Course Summary

Increasingly, there is an expectation that those who are involved in education and training in medical and Higher Education contexts should have a relevant postgraduate qualification. This flexible course responds to this demand. It is designed for those engaged in teaching, learning and assessment and/or workforce development within medical, dental and healthcare contexts. It can be undertaken as a stand-alone qualification, or as a recognised entry route into the PgDip or MA in Medical Education. Current students include hospital doctors and managers, GPs, dentists, osteopaths, nurses, midwives, vets, allied health professionals working in the NHS, and deans of Higher Education and other independent sector contexts.

The design of the Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education Leadership has been informed by the work of the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement on Models of Leadership. With the needs of busy professional people in mind, each unit requires only three or four focused study days. Learning is driven predominantly by interactive online instruction and supported self-directed study. There is an explicit focus on the development of a full range of educational leadership skills. Yet while the course emphasises practical skills, our approach to learning, teaching and assessment also ensures that your practice is underpinned by sound theoretical principles.

You will be supported throughout every stage of this course by a highly experienced and accessible course team who enable learners to develop a critical, analytical and reflective stance toward leadership in medical, dental and healthcare education and workforce development. Your new skills and perspectives will help you improve your workplace leadership and influence policy and practice in effective, positive ways.

Why choose this course?

Past students have commented that this course has broadened career opportunities and enhanced their career progression, providing them with the recognition, impetus and enthusiasm to adopt wider educational roles and responsibilities. Plus, you will have the opportunity to pursue the PgDip or MA in Medical Education as a complementary career and academic development.

During the course you will:

• Focus on development of educational leadership capabilities
• Enjoy a flexible course structure that allows you to schedule your study sessions around your own daily commitments
• Choose to take part for one to three years depending on your choice of units and chosen pace of study
• Be able to take optional units that allow you to tailor the course to your role and interests
• Become a critical, analytical and reflective healthcare and medical practitioner/educator
• Work with an experienced interdisciplinary course team who have local/national advisory and consultancy roles
• Take part in a programme enriched by the inter-professional nature of its cohorts

Areas of study you may cover on this course include:

• Educational policy and leadership
• Professional development
• Promoting professionalism
• Faculty development
• Workplace-based learning

PCEDL

Assessment

The assessment strategy for the course is mapped against learning outcomes and University of Bedfordshire and International Masters level descriptors. You will be asked to submit work that meets the academic requirements, is in keeping with the teaching and learning methods used during the course and has some relevance to or draws on your workplace based activity. The assessments are designed to enhance the development of a wide range of medical educator leadership and transferable skills, such as presenting or disseminating information.

The assessment strategy incorporates both assessment of learning and assessment for learning elements, and includes formative and summative feedback. Assessment frequently occurs at mid and end points of the unit and includes some peer assessment of in-course activities. The course has been designed to ensure a balance and range of assessment activities which ever 60 credits are chosen.

In summary the assessment methods across all Units are as follows:

Core unit

Educational Policy and Leadership (EPL) 30 credits

Individual contribution to a group presentation (critique of a policy)

Reflective account of contribution and experience of collaborative activity

Academic paper

Plus thirty credits from the following optional units:

Professional Development (PD) 15 credits

Learning log relating to the setting of, strategy for and evaluation of your personal learning outcomes

Reflection on experience of Unit (exploration of medical humanities)

Artefact symbolic representation. Non linear learning and assessment

Promoting Professionalism (PP) 30 credits

Individual contribution to group learning and presentation on professionalism

An evidence-based report with recommendations

Faculty Development (FD) 15 credits

Individual report, outlining a teaching and learning problem, brief rationale and strategy to address it.

Case study that analyses and offers extended rationale for project plan.

Work place Based Learning (WBL) 30 credits

Focused literature review of three relevant inter-related papers or chapters

Case study exploring potential for improving work based learning in your own professional context.

Course Learning Outcomes

On completion of the course you will be able to demonstrate

1. The skills, attitudes and practices of a competent leader of medical education, including an awareness of personal qualities, responsibilities and professional codes of conduct as is appropriate to your practice in complex and often unpredictable environments.

2. A capacity to independently evaluate relevant policy, research, scholarship and practice in leadership for medical education and training, including the ability to synthesise information from a range of sources and the capacity to deal with complexity, contradictions and gaps in the current evidence and knowledge base.

3. A systematic understanding of the wide range of educational leadership frameworks and methods used across all levels of medical education, training and leadership applied selectively and effectively in practice.

4. A capacity to critically appraise both your own and others practice as leaders / professionals influencing medical education and an ability to identify and address your emerging development needs through independent and / or collaborative activity.

5. Recognition, adaptation and application of your current and potential capabilities to influence the development of constructive and reflective learning, teaching and working environments that align to the aims of professions, organizations and policies.

External Benchmarking

QAA Generic Framework for Higher Education Qualifications in England, Scotland & Northern Ireland (there are no subject benchmarks at this level). Reference has been made to QAA Descriptors for a higher degree and Masters degree characteristics.

http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/benchmark/masters/MastersDegreeCharacteristics.pdf

Reference is made to the 2010 Medical Leadership Competency Framework. (NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement)

http://www.institute.nhs.uk/assessment_tool/general/medical_leadership_competency_framework_-_homepage.html

Educational Aims

This Course is concerned with contemporary practices of leadership for medical, dental and healthcare education, in Higher and Professional Education ( H & P.E.) contexts linked to the real world experiences and scenarios likely to be encountered by students. The Course team recognises that your educational leadership roles and responsibilities will be diverse, spanning design, delivery and evaluation or commissioning of medical education. The learning environment and provision is designed to enable you to tailor the material and processes to meet your developmental needs, whether you are new to medical education leadership or have considerable experience.

This course provides you with a sound theoretical underpinning to contemporary policies and practices that shape leadership in the education landscape. It aims to foster the development of knowledge and a wide range of leadership skills for adaptation and application in the many complex environments in which teaching, learning and assessment take place. The learning materials are designed to be transferred from real and virtual classrooms into and from the workplace.

Specifically, the course aims to

• Position leadership in medical educational environments in multiple contexts - historical, contemporary, theoretical, policy-related, socio political, professional and inter-professional.


• Enable you to systematically identify, adapt and apply different models of leadership, formal and informal, inter-professional and interdisciplinary, to meet your professional responsibilities and influence policy appropriately.


• Enable you to adopt a critical, analytical and reflective stance towards medical education leadership knowledge and its practice


• Support the development of your leadership skills in relation to both Higher Education and Professional Education contexts


• Develop key transferable skills as detailed in below


• Promote the development of your personal qualities so that you develop critical self awareness and reflexivity in relation to the practice of medical education in your current and /or future educational leadership /supervisory roles

Student support

You will be offered support in many ways including face-to-face contact with the pathway co-ordinator / unit leads, and your peers. You will have a named member of staff who will provide academic and pastoral guidance and be responsible for supporting your progress throughout the course. Personal tutors and unit leads are responsible for ensuring that anyone who might be deemed `at risk is identified early on and appropriately supported. During your induction to the course the support available and the nature of the learner-tutor relationship is clearly explained.

You will be helped to access and make use of the wide range of online resources in BREO, The Universitys online learning environment. In BREO there are learning materials and guidance to support your development and build on the face-to-face sessions designed to help you develop your academic skills. If you require additional advice and guidance to advance your learning we can refer you to our Professional and Academic Development (PAD) facility.

Team working

The core EPL unit explicitly explores collaboration, whilst many of the optional units require some element of team working, group presentation and peer support e.g. EPL provides the opportunity for action learning sets and the teaching strategy often employs team quizzes or group exercises. Debriefing from these exercises aims to make transparent the processes used and encourages you to consider how you to adapt insights to influence teaching and learning in your own professional sphere.

You are expected to provide and receive peer support and to generate a trustful environment for the co-created knowledge and ideas based on observation of, and feedback on, one anothers practice and contributions.

Career Management Skills

The identification of the ways in which you currently influence changes in medical, dental and healthcare education, whether formally or informally, at local, organisational or national levels, is the starting point for enhancing your future leadership capacities. Your strengths and interests as an educational leader will become explicit and through personal reflection and peer / tutor feedback you can explore career options. Your emerging profile as a medical education leader will allow you to judge yourself against the standards and descriptors set out by organisations such as Higher Education Academy, your professional body, General Medical Council and COPDEND.

Career/Further study opportunities

The course has been designed to meet the developmental needs of both inexperienced and experienced educators who are involved directly/ indirectly formally or informally in leading education and or influencing policy. You will be encouraged and supported to self direct your learning in a manner that best responds to your current or aspirational roles.

Many of the people who undertake this course chose to study further. Information is available if you want to progress directly to the PG Dip in Medical Education and MA in Medical Education or return to rejoin the course at a later date.

Entry

Additional:

This is a postgraduate course open to individuals who have a first degree (or equivalent qualification or experience) in medicine, veterinary medicine, dentistry, nursing, allied health or social care. It may also be available to those from other backgrounds who wish to develop their knowledge of education, training or leadership in medicine and / or health, e.g. healthcare managers and educational developers.

UK students Undergraduate entry requirements

Standard entry requirements for Foundation degrees (FD/FdSc)

A foundation degree will be of particular interest if you have completed a Modern Apprenticeship, vocational A levels, BTEC National or equivalent.

Foundation degrees are also particularly suitable if you want to qualify while working.

• As a guideline, a typical offer would require you to obtain a UCAS tariff score of between 80-120 points, based on your level 3 studies.
• Students who require a Tier 4 Student Visa cannot apply for our foundation courses. For these courses the University of Bedfordshire is not able to sponsor Tier 4 Student Visa applications.

Many students studying for foundation degrees come to us through work-based routes so you can apply for a foundation degree even if you don’t have traditional academic qualifications.

We welcome applicants with relevant work experience.

Standard entry requirements for Undergraduate degrees (BA/BSc)

We will consider you as an individual and take into account all elements of your application, not just your qualifications. We are looking for both breadth and depth in your current studies as well as enthusiasm for the subject you wish to study.

The general requirement is one of the following:

• UCAS Tariff Score greater than 200, which should include either two A level passes or an AVCE Double Award
• An Access qualification
• Equivalent qualifications such as Irish Leaving Certificate, Scottish Highers, International Baccalaureate or BTEC National Diploma

Postgraduate taught courses

Postgraduate applications (MA/MSc) should be made direct to the University using the  standard University application form. There are some exceptions, please see individual course descriptions for details.

• UK/EU students application form
• International (non-EU) students application form
  

Students from the European Union

Entry requirements

As a general guide, to apply for a place on an undergraduate course (BA/BSc) at the University you need to have completed your high school education and have the required English qualification.

We have students from all the European Union member countries so we are quick to make decisions on most qualifications.

How to apply

International students

• Undergraduate applications (BA/BSc) can be made direct to the University or via our representatives in your home country. If you intend to apply to more than one university in the UK you should apply via UCAS. If you want to apply to the University of Bedfordshire only you should apply directly using our international application form (link below) or via our representatives in your home country
• Postgraduate applications should be made directly to the University using our international application form (link below) or via our representatives in your home country
• Healthcare, nursing and midwifery students Many of these courses are not available to overseas students due to UK immigration law in regard to bursary funding. Please contact international admissions to find out if you are eligible to apply
• BA Nursing Studies Level 3 (with or without Overseas Nursing Programme) is available to overseas students - please contact International Admissions by email at international-admissions@beds.ac.uk for further information

(Please note that applicants on a full student visa are not eligible for part-time study)

Course application form for international students

We recommend that you apply directly to the University where possible, as this allows us to offer the quickest turnaround time for your application.

• Course application form for direct applications [PDF]

How to complete your course application

Please read the Direct application instructions before completing the course application form.

Application forms for accommodation in the student halls at Bedford campus and Luton campus are available in the Student life section

Accreditation of prior certificated learning (APL)

APL is available for international students applying for undergraduate (Bachelor degree) study. Please do not use this APL form to apply for postgraduate courses.

Use the APL form to tell us about any non-standard qualifications and/or work experience you have that you think should be taken into consideration with your application. `

The APL form should be submitted at the same time as the course application form.

We regret we are unable to process APL forms from students who have not submitted a formal course application form.

• APL application form for International students [100Kb] updated 041007

What next?

Return your completed application to:

University of Bedfordshire
International Admissions
Park Square
Luton
Bedfordshire
LU1 3JU
United Kingdom

Contact International Admissions

T: +44 (0)1582 489326 (non-EU Students)
F: +44 (0)1582 743469
E: international-admissions@beds.ac.uk

Awarding institution

University of Bedfordshire

Teaching Strategy

The course aims to model best practice from public sector, business, general, medical and healthcare leadership, drawing on a wide range of established and innovative approaches to learner support and development. This includes a combination of face-to-face and on-line learning approaches. In particular, the course will include:

• An experiential element a wide range of learning and teaching methods, including small group work, action learning sets, role rehearsal, micro-teaching and presentations, creative & problem based learning, significant event and critical incident analysis, individual and group work


• Independent study including individual and group work, self assessment activities, peer learning and assessment, use of a reflective diary to direct self development, use of on-line resources, such as the Universitys Virtual Learning Environment (BREO), on-line / remote access to the Universitys learning resources and other on-line resources


• Exercises on contact days designed to foster the development of leadership skills both generic (e.g. communication and motivation ) and discipline specific (setting direction in medical leadership)


• Active use of the inter-professional community of learners as a real environment to explore the challenges of collaboration, communication and working across professional and cultural boundaries

The range of assessment methods is closely aligned to learning and teaching methods and often offers an element of choice that enables you to link your assignments to the development of leadership skills of most relevance to your current or future workplace activity.

Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Body Accreditation

N/A

Students with disabilities

The course is designed in line with Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 (SENDA) guidelines. The combination of face-to-face and on-line resources enables a flexible approach that aims to be learner-centered. If you require specific types of support, linked to any disability, the Course Team will work with you and others within the University to ensure that your needs are addressed.

Skills Development

Communication

To help develop your leadership communication skills you will be offered multiple opportunities to explore the knowledge bases, models, techniques and theories that help shape effective communication. Communication is explicitly addressed in the core unit and is echoed throughout all other units in the course. Communication is considered to be a cornerstone of effective practice as an educational leader. Oral communication skills are honed through constructive critical feedback on your contributions to contact days or to presentations. Written communication skills, including writing for a broad range of academic purposes, are explicitly addressed in all units, e.g. literature reviews, reports, reflective narratives and academic papers and reflective diaries in BREO.

Information Literacy

To help you with information literacy you will be encouraged to maximise your engagement with the resources in BREO, the University of Bedfordshires online environment. You will be supported as you learn how to work effectively, independently and collaboratively, in this on-line environment. Alongside a range of online tutorials, each unit explores and deepens your capacities to use the technology to support your learning, e.g. moderated discussions or building a wiki, and keeping a reflective blog. You will be supported as you hone your capacities to make effective use of word processing, literature searching and presentation software, such as PowerPoint.

Research and Evaluation

Help with the development of your research and evaluation skills comes in many forms across the units. Each unit requires you to evaluate your own experiences and to reflect upon them. You are offered support and learning opportunities to develop a range of information gathering, analysis and dissemination skills. Critical self-reflection is seen as an important tool in the development of leadership craft and personal insight. The units require you to critically engage with educational and leadership literatures and the evidence base that is shaping contemporary leadership in healthcare environments.

Creativity and Critical Thinking

To help with the development ,we encourage the creation of safe learning environments where you can take risks, challenge assumptions and explore alternative approaches such as learning and assessment using medical humanities in the Professional Development unit.

You will be encouraged and expected to adopt creative and solution-oriented approaches to your studies. A number of the learning and teaching methods used (such as action learning sets, appreciative inquiry, critical incident analysis and reflective portfolio) actively encourage you to find new approaches. The optional Professional Development unit makes explicit use of medical humanities for both teaching and assessment and again this is echoed elsewhere in the curriculum.

Improving learning and performance

The overall emphasis of this Course is on recognition of your current roles and responsibilities as leaders and developing your capacities to respond to the complex and ever-changing political landscape of medical, dental and healthcare education. Both your academic and practical development is assessed throughout the course as you are required to interrogate and systematically apply knowledge and understanding to appropriately address personal, professional and development needs. Each of the Units requires you to critically appraise your own capabilities and consider your future development. The course includes multi-source feedback, both written and verbal, ongoing and end-point. The course aims to develop the ability to reflect upon performance and modify it in light of insight gained. Learning and teaching methods (such as significant event analysis, use of a reflective diary, and critical incident analysis) and assessment methods (such as portfolio, reports and case studies) foster the development of these skills.

Progress files

You will be able to capture your ongoing development as a leader of education in the assignments and reflective narrative assessment elements.

Professional standards

You will be required to demonstrate your competence and knowledge as an educational leader in ways that are consistent with the professional standards required of health care professionals in your field, e.g.

www.gdc-uk.org/News+publications+and+events/Publications/Guidance+documents/Standards+for+medical+professionals.htm

Additionally, you will recognise that your behaviours as a member of the course need to reflect your professionalism. Committing specific academic offences such as plagiarism may be `reportable to your professional or governing body.