Faculty policies and procedures
Student support
Centres
International links
Teacher education
Adult education
Training and Development Services

The Faculty of Education at UTS caters for a broad range of educational practitioners' professional development needs, from primary through to adult workplace teaching and learning. Undergraduate and postgraduate courses in teacher and adult education provide a rich program combining theory and practice with unique opportunities to discover more about learning in a variety of contexts – in specialist schools and community organisations, in corporations and in learning centres in Australia and overseas. The Faculty is located on two campuses – City campus and Kuring-gai campus.

Faculty policies and procedures

Recognition of prior learning policy

The Faculty of Education recognises both formal and informal prior learning. For more information, consult the Faculty's policy on Recognition of prior learning, available online at:

Aligning staff and students' expectations and responsibilities

The Faculty's policy on aligning staff and students' expectations and responsibilities is available online at:

Assessment procedures

The Faculty of Education would like students to be aware of the assessment procedures which are followed in the preparation of results. This information is available online at:

NSW child protection legislation

Full details are provided in General Information.

Student support

The Faculty helps students develop their learning skills through services provided by the following support units.

Academic Liaison Officers

As part of the Faculty's equity plan, an Academic Liaison Officer is available at each campus to help students with physical, psychiatric and medical issues and other special needs. The Liaison Officers negotiate with lecturers on students' behalf for any reasonable adjustments required to ensure equity of educational opportunity. This may include provision of signers, notetakers, extensions of time, alternative assessment tasks and special exam conditions.

Computing facilities for Education students

City campus

At Building CB10 on City campus, the Faculty of Education provides a Digital Media Learning Space. This facility incorporates leading-edge concepts in educational design and technology.

The computer facility provides powerful Macintosh computers with a suite of common up-to-date software installed for document production, web authoring, video and image editing, internet and email access. They have the capability to work in a number of different languages including Asian languages. Data projection, printing and scanning facilities are also available for students.

A number of mini-studios with camera, lighting and playback facilities allow students to videotape and review presentations. Faculty of Education students have free access to these facilities when classes are not in progress.

Building CB10 also contains a general-access computing laboratory and kiosk on the ground floor that are available to enrolled students 14 hours per day.

Kuring-gai campus

There are five computer laboratories for students' use at Kuring-gai campus. Four of these have Windows-based computers installed and offer an excellent range of software. The largest lab is the Macintosh lab in which many of the courses are conducted. It uses a large-screen display for demonstration purposes. This lab contains 30 new networked multimedia computers, a laser printer and a scanner. Students have free access to this lab and a large range of software, when classes are not in progress. There is also a collection of educational software and a digital art facility. Students have access to the internet and their own email account from all the computers in the laboratories.

Centres

OVAL Research (The Australian Centre for Organisational, Vocational and Adult Learning)

OVAL Research was established in 2002 and is a UTS Key University Research Centre. The Centre undertakes collaborative research and development projects and consultancies, with a key focus on productive learning at work. OVAL Research draws on a range of interdisciplinary approaches in order to understand the relationship between learning and work.

Centre for Language and Literacy

The Centre supports innovative research and curriculum developments, disseminates research outcomes, and provides policy advice, consultation and effective professional development in areas of language, literacy and numeracy.

Centre for Popular Education

The Centre fosters links among educators and activists nationally and internationally, and conducts research and consultancy related to all aspects of adult education and training, youth work, community work and social activism.

Centre for Research and Education in the Arts

The Centre promotes excellence in research, education and practice in the arts at UTS and in the broader community, and investigates the role of the arts across the disciplines and in sustainable futures.

International links

Over the past 10 years the Faculty has built strong links internationally. Faculty staff are engaged in a variety of research and consulting activities overseas, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. The Faculty has been commissioned to offer teaching programs in Laos, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, the South Pacific region, Europe, the Middle East and South Africa.

Increasing numbers of international students from Japan, Thailand, Korea, Singapore, Laos, Vietnam and China participate in education courses. The Faculty is currently running courses offshore in Hong Kong.

The Master of Education in Adult Learning and Global Change (C04187), offered by the Faculty of Education, is a joint initiative between UTS, the University of British Columbia, the University of Western Cape and Linkoping University. Through this course, students study in a virtual global classroom, working simultaneously with students based in Australia, Canada, South Africa and Sweden.

In teacher education courses, overseas practicums are offered in Thailand, Laos and China. The international major is available as part of the four-year Bachelor of Education degree. It offers students the opportunity to live and study overseas for one semester.

Teacher education

Teacher education provides pre-service courses for beginning teachers and postgraduate programs for experienced teachers, in addition to a number of specialist courses. Courses are designed for people who work or wish to work as primary or secondary school teachers.

At Kuring-gai campus the Faculty offers a set of three Initial Teacher Education Bachelor degrees for beginning teachers, which prepare students for teaching in primary schools and in special education settings. It also offers the Bachelor of Arts in Educational Studies (C10209), which provides an exit point for students who do not wish to complete the Bachelor of Education in Primary Education (C10206) or Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Arts in International Studies (C10208). This degree does not provide a teaching qualification.

The Graduate Diploma in secondary education is available in specialised areas: English; Mathematics; PDHPE; Science, Technology and Applied Studies; and Visual Arts. Other postgraduate courses are designed for qualified and experienced teachers who wish to extend their professional skills.

People considering teaching as a career should be aware that teachers need:

• high levels of competence in literacy and numeracy
• high levels of competence, or the willingness to achieve competence, in information and communication technologies, and
• a fundamental interest in learning.

Contact details

Initial Teacher Education courses

These are interlocking courses designed to prepare students for teaching in primary schools. All three courses share a common set of first-year subjects as well as curriculum studies and education studies subjects in later years of the course. The common structure enables students to change courses at the end of their first year, subject to places being available. The courses are:

• Bachelor of Education in Primary Education (C10206)
• Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Arts in International Studies (C10208), which enables students to combine preparation for primary school teaching with an opportunity to acquire knowledge and understanding of another language and culture.

Each course has the following strands:

• Professional Experience
• Curriculum Studies
• Education and Contextual Studies
• Electives.

Students in the Bachelor of Education in Primary Education (C10206) can also choose to complete an Honours program in their fourth year.

Professional Experience

Professional Experience contains two interlinked elements:

• campus-based studies which examine the range of theoretical issues, skills and procedures central to effective pedagogical practice, and
• field experiences wherein students engage in a variety of professional interactions in schools and other educational settings.

These combined elements foster the development of professional knowledge, skills and attitudes with which teachers should begin their careers.

Students may apply to undertake field experience in one of Teacher Education's existing international professional experience programs in Thailand, China or Samoa.

Through its provision of developmentally sequenced and integrated campus and field-based experience, the Professional Experience strand promotes learning about learning, learning about self, learning about school life and learning about teaching.

Faculty of Education rules specify that failing teaching practicum for the first time places the student on probation and failing the same teaching practicum for the second time leads to exclusion.

All students participating in internship or associate teacher programs that require them to supervise students without the presence of a qualified teacher are subject to a criminal records check by the NSW Department of Education and Training. The Department, on the basis of the criminal records check, reserves the right to reject or suspend the participation of any student in such programs. It is expected that such security checks also apply to schools other than NSW Departmental Schools.

Criminal records checks are carried out only with the student's consent. All students are requested to complete a form which authorises a criminal records check to be undertaken. Any refusal to undergo the check results in the student's being unable to complete the course requirements.

Curriculum Studies

The subjects in this strand fall into the following curriculum areas:

• English Education
• Information Technology
• Mathematics Education
• Music Education
• Personal Development, Health and Physical Education
• Science and Technology Education
• Social and Environmental Education
• Visual Arts and Craft Education.

Education and Contextual Studies

Subjects within the Education and Contextual Studies sequence encourage students to draw on perspectives gained from all strands of their degree, so that in the latter part of the degree they increasingly engage in refining and articulating their personal theories of learning, and are able to justify them with reference to research evidence from classroom practice and can use supporting theoretical insights.

All students in the three courses study the following subjects:

• 029311 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History and Cultures

• 023511 Developmental Psychology

• 023506 Philosophical Bases of Education

• 023512 Sociological Bases of Education

Bachelor of Arts in Educational Studies (C10209)

From 2002 students who originally enrolled in the Bachelor of Education in Primary Education (C10206), Bachelor of Education in Special Education (C10207) or Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Arts in International Studies (C10208), have the opportunity of changing to a three-year degree: the Bachelor of Arts in Educational Studies (C10209) (subject to the approval of the Program Director). This degree does not provide qualifications to teach.

For further details, contact the Faculty of Education office at Kuring-gai campus on:

Adult education

Adult education provides undergraduate and postgraduate courses for people who work, or wish to work, as:

• human resource developers
• education and learning consultants
• community educators
• vocational educators and trainers
• language, literacy and numeracy educators, and
• Aboriginal educators and community managers.

Adult education courses are shaped by the following educational principles derived from adult learning theory:

• learning is a collaborative endeavour involving the mutual negotiation of meaning and understanding
• learning is enhanced through the recognition and use of experience and the acquisition and application of knowledge in practice-based activities
• learning is a lifelong and socially embedded activity, dependent on mutual respect, diversity of approach and the recognition of relevance to learning
• learning involves the appreciation and application of theories in the different and changing contexts of professional practice
• learning is enhanced through discussion, critical thought and reflection on taken-for-granted assumptions and practices
• learning involves mutual obligations based on the valuing of difference, respect for diversity, responsible and ethical self-management.
• learning is a developmental process involving the recognition, articulation and transformation of knowledge, personal values and theoretical frameworks.

Workplace/flexible learning

Recognising the competing demands of work and home life for students, the Faculty offers adult education courses in a variety of study modes which can be tailored to meet student needs. Students can choose to study full time or part time, on campus or off campus. Many subjects are offered in a variety of learning modes including weekly classes, blocks (intensive, face-to-face learning programs conducted over a number of days each semester, often during school holidays) and weekend workshops.

Many postgraduate adult education courses are offered in distance mode supported by email and telephone contact with lecturers and web-based conferencing tools, which keep students in touch with others in their course.

Contact details

Training and Development Services

Training and Development Services provides consultancy services and workplace training programs in the fields of training, human resource development and e-learning.