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Power in the classroom: global perspectives on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment (X4200E)

15 credits, Level 4

Spring teaching

This module introduces key theories and concepts related to curriculum, teaching methods, and assessment, encouraging you to critically reflect on your own learning experiences. You’ll explore how different countries design their curriculum, teach their subjects, and assess student learning.

We’ll start by examining how you learn, connecting to previous studies and grounding this in your own experiences. Learning theories will provide the foundation for the module. From there, we’ll explore teaching models based on these theories from the UK, Europe, and beyond.

Next, we’ll focus on assessment, reflecting on your own experiences in school and higher education while analysing global student performance surveys like PISA and PIRLS.

The module then shifts to curriculum design, considering how political, economic, cultural, and historical factors shape education in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. We’ll also examine alternative education models, such as Montessori and Steiner schools, free schools in the UK, and complementary education programs for marginalised children in low-income countries. A key theme will be who is included in—and excluded from—the curriculum, both in the UK and globally.

The module concludes by exploring global policy influences on curriculum, teaching, and assessment.

We'll look at:

• how do you learn? Theories of learning
• teaching practices in the UK: now and then
• critical teaching for social transformation
• teaching practices internationally: From Finland to India
• measuring what you have learnt: formative and summative assessment
• international comparisons of student learning and their implications for the UK and beyond
• who decides what you learn, when, how and why? Foundations of curriculum construction
• evaluating curriculum models in developed and developing countries
• breaking the rules: alternative curricula in the UK and globally
• meeting the needs of individuals in the curriculum in the UK
• international comparison of inclusion and exclusion in developing countries
• global policy drivers for curriculum, teaching and assessment.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2025/26. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.