This post was partly inspired by Ferghal who has just completed module 1 of the Chartered Teacher course (well done!). In his post, he wrote:
I’m hoping that as my confidence grows, I will be able to post my assignments online before submission and make use of this community.
I really wish that I had done just that with all my modules, too. Blogging about the final dissertation stage and receiving words of encouragement – or maybe just the occassional comment from others online was definately very benificial to me. Even just writing for a potential audience forced me to focus more on the different chapters. Rather than leaving loads of unfinished drafts, I felt the need to ‘tidy’ them up a bit before submitting them to the ‘world’.
David left a comment on Ferghal’s post to congratulate him and to ask what his next plans were. He mentioned ‘double modules’. I only heard of this option recently. Stirling are allowing the choice of completing the Chartered Teacher pathway in 3 years by opting to write double the amount of words on half the amount of modules (or so I’ve been told?)
With the UWS route, I completed four core modules at Post graduate certificate level:
Reflective Practice: Critical Self-evaluation and Development
(Module 1, Self-Evaluation)
Effective Teaching for Effective Learning
(Module 2, Learning and Teaching)
Equality and Diversity in Education
(Module 3, Education for All)
Essential Personal Communication
(Module 4, Working Together)
Followed by 4 Option Modules. The modules I chose were:
Teaching and Learning of Core Skills: Numeracy
Developing Cognitive Flexibility
Mentoring and Supporting Students, Probationers and Colleagues
Introducing eLearning, eTeaching and eAssessment
Each of these modules had to contain between 3 to 4000 words (I think it started out as 3000, but as the course progressed the ‘wordage’ crept up to 4000). It took 4 years to complete these eight modules. I then had the choice of undertaking 2 smaller dissertations (10-15000 words) over 2 years, or one larger dissertation (20-25000 words) over 1 year. I chose the larger dissertation over 1 year.
When I began the CT journey, there was no option to complete the course by doing double modules. I’m glad I completed all 8 core and option modules because I learned so much about so many different topics. If the Stirling option had been available, would I have chosen it ….. probably 
(although the cost would have been an issue – presumably the double modules cost double the money, meaning an outlay of around £2000 a year instead of £1000?)
Ferghal also shared his essay via scribd (I tried to leave a comment on his blog explaining how to embed it in to edubuzz, but I linked it to the carronshore blog by mistake. I’m not sure what happened but it seems that some comments appear right away and some require moderation??)
Anyway, if anyone wants a VERY long read, here’s my dissertation
Entries (RSS)
Wow, two mentions in someone else’s blog!
Thanks for sorting out embedding scribd into blogs, I’ll give that a try next time.
What you have done seems quite similar to the Edinburgh route (I’ve completed module 1 with Edinburgh). Stirling do offer double modules, they have a larger wordcount obviously, but they are not twice the price. So this means you get to the end faster and for less money. It has the added bonus of increasing your pay at the end of each module – meaning you earn back the outlay more quickly.
I think the other Uni’s will have to think about this, because for me it’s a no-brainer.
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Hi Fearghal – I just noticed this comment. I don’t usually need to modify comments and I didn’t receve an email notification. Must be a fault at edublogs (I’ve left the strange code on deliberately at the end of your comment so that the helpers in the forums can have a look).
That’s really weird that Stirling can charge half the price than other institutions. Actually, when I think about it, I paid over £2000 to complete the dissertation stage in one year. Although I wrote double the amount than those who paid £1000 to complete a smaller dissertation, we were in the same group and received the same amount of tutor time and input.
Maybe they charged double because of the extra reading …… doesn’t seem quite fair, does it? Anyway, it’s over now – and I have no complaints about the support available at UWS. We didn’t have to wait too long before we received our feedback. Strangely enough, I received a nice pay increase in July – backdated to the end of June …. I hadn’t even handed in the final 800 word application to the GTCS
Good luck with the rest of your course !
Although I would probably take the cheaper and faster route if given the opportunity, I agree that it doesn’t seem fair if other people are having to put in double the work as well as paying double the money.
Just read your whole dissertation, it was great, very informative! If it wasn’t so long I’d print a copy! However, I’m trying to be eco-friendly since I appear to have involved myself in that side of the school!
Hi Miss L!
I just found this comment in the ‘spam’ area – sorry. I’ll need to keep checking there in future. Thanks so much for the comment … and for taking the time to read the dissertation. Thanks, too, for the kind comments about it