Clinical Education PGDip

Overview

Clinical Education Postgraduate Diploma provides a flexible framework for pursuing your professional development as an educator in the health professions. The course is carefully tailored to the needs of health professionals who engage in teaching, training, supervising, and supporting the learning of colleagues in the clinical professions.

Course detail

This course provides participants, who have clinical professional experience, with the opportunity to pursue postgraduate education relevant to their professional interests and requirements. The course aims to provide a distinctive element by combining work-based opportunities with theoretical underpinning, thus enabling participants to develop their own practice as clinical educators. Participants need to have regular teaching responsibilities as part of their role, because of course activities and also because of the course’s focus on the connection between theory and practice in clinical education. Upon successful completion of the Postgraduate Certificate, and with agreement from the programme team, participants can apply to continue their study into the Diploma level. Participants at this level may pursue one further core module and three option modules from a range of interdisciplinary and discipline-specific options. The core of the Diploma is the module Using Research in Clinical Education. This module offers participants an insight and understanding into the methodologies and methods used to conduct enquiry in clinical education settings, and an opportunity to develop their ability to systematically analyse the existing research in order to understand more about pedagogical issues in day-to- day clinical practice. The second module at this level, Researching Clinical Education, which is required to continue onto the Masters level but is otherwise optional at the Diploma level takes this a step further by encouraging participants to develop their own plan for designing and conducting an appropriate enquiry in their own settings. Colleagues with an existing Postgraduate Certificate in Clinical Education, or a similar award, from another institution, may apply for admission at this level by requesting an Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL).

Teaching and assessment

We will use a delivery method that will ensure students have a rich, exciting experience from the start. Face to face teaching will be complemented and supported with innovative technology so that students also experience elements of digital learning and assessment. Programme modules consist of required face-to-face postgraduate seminar and workshop sessions, which require advance reading and preparation, as well as self-study outside the seminar sessions. Some assigned group activities and self-directed activities must be completed outside seminar sessions. Assessment is by coursework; no examinations are conducted on this programme. Written assignments include academic essays; compilation of and reflection on evidence of teaching; successful completion of teaching observations.

Career prospects

Participants on the programme continue to work in various roles in health professions education.