Teaching and assessment

Working at senior level

In general terms, learners who are successful on the programme will be able to:

• Critically evaluate and apply current research, practice and methodologies.

• Deal with complex issues systematically and creatively.

• Reflect on own and others’ professional practice agreeing an action plan for development.

• Develop a level of self-insight advantageous for own and others’ professional development in line with appropriate professional practice.

• Evidence independent thought.

Learning and teaching at senior level

With these standards in mind you will see that attainment of the award is much more than learning facts. Some aspects of our philosophy for learning and teaching at postgraduate level are:

• A key aspect of a module tutors’ role is to develop learners’ ability to think for themselves. Teaching staff will provide you with a framework for learning as we can’t teach you everything. We encourage you to raise questions and debate the issues and applications that arise.

• Teaching staff expect learners to prepare for teaching sessions and to follow them up by reading, discussing, observing and exploring practice.

• We expect you to evaluate the ideas you come across. During your studies you should be thinking about how these ideas support or contradict each other. By reading, thinking and discussing with teaching staff and other learners on the programme you will gain a critical understanding of specific topics and your personal approach and position towards them.

• Work at postgraduate level requires you to select relevant material and critically evaluate it and synthesise your own argument.

• You share responsibility for your learning by taking an active role in the learning experience.

Meeting teaching staff

You will meet the teaching staff each time you undertake a module, but you may have queries at other times. Email is a common way of asking simple questions, but you may wish to have a telephone discussion. The best way to arrange a meeting is to directly email the member of teaching staff to agree a mutually convenient time.

Attendance

You are expected to attend all teaching sessions. The modular content has been designed to deliver the programme in bite sized pieces supported by pre- and post- course activities, reading and assignments. A condition of the apprenticeship funding is that you spend a minimum of 20% of your role on off-the-job training. For this reason attendance is recorded at each session, so that this can be kept apprenticeship reporting. If you miss a session then, it is expected that you will use the materials on Blackboard to catch up and prepare for any assignments. Due to University regulations it is not possible to sit modules with another cohort.

You are expected to prepare properly for each module and undertake the activities set after each module. If you have not prepared adequately, this may be noted and will be discussed with your Personal Tutor. If this situation continues you may be asked to leave the programme. As a guide 79 hours of independent study are expected to be associated with each module and its assessment.

Presentation recording

Any presentations given as part of your assessment will be recorded for proof of effective assessment, and for accreditation purposes only. We will not share the recordings with anyone other than for the purposes stated above.

Lecture recording

Lecture capture (Encore) is not used for any executive education programme. Sessions are not recorded due to the teaching format of the sessions, the sensitive nature of the content being discussed and due to unpublished research. Recording any session on your personal device is strictly prohibited unless permission is provided by the module leader and all learners in attendance.

Assessment Requirements

Assessment is varied, however, it is usually based on one or two components per module. The precise requirements for each piece of coursework will be available from the module leader, at the time of the module.

Award of the final award is based on the minimum of a pass in each module’s components.

Assessment criteria

Assessment criteria are the standards that the teaching staff use to judge your performance. The criteria includes; the structure of the piece of coursework, the use of English, the ability to make a good argument based on theory and evidence along with the ability to make sound recommendations based on best practice. Details of specific assessment criteria for the assignments will be made clear by the module leaders.

You may be concerned about “getting the level right” particularly if you have been away from any form of study for several years. Your module leaders are here to assist you to achieve the level appropriate.

Referencing with the Harvard Method

The reference method used by the Management School is that given in the book “British Standard BS ISO 690:2010 Information and documentation. Guidelines for bibliographic references and citations to information resources.” This is the style of Harvard that The University Of Sheffield supports.

The Harvard Method should be used for all your work for the Management School. For full details you can consult the guide found here: sheffield.ac.uk/library/idlt/subject/management

The University’s General Regulations for Executive Education Programmes.

The University’s general regulations which relate to all taught postgraduate degrees can be found at:

sheffield.ac.uk/calendar/