Foundations of Teaching for Learning Capstone: The Reflective Practitioner

This course is open to learners who have completed all eight courses on the Foundations of Teaching for Learning MOOC. It revisits topics covered and focuses on what it really means to be a reflective practitioner. One of the great paradoxes of learning is that the more you know the more you become aware of what you don’t know... and the more you want to know! This course offers an opportunity to further deepen and broaden your professional expertise. It provides an opportunity to participate in practical tasks and assessments that draw on the knowledge and skills gained in the previous courses.

 If you have completed the eight courses, signed up to the Signature track, met all the assessment requirements of the programme and would like to continue to build on your interest and achievements, this course is for you! There is enough challenge and scope for learners who already have teaching experience, but this course is also suitable for less experienced learners who may not have a great deal of teacher education or may not yet hold a teaching qualification. Announcement for US based teachers: Coursera and its partners are proud to offer eligible teachers in the US free Course Certificates for this course and other high-quality teacher professional development courses, through the Connected effort announced by President Obama. To participate in this opportunity, US district leaders simply need to approve Coursera teacher professional development by completing a brief form at: www.coursera.org/tpd. US Teachers interested in this opportunity are also encouraged to follow the link to learn more and www.coursera.org/tpd. Once a district’s form has been verified, the district leader will be notified and teachers in the district will receive access to free verified certificates for Coursera professional development. Coursera and the Commonwealth Education Trust thank educators for the hard work they do every day and hope this opportunity will assist US teachers to continue developing their craft in a meaningful and flexible way.

• Introduction and Review phase
• Looking back on eight satisfactorily completed courses, what have been the key ideas and highlights of your learning? How much of that learning will have a direct impact on your teaching? On your personal and professional values? On your relationship with colleagues? With children? With parents or other adults?
• Practical Task Creation
• Lesson plans. Who needs them? Don’t good teachers just teach spontaneously and flexibly in response to their students? Of course many teachers do just that, especially if they have been teaching for a long time. So why engage in the laborious business of creating a lesson plan? Who is it for and what use does it serve?
• Evaluation phase
• During the courses, much has been said about feedback as a key aspect of learning. As a teacher, or simply as a social being, you have been giving feedback both formally and informally over the course of your life. You have also been on the receiving end of feedback, from family, friends, colleagues, and employers. However, you might not have been given feedback before in a context such as this, from fellow course members, and virtual rather than face to face.
• Reflection-on-action phase
• In this final week of the Capstone course the focus is on updating and refining lesson plans, finalizing portfolios, looking back on achievements, and giving thought to what may come next.