SpCert Handbook
Our SpCert Handbook is your comprehensive guide to our Professional Special Purpose Certificate in Teaching, Learning & Assessment for Academic Practice (SpCert) at Trinity College Dublin for 2025–26. Designed for academic and academic-related professionals actively engaged in teaching or supporting learning, the SpCert comprises three 5 ECTS modules. It offers a flexible, inclusive, research-led, and practice-focused route to enhancing your teaching and learning practice.
Here’s what you’ll discover within this handbook:
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Audience & Structure: Who this programme is intended for, module formats, delivery modes, and flexible completion timelines.
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Core Features: Highlights include flexibility in choice and format, emphasis on inclusivity, integration of research with theory-to-practice, and discipline-sensitive approaches.
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Programme Aims & Learning Outcomes: Clear goals around enhancing teaching practices, developing professional development, engaging with pedagogical scholarship, and fostering critical reflection and collaboration.
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Timetable & Module Details: Information on module schedules for Michaelmas, Hilary & Trinity Terms and descriptions of individual modules "Perspectives on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education", "Assessment & Feedback", and "Curriculum Design".
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Assessment & Award Routes: Guidance on module-specific assessments, attendance expectations, resubmission policies, academic integrity protocols (including how to acknowledge use of generative AI), and the two award pathways—either through three discrete module submissions or via a holistic Professional Teaching Portfolio and viva.
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Teaching Portfolio Guidance: Detailed instructions and rubrics for composing your Teaching Philosophy Statement, reflective case studies, and portfolio components.