This is part one in a short series of blog posts about the Level 3 Award in Education and Training I am currently working on.
It's been an ambition of mine for a couple of years now to do some sort of teaching course. I do a lot of formal and informal teaching in my role and I wanted to support this with a recognised qualification - something concrete to include on the CV so potential employers know that I have a grounding in theory as well as practical teaching skills. I looked at various levels of course before I decided that my needs would be best met with a Level 3 Award in Education and Training.
The L3 Award was brought in in 2013 to replace the old PTTLS course. It provides an introduction to teaching including how to plan, deliver and assess courses. The Award can be used as the foundation for further learning or as a qualification in its own right. It consists of three units which have short, written assignments and a micro-teach (15 minutes) which needs to be completed in front of an audience. The course ticked a lot of the boxes for what I wanted to get out of a teaching qualification so I decided to explore further.
Finding a provider for the course proved tricky. Because of my current role and various other commitments I decided that face-to-face classes were not really an option so looked into distance learning providers. This proved easier said than done as not many offer the new course online yet and the ones who do had decidedly unprofessional looking websites that did little to encourage me to part with my money! Prices also seemed to vary widely but I did some research and found out what the rough recommended price of the course was which helped me to judge. I did eventually find a provider and have just started taking the course with TrainAid. Under their model I complete the lecture and written assignment part of the course online and then attend a face-to-face session to deliver my micro-teach. A short introduction to the course can be found in the video below:
So far I'm finding the material really interesting and I think it will help me as I do more teaching in the future. If you are interested in getting a flavour of the course then check out the TrainAid Youtube channel which hosts their lecture content and is available to all.
I'll be posting further updates as I work through each of the three modules and as well as some final reflections. If anyone has any tips that they have learnt from taking similar courses I would love to hear them so feel free to add them in the comments section below.
photo credit: Apple and water via photopin (license)
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