PCTEADHF - PGC Teaching Adult Dyslexic Learners in Higher and Further Education

The PGCert is a part-time course taken over one year. It consists of three modules, one of which runs over the whole programme, February – February, while the other two run sequentially.

Participants successfully completing the PGCert will graduate with:

• a professional qualification in the specialist one-to-one tutoring of learners with SpLDs / Dyslexic Difficulties in Further Education & Higher Education – Approved Teacher Status of the British Dyslexia Association (ATS FE/HE)

• substantial specialist SpLD tutoring experience and development

The course leader provides advice, information and guidance on applying for professional memberships and for meeting bodies’ criteria for continuing professional development, using the criteria as part of the observation and trainee tutorial practice processes within the course and its assessments to provide a coherent framework and to model the bodies’ required good practice.

There is high demand from employers for graduates of this course.

The main educational aims of the course are to:

• provide specialist training and development in the individual tutoring of adult learners with Specific Learning/Dyslexic Difficulties

• offer participants practical supervised tutorial experience to enable them to develop as professional specialist dyslexia / SpLD tutors, with a range of learner-centred teaching and learning strategies appropriate to the learning styles, needs and preferences of a diverse range of individual learners and their individualized needs

• equip participants with a range of appropriate strategies suitable to effectively support a diverse range of dyslexic / SpLD students and facilitate them in overcoming barriers to learning and to achieve consequent academic success

• provide opportunities to critically explore and evaluate the theoretical and practical perspectives in the field to inform practice.

The following learning outcomes incorporate and depend on a systematic understanding of knowledge, and a critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights, much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of the academic discipline, field of study or area of professional practice.

On successful completion of this course students will be able to:

• evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship in the specialist Teaching of Adult Learners with SpLD / Dyslexic Difficulties in Further & Higher Education
• deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively, make sound judgments in the absence of complete data, and communicate their conclusions clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences
• exercise self-direction and originality in tackling and solving problems, and act autonomously in planning and implementing tasks at a professional or equivalent level as a specialist tutor in FE & HE
• advance their knowledge and understanding, and to develop new skills to a high level.
• exercise initiative and personal responsibility, including decision-making in complex and unpredictable situations as a specialist tutor
• learn independently for the purposes of continuing professional development.

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The course is assessed through a variety of methods, including:

Written reflections
Tutorial records
Case study project
Observation of specialist SpLD tutoring in practice
Individual presentations
Project
Teaching portfolio

Formative feedback is integrated throughout the course.

• Thirty hours of specialist one-to-one SpLD tutoring in further or higher education across the first year of the course
• Observations of experienced SpLD tutors in practice
• Observations of tutorial practice by and of a course peer
• Observations of tutorial practice by the course leader / tutor

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Graduates from the Postgraduate Certificate may go on to the Postgraduate Diploma in Assessing SpLDs and thence to the Masters in SpLDs. Graduates of the PGC:TADLHFE course need to have a good understanding of how to help adult dyslexic learners reach their full potential.

Applicants are expected to have:

• A degree (or equivalent). Candidates without a degree of lower second class or better will need to submit a piece of written work for assessment.

Please email the course leader, Anne Morris, for further details at a.morris@londonmet.ac.uk.