 4, 6, 8, and 10 address your needs in the context of your classroom experience;
• an individual feedback tutorial at a point within week 12 will give you an opportunity to discuss your assignments, and your teacher’s final report;
• Blackboard as an interactive support tool

Learning methods:

• tutorials ensuring that you feel adequately prepared in advance of your placement, and providing support and advice in the course of your time in school/college;
• classroom observation and teaching assistance (3 – 4 hours a week) at your placement school/college;
• teaching part or all of a class while on placement when deemed by you and your teacher that this is appropriate;
• an honest and genuinely reflective teaching journal, posted as a Blog on Blackboard;
• a special project designed and delivered to some or all of the pupils in your designated class.

Assessment strategy

The three elements of the assessment are consistent with requirements for the UAS across the University of Southampton, and past experience has resulted in the current weightings. Assessment criteria for the presentation and the project report are available via Blackboard, and also conveyed to you in tutorials. The blogged teaching journal may feed into the project report.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal