Oxford Brookes MA Blogs

Sad to say ‘goodbye’ to students on the international programme. It has certainly been brilliant to work on RPD with Jane Spiro and the new students.
Please keep in touch via the blog and of course through email. More on your critical review task probably in February/March when we will set up an on-line discussion to refresh your RPD thinking.

Great that you are joining us today and with some of the best weather of the summer - last year at exactly this time Oxford was flooding!!
This blog is to support you mainly once you are off campus and is a supplement to Brookes Virtual. There may be times when you cannot get access to Brookes Virtual but the blog is available openly via the www. Saying that most of the pages are password protected so please check with your RPD tutor or the MA administrator for the current password.
Happy Summer!

Some on-line library/journal articles as promised - updated Monday July 21st.

useful-free-access-links

You can also see a new version of the summer school student profiles in the pages to the right - check out Peter’s Warsaw winter wear in the powerpoint (real photo to follow!)

Congratulations for reaching the end of week 1, summer school.
It was also great to welcome students from our European Centres in Rome and Amsterdam who dropped in to see tutors this week.
Next week we will welcome more students from our centres + teacher colleagues from UK schools and colleges by the middle of the week. English schools close either today or in the middle of next week for the summer break.
It would be great to add the social programme onto the blog so somebody please let me know details.
(Using the blog was a very late idea and is something of an experiment note).

On to RPD for today at 1.30:
Activity 1 - reflection on the week - challenges, issues, learning…
Activity 2 - your ME-CG as an introduction to critical incident thinking; completing a critical incident record sheet (see document under the RPD pages section to the right)
Activity 3 - assignment workshop - exploring the assessed tasks
Activity 4 - reviewing the learner profile (see docs to support in the pages section under RPD)

Aim is to finish by 4.00 at the latest with a little bit of light reading for homework!

Great start to the summer school - no rain and plenty of Pimms.
Very good to meet you all today and get started.

Check out the student page to the right and click on summer 2008 - it opens a powerpoint so run the show.
All the new students wrote 6 things about themselves and had to suffer having their photos taken too!
The idea is not just to remind us of who we are but also to start the reflective process of thinking about the decision to start this programme and your learning journey so far - thinking about your thinking - a meta cognitive process of ’self-reflexive consciousness’ (Linder-Pelz, 2008).
As there are limits to sharing your meta cognition around the www- the page is password protected.

Add a comment if you are feeling brave.

The MA blogs were initially set up for European Centre students but why should they get all the fun - so I am now reconfiguring and making them accessible to all our MA students.
Not all material will be up here to begin with but do keep checking the space over the next couple of weeks…

NEWS - MA in EDUCATION ENROLLMENT NOW COMMENCED…
LIMITED PLACES:
Make teaching a Masters level profession (The Children’s Plan, Dec. 2007)
The MA in Education will commence on Thursday May 15th, 5.00pm at Kings College Madrid (campus to be confirmed). Sessions will run as follows:
Thursday 5.00pm - welcome and light refreshments; 5.30-7.30 - introduction to the programme and your year 1 optional modules*
Friday May 16th 9.00am-5.00pm optional module teaching + RPD sessions
Saturday May 17th 9.00am-4.00pm optional module teaching + RPD sessions; social event Saturday evening.

There are 2 further meetings in the first year of the programme in early September and in December (dates to be confirmed with enrolled students but coinciding with national/ school holidays - the programme aims to avoid school teaching time).
The second, final year of the programme will follow a similar timetable.

* Optional modules are chosen on application for the programme - either following a Leadership and Management track or Curriculum Innovation and Change track;
RPD = Reflective Professional Development, a compulsory module that runs through the first year.

Oxford Brookes’ tutors delivered the conference programme for COBIS at this November’s Teachers Conference in Amsterdam - see the COBIS website for details. It was so successful we have been invited to devise a new programme for 2008 including some of the favourites reprising their courses (drama, art and music).
From autumn 2007 we are delighted to announce that the MA in Education will be available from the following European centres:

Amsterdam - at the British School of Amsterdam commencing November 7th 5.00pm (enrollment by September 30th to secure a place - contact admin below asap if you need info now at 30th October)

Rome - at St George’s British International School commenced October 26th with 20 new, enthusiastic and very positive students!

Malaga/Madrid - see above for commencement of MA in MAdrid + note a series of one day INSET sessions for serving teachers at St George’s International School, Malaga and commencing Saturday January 26th 2008, with Assessment for Learning - suitable for all teachers and school leaders.

For more information on this accessible, flexible and affordable programme please contact the course administrator - wiecpd@brookes.ac.uk

SEE THE FILM TRAILER TO THE RIGHT!