Associate teachers

The accreditation of associate teachers
(Now incorporated into SEDA-PDF this information is presented for historical purposes)

A development and accreditation framework for part-time teachers, graduate teaching assistants and postgraduate students who teach (here referred to generically as part-time teachers)

The scheme

• 1997 SEDA began piloting, as part of the Teacher Accreditation Scheme, a title of Associate Teacher, and a definition of the objectives and outcomes required to be demonstrated by an Associate Teacher.
• The first programme to gain recognition under the scheme was the Graduate Teaching Assistants Course at the University of Plymouth. The certificate was formally awarded at the SEDA Winter 1997 Staff and Educational Developers conference in Birmingham.
• Since then programmes at the universities of Aston, Brighton, Coventry, Exeter, Keele, Liverpool John Moores and Oxford Brookes have also been recognised under the Associate Teacher Scheme, as well as at the Open University and Thames Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education (University of London)
• To be accredited as an Associate Teacher, a part-time teacher must demonstrate attainment of a defined minimum set of outcomes.
• They must also show how their performance of these outcomes is informed by the full set of SEDA values.
• The Associate Teacher Scheme follows the broad pattern of the Teacher Accreditation Scheme, where programmes are ‘recognised’ and individuals are ‘accredited’.
• Associate Teacher programmes should normally run alongside programmes recognised under the SEDA Teacher Accreditation Scheme. (Associate Teacher programmes may be developed, recognised and in part run as a sub-set of a ‘full’ SEDA programme, with some additional sessions specifically for part-time teachers to deal with their particular issues.)
• Those designing and operating courses for part-time teachers may also wish to include the may elements from the outcomes, as these provide a developmental bridge from Associate Teacher towards Accredited Teacher status. However this is not a requirement.

Assessment, profiling and AP(E)L

Because of the narrow range of duties undertaken by some Associate Teachers, it is necessary to allow performance in simulated situations to be accepted as evidence of achieving some of the objectives. The use of simulations will be limited. No objective or value may be demonstrated wholly through simulation. An account of a simulated task must be accompanied by a reasoned account of how this simulated task would be carried out in a real situation.

A further requirement is that Associate Teachers must show at least one complete cycle of their own learning as a teacher. That is, to be accredited, the Associate Teacher must first show how they have planned, undertaken and reviewed a substantial piece of teaching or assessment. Then they must show how they have analysed and made sense of the teaching or assessment, and drawn at least tentative conclusions about why the work produced the effects which it produced. And then they must show how they have applied what they have thus learned about their teaching or assessment to the planning of a future major piece of teaching or assessment. This requirement is made in order to bring to life the idea that teachers continue to learn from and develop and extend their practice.

Programme leaders are encouraged to develop profiling systems. The resultant profiles of Associate Teachers should be expressed in terms of the SEDA list of objectives for Accredited Teacher status. These profiles should facilitate the Associate Teacher making any subsequent AP(E)L claims towards full SEDA Accredited Teacher status via a recognised programme.