All Primary / Secondary Masters Courses - Post Q's Here Please

Nicole.

buckinit wrote: »

My subjects are History and Geography, seem to be quite common subjects, not as a group taken together.

Is E-mailing the most effective approach I'm beginning to wonder?

I'm not looking for a placement and not experienced in doing so as I've only did it once but maybe emailing and visiting the school in person would be a better approach. I emailed a principal once and was waiting for ages for a reply so I just rang the school and got a response much quicker. Then I met the principal in person and sorted out my placement.

liverpool lad

Hi! I was accepted in first round for the PME, doing it in NUIG! Just want to know, what usually happens with the school placement.. Does the school just accept you based on your CV or do they call you for an interview then? I'm applying to my old school and they seemed very happy that I was interested in coming back and told me they would be back in touch with him in May! If there is an interview, what are they likely to ask? Does anyone know?? One of my subjects is irish so I think my interview will be in Irish (the DP is my former Irish teacher!!)

Any information would be very appreciated! It is a bit strange this year though with schools because if you apply to more than one and get given them, you've to refuse then essentially and then reapply next year!! They might not take you second time around for saying on the first time!

liverpool lad

Also, one last question, for those who did the PDE last year (the final year of the one year course), did they start the TP placement at the very beginning of the school year? The PME for 2014 starts with 5/6 weeks in college for NUIG. I'm just wondering if that is similar to last year!!

Corkgirl18

I'm currently in the Science Education degree in UCC which includes the PDE in our 4th year. I'm 21.
If there is any advice I can give people looking for placement its that there is not much point emailing schools unless you get really lucky. You need to visit the school and ask to see the Vice Principal usually. If they say you don't have an appointment etc, ask to make one and drop in your CV. Its your best chance.
Saw a few questions about interviews >>
I didn't have to do any interview for my TP in 2nd or 3rd year but I did one a few weeks ago for my PDE placement. Examples of questions I was asked.. what do you think of the science curriculum, do you think there is a big difference between JC and LC chemistry, what chapter would you start with if you were teaching ___ year, differences between my own past school and the school I did TP in, what would you change about the syllabus, questions about my part time jobs, questions about my course, what would you do regarding discipline, what precautions would you take when carrying out practical experiments etc etc. I was also given different scenarios and asked how I would deal with them. It lasted about an hour and I found it tough enough as I had never done a real interview before but they seemed happy with me.

RoySheehan

I was accepted into the PME in UCC. Just wondering if I am able to send in my results to PAC if I have resits in August?

compgeek

liverpool lad wrote: »

Also, one last question, for those who did the PDE last year (the final year of the one year course), did they start the TP placement at the very beginning of the school year? The PME for 2014 starts with 5/6 weeks in college for NUIG. I'm just wondering if that is similar to last year!!

Hi Liverpool Lad,


I am currently finishing the PDE in NUIG (the last year of the 1 year course) and if you are looking for a comparative view between how the course was ran at the start of last year and what you will be facing this year [from your post above] - I can confirm that we attended a few weeks (5 I believe) in University before going out on our first block of teaching practice (we were on block release with the same School over the course of the academic year).


If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to ask or send me a PM.


Compgeek.

Sara3305

hi!

I'm starting the PME in UCD in September and was wondering about how it's assessed and what the work load is like. I know it's a new course but was wondering if anyone who did their PDE there could help as it's probably pretty similar work load-wise. obviously you have to prepare your teaching plans for your classes but just wondering what else is involved.

Any help appreciated!

tomissex

Sara3305 wrote: »

hi!

I'm starting the PME in UCD in September and was wondering about how it's assessed and what the work load is like. I know it's a new course but was wondering if anyone who did their PDE there could help as it's probably pretty similar work load-wise. obviously you have to prepare your teaching plans for your classes but just wondering what else is involved.

Any help appreciated!

Hey I did the Dip in UCD last year. As you said it'll probably be different for you because it's 2 years now but good to have an idea.

Lesson plans are done for each lesson and your portfolio is built from 4 plans from your first subject and 1 from you second (so for me, each week I had to put 4 Irish plans and 1 Spanish plan into it)

On top of the portfolio, we had 8 assignments and 1 exam throughout the year.
2 of the assignments were due before the end of the first semester and we had our exam then as well.

The other 6 assignments had deadlines throughout the second semester
- 1 due at the start of March and 1 at the end
- 1 at the end of April
- the other 3 were due at the start of May with the portfolio due the week after them

The assignments related to the different aspects of our teaching for example, teaching children with additional needs, methods of assessment, our experience of teaching. We also had an assignment to do for each of own subjects.

Hope all that makes sense and helps a bit! Feel free to ask me any other questions you have and I'll do my best to help

Sara3305

tomissex wrote: »

Hey I did the Dip in UCD last year. As you said it'll probably be different for you because it's 2 years now but good to have an idea.

Lesson plans are done for each lesson and your portfolio is built from 4 plans from your first subject and 1 from you second (so for me, each week I had to put 4 Irish plans and 1 Spanish plan into it)

On top of the portfolio, we had 8 assignments and 1 exam throughout the year.
2 of the assignments were due before the end of the first semester and we had our exam then as well.

The other 6 assignments had deadlines throughout the second semester
- 1 due at the start of March and 1 at the end
- 1 at the end of April
- the other 3 were due at the start of May with the portfolio due the week after them

The assignments related to the different aspects of our teaching for example, teaching children with additional needs, methods of assessment, our experience of teaching. We also had an assignment to do for each of own subjects.

Hope all that makes sense and helps a bit! Feel free to ask me any other questions you have and I'll do my best to help

thank you tomissex!

it does sound a bit different this year, as far as i know there's no exam anymore, but there is a "capstone thesis", whatever that is, in the 2nd year.

i just have a couple more questions...

when you say you had 8 assignments, did that include the 2 for each of your subjects, or was it 8 plus those 2? and what sort of things do you mean by assignments? were they essays? and if so, roughly how many words?

how long on average did it take you to prepare one lesson plan?

hope you don't mind all the questions, it's just i'm anxious about the workload and wondering if i'll be able to carry on working at all while i'm doing this, because if not, I don't know if i'll be able to afford to do it!

tomissex

Sara3305 wrote: »

thank you tomissex!

it does sound a bit different this year, as far as i know there's no exam anymore, but there is a "capstone thesis", whatever that is, in the 2nd year.

i just have a couple more questions...

when you say you had 8 assignments, did that include the 2 for each of your subjects, or was it 8 plus those 2? and what sort of things do you mean by assignments? were they essays? and if so, roughly how many words?

how long on average did it take you to prepare one lesson plan?

hope you don't mind all the questions, it's just i'm anxious about the workload and wondering if i'll be able to carry on working at all while i'm doing this, because if not, I don't know if i'll be able to afford to do it!

Yeah sorry 8 assignments including the two for my subjects!
One of them was to prepare a lesson for a student with additional needs and reflect on how it went but yeah, the rest were all essays.
Their length varied a bit between topics - 2000 words for some, 3500 for others. My Irish one was 5500 I think.

At the start of the year, one lesson plan probably took me about 30 minutes. But after my first visit and after I got used to doing them, that probably came down to about 15 minutes. Sometimes quicker than that if I knew exactly what I was doing for the whole lesson. Sometimes longer if I needed to make worksheets or Powerpoints.

I don't mind at all! These are all the questions that were running through my head before I started. Happy to help!
I know a couple of people who worked while doing it so it is possible. But definitely worthwhile to have a good think about it as it's a tough course.

f140

tomissex wrote: »

Yeah sorry 8 assignments including the two for my subjects!
One of them was to prepare a lesson for a student with additional needs and reflect on how it went but yeah, the rest were all essays.
Their length varied a bit between topics - 2000 words for some, 3500 for others. My Irish one was 5500 I think.

At the start of the year, one lesson plan probably took me about 30 minutes. But after my first visit and after I got used to doing them, that probably came down to about 15 minutes. Sometimes quicker than that if I knew exactly what I was doing for the whole lesson. Sometimes longer if I needed to make worksheets or Powerpoints.

I don't mind at all! These are all the questions that were running through my head before I started. Happy to help!
I know a couple of people who worked while doing it so it is possible. But definitely worthwhile to have a good think about it as it's a tough course.

what was your irish exam about? that's nearly as big as a thesis

tomissex

f140 wrote: »

what was your irish exam about? that's nearly as big as a thesis

It was a discussion of the elements involved in language teaching and learning, how I'd adopted them in my own classroom and the success of that adoption. Yeah I think it was the longest of any of the subject assignments! Luckily all languages are given the same assignment so I'd already submitted a 3500 word version for Spanish

f140

tomissex wrote: »

It was a discussion of the elements involved in language teaching and learning, how I'd adopted them in my own classroom and the success of that adoption. Yeah I think it was the longest of any of the subject assignments! Luckily all languages are given the same assignment so I'd already submitted a 3500 word version for Spanish

and was that 5000 words in irish and a 3500 word essay in Spanish (aka did you have to write it in English or irish/Spanish)

tomissex

f140 wrote: »

and was that 5000 words in irish and a 3500 word essay in Spanish (aka did you have to write it in English or irish/Spanish)

Irish was in Irish but Spanish (and all other languages) were in English

Sara3305

tomissex wrote: »

Yeah sorry 8 assignments including the two for my subjects!
One of them was to prepare a lesson for a student with additional needs and reflect on how it went but yeah, the rest were all essays.
Their length varied a bit between topics - 2000 words for some, 3500 for others. My Irish one was 5500 I think.

At the start of the year, one lesson plan probably took me about 30 minutes. But after my first visit and after I got used to doing them, that probably came down to about 15 minutes. Sometimes quicker than that if I knew exactly what I was doing for the whole lesson. Sometimes longer if I needed to make worksheets or Powerpoints.

I don't mind at all! These are all the questions that were running through my head before I started. Happy to help!
I know a couple of people who worked while doing it so it is possible. But definitely worthwhile to have a good think about it as it's a tough course.

Was there a lot of reading for the classes? and were they pretty much just straight forward lectures or was there a lot of student participation/student presentations etc?

thanks again, this is really helpful!

tomissex

Sara3305 wrote: »

Was there a lot of reading for the classes? and were they pretty much just straight forward lectures or was there a lot of student participation/student presentations etc?

thanks again, this is really helpful!

Nope, not much reading at all! Think we given an article once but that was it. Lectures were straight forward - 120 students in a theatre (questions get asked but answers are volunteered)

You're expected to participate in your subject classes and your tutorial (class participation is actually part of the grading of the tutorial) but we never had any presentations to do

Sara3305

tomissex wrote: »

Nope, not much reading at all! Think we given an article once but that was it. Lectures were straight forward - 120 students in a theatre (questions get asked but answers are volunteered)

You're expected to participate in your subject classes and your tutorial (class participation is actually part of the grading of the tutorial) but we never had any presentations to do

ok very last question I think -when you said your portfolio was due towards the end of the year, is your portfolio literally a collection of your teaching plans? Or is there more to it than that?

tomissex

Sara3305 wrote: »

ok very last question I think -when you said your portfolio was due towards the end of the year, is your portfolio literally a collection of your teaching plans? Or is there more to it than that?

Yeah that's it exactly. 4 plans from your 1st subject and 1 from your second plus any resources that go with those plans (worksheets, Powerpoints etc that you used) They ask that a copy of some assignments go into it as well

Sara3305

tomissex wrote: »

Yeah that's it exactly. 4 plans from your 1st subject and 1 from your second plus any resources that go with those plans (worksheets, Powerpoints etc that you used) They ask that a copy of some assignments go into it as well

ok got it! thank you so much, this really helped. I was really getting myself worried but you've calmed me down a lot :)doesn't seem so unmanageable now! so day to day workload is your plans, then essays through the year and that's pretty much it? reckon I can deal with that

Kaspa91

Still searching for placement even though I started the day offers came out!!
haven't been getting much responses from the emails or letters I sent out so decided to ring up some of the schools and they seemed shocked that I was ringing, but acknowledged they got my CV. Is ringing a no no or something ?

Corkgirl18

No its definitely not a no no. Schools are inundated with application emails and letters. We were advised to call into the schools personally and then make an appointment if you can't see the Principal/Vice Principal. It really is your best shot. You could be forever sending emails.

Corkgirl18

Kaspa91 wrote: »

Still searching for placement even though I started the day offers came out!!
haven't been getting much responses from the emails or letters I sent out so decided to ring up some of the schools and they seemed shocked that I was ringing, but acknowledged they got my CV. Is ringing a no no or something ?

No its definitely not a no no. Schools are inundated with application emails and letters. We were advised to call into the schools personally and then make an appointment if you can't see the Principal/Vice Principal. It really is your best shot. You could be forever sending emails.

gavwaldo

Kaspa91 wrote: »

Still searching for placement even though I started the day offers came out!!
haven't been getting much responses from the emails or letters I sent out so decided to ring up some of the schools and they seemed shocked that I was ringing, but acknowledged they got my CV. Is ringing a no no or something ?

i was still searching this time of year and only got place by ringing up so keep at it and good luck!

dwayneshintzy

Interviewed for PGDE in English in Strathclyde, just got my rejection. Have asked for feedback, hopefully be able to get some. Too late in the game to apply anywhere else? They let me put in an Apply 2 thing on UCAS, went for Aberdeen. Wouldn't hold out much hope though.

Mia A

Hi, I've found a school that will take me for placement; do I need to get the principal to write a letter confirming this so I can send it to the college?


Kaspa91 definitely keep making phone calls, emails will just get lost in the crowd Good Luck

Carton11

I can't find placement either, i have rang loads of schools but they say they'l get back to me but never do. Emails are getting me nowhere either. Just booked a day off work so i'm gonna just go into the schools and ask for placement directly. Hope it works!

Thundering_Sky

Mia A wrote: »

Hi, I've found a school that will take me for placement; do I need to get the principal to write a letter confirming this so I can send it to the college?

I was wondering the same thing!


I was reading through the college guidelines for incoming PME students and it explicitly states that students are not expected to teach straight away but would be working with a teacher, shadowing them etc.
Was this always the case or is it new now that the course is 2 years? I would find it quite terrifying to start teaching straight away seen as I haven't done it before.

mengele

Thundering_Sky wrote: »

I was wondering the same thing!


I was reading through the college guidelines for incoming PME students and it explicitly states that students are not expected to teach straight away but would be working with a teacher, shadowing them etc.
Was this always the case or is it new now that the course is 2 years? I would find it quite terrifying to start teaching straight away seen as I haven't done it before.

I would think its better to have them from the start as I fear discipline will now become a problem for those pme students taking over the class.

Sara3305

Thundering_Sky wrote: »

I was wondering the same thing!


I was reading through the college guidelines for incoming PME students and it explicitly states that students are not expected to teach straight away but would be working with a teacher, shadowing them etc.
Was this always the case or is it new now that the course is 2 years? I would find it quite terrifying to start teaching straight away seen as I haven't done it before.

what college is this for?

Sara3305

For the PME in UCD -

It says on the website that once the school has their final list of students they will send out a list of suggested schools for placement. ... dies anyone know when this happens? I haven't started looking yet add I'm waiting on that.

Also we're supposed to have a subject form completed by mid May - does anyone know what the story is with those? Are they posted out?