How does this compare with your own perspective on quality education, based on your reading of this module, and your own experience and observation?
EMA E309 – With the ‘E309 Learning and Teaching around the world’ book, please reference with the use of the chapters authors name and add in the editors.
Overview of assessment
The EMA requires completion of:
Document 1:
Part 1: a discussion of ‘quality education’ drawing on your practitioner interview (1000 words).
Part 2: a comparative study of educational inclusion and its relevance to educational quality, exploring a topic in two countries (1800 words).
Appendix A: practitioner interview schedule.
Appendix B: ethical statement.
Document 2 (template): Application of learning: next steps – an outline of your academic and/or professional career plans (200 words).
Document 3: My Global Journey.
Practitioner interview and ethical considerations
In the EMA, you will draw on relevant information from your interview with a practitioner, that you planned in Block 4 and carried out in Block 5.
The British Educational Research Association (BERA) (2018) has provided specific ethical guidelines for research in educational environments. Your EMA must include a brief ethical statement which summarises how you maintained an ethical approach to the practitioner interview and any observations or work with children that you carried out in the educational setting. Please see this sample statement and checklist.
Select a reading
For the EMA you are required to select an appropriate peer-reviewed academic reading (e.g. journal article, academic book chapter) to support your argument. You may choose a reading that supports Part 1, Part 2 or both parts of your assignment.
Be sure to make good use of this reading in your EMA discussions (Part 1, Part 2 or both). See the EMA-specific marking criteria for more details.
Part 1: Quality education
(1000 words)
In this part of the assignment you are asked to examine the idea of quality education, using evidence from the module materials, and inferences and evidence from the interview you designed for TMA 04. Between receiving the feedback on your TMA 04 and now, you should have carried out the interview. (If for any reason this has not been possible, please contact your tutor.) Place an edited version of the interview questions used, taking into account any tutor comments you might have received from TMA 04, into an appendix labelled Appendix A at the end of your EMA document. This is not included in the word count for the assignment.
For Part 1, analyse the responses you received from your interviewee on their practice, their values and how they see the purpose of education to infer their position on what quality education is. How does this compare with your own perspective on quality education, based on your reading of this module, and your own experience and observation? Does your and/or your interviewee’s position contrast with other conceptions of quality, either overall or at the level of detail?
Support your argument by drawing on a range of evidence from Block 5 and across the module, your chosen reading (especially if you are not using it for Part 2) and any outside research you have undertaken.
Part 2: Comparative study
(1800 words)
In Part 2 of the EMA, draw on your understanding of inclusion in quality education to critically compare one aspect of inclusion in two countries. It would be beneficial to your learning if you choose at least one country that you have not used in a previous TMA, but this is not a requirement. The focus of your comparative study is educational inclusion and its relevance to educational quality, and we suggest that you choose one of the following topics:
Physical needs
Learning needs
Multilingualism
Socio-economic status
Gender
Race
Ethnicity
Religion.
You are free to choose another topic, provided you are able to find sufficient information about it within the module. If you would like to choose a different topic (for instance, sexual orientation, or parental involvement), you are strongly advised to discuss your choice with your tutor before you begin writing.
Your writing should:
consider how policy and practice relating to your topic contribute to the quality of education
consider the role of national and local policies, material circumstances, classroom practice (i.e. what really happens in classrooms), teacher knowledge and social, political and economic circumstances
reflect on what theoretical position(s) underlie or are implied by policy and practice in each location
refer to research evidence that supports or challenges the choices made by teachers and policymakers. Select module source materials, outside sources, and at least one academic, peer-reviewed journal article which is relevant to your topic. You may have already referred to/used this article while writing Part 1. Use the Open University Library Website to search for an appropriate paper.
These threads should be woven into your account of the two situations you are comparing and result in an assignment that critically and systematically analyses and evaluates your evidence.
You should focus on giving a critical account of how your chosen inclusion topic features in the education systems of two contrasting countries. You may want to give supporting examples from other countries, as a way to demonstrate, with evidence, your understanding of concepts from across the whole module
Part 3: Application of learning – next steps
(200 words)
This comprises an outline of your planned ‘next steps’ in your academic or professional career.
Take time to reflect on how your learning across the module can be applied to your next steps for either your academic or professional career. Complete the template EMA application of learning: next steps, and reflect on the questions and topics in the template.
Practical guidance
You will need to submit your EMA (Parts 1 and 2, with reference list and appendices), the Application of learning: next steps and your ‘My global journey’ document (three documents in total) in a zipped folder to the eTMA system.
EMA checklist
Document 1:
Part 1: A discussion of quality education
Part 2: Comparative study
Appendix A: Interview schedule
Appendix B: Ethical statement
How your assignments will be marked
Tutors have two tasks when grading your assignments.
They grade each assignment on a 100-point scale and explain why they have given a certain grade.
They provide you with feedback that will identify any strengths and weaknesses in your work, and they suggest ways in which you could improve in your next assignment.
Your tutor will return your marked assignment via the eTMA system. You should collect your assignment and read the tutor feedback on the PT3 form and on your script. By submitting a partially completed TMA, you will forgo the opportunity to receive valuable feedback and advice from your tutor on all aspects of an assignment. Read your tutor feedback carefully and use it to inform your thinking as you plan and write your next assignment.
Grading criteria
In grading your work, your tutor will be using the generic assessment criteria and the TMA-specific grading criteria to judge how well you have addressed each of the criteria. (For your EMA, tutors will use the EMA-specific grading criteria.) They will also use the module assessed learning outcomes to assess your work.
Word length
You should attempt to write your assignment to the required word length and you must always provide an overall word count at the end of written assignments. The length of your response may be shorter but if it is considerably shorter than the lengths shown in Table 1 it is unlikely to fulfil the objectives of the task.
For the assessments of this module, you are required to write ‘not more than’ a certain number of words, and there is no flexibility to go over this word limit. Please check carefully the word count requirements of each assessment. Your tutor has the right to stop marking once the word limit has been reached.
Word counts include:
the main text of your work
all subheadings
all in-text citations
tables
ethical statements (see ‘Ethical guidance for practice placements’).
Word counts do not include:
the reference list
diagrams
graphs/charts
photos/images
the ‘My global journey’ document you submit with each assignment.
