jobs.ac.uk - Great jobs for bright people
  • Find a Job
  • Find PhDs
  • Career Advice
  • Jobs by Email
  • Advertise a Job
  • Recruiters
  • Your Account

  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

career-advice.jobs.ac.uk

Secondary Sidebar

jobs.ac.uk Career Advice

  • CV and Cover Letter Advice
    • CV Tips
    • Free CV Templates
    • Cover Letters with Examples
    • Personal Profiles
    • CV Resources
  • Jobseeking and Interview Tips
    • Jobseeking Tips
    • Academic Interviews
    • Professional Interviews
    • Jobseeking and Interview Resources
  • Career Development
    • Academic Careers
    • Research Careers
    • Career Progression Stories
    • Professional Careers
    • Working in Industry
    • Career Development Resources
    • Global Careers
    • Working From Home
  • Women in Higher Education
  • FE Career Advice
    • FE CV & Interview Tips
    • Working in FE
    • Managing your Career in FE
    • FE Jobs Profiles
  • Resources
    • Academic Case Studies
    • Professional Case Studies
    • Job Profiles
      • Biological Science Jobs
      • Health and Medical Jobs
      • Engineering and Technology Jobs
      • Computer Science Jobs
      • Physical and Environmental Science Jobs
      • Professional Service Jobs
        • Business Development Manager Jobs Profile
        • Chef Jobs Profile
        • Civil Service Jobs Profile
        • Email Marketing Jobs Profile
        • SEO Jobs Profile
        • Office Admin Jobs
    • Vlogs
  • Webinars
  • Country Profiles
    • Africa
      • Egypt
      • Ghana
      • Kenya
      • Nigeria
      • South Africa
    • Americas
      • Canada
      • United States of America
    • Asia
      • Bahrain
      • Brunei
      • China
      • Hong Kong
      • India
      • Japan
      • Kazakhstan
      • Malaysia
      • Qatar
      • Saudi Arabia
      • Dubai
      • Singapore
      • South Korea
      • Turkey
      • United Arab Emirates
      • Work in Vietnam – Country Profile
      • Work in Uzbekistan – Country Profile
    • Europe
      • Belgium
      • Denmark
      • Finland
      • France
      • Germany
      • Ireland
      • Italy
      • Netherlands
      • Norway
      • Russia
      • Spain
      • Sweden
      • Switzerland
      • United Kingdom
    • Oceania
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
  • PhD and Studentship Advice
    • PhD
    • Studentship Resources
    • Vlogs
  • Need help advertising a job?
  • About jobs.ac.uk
  • Ask A Professional
  • Academic Spotlight Interviews
  • Menu
    • CV and Cover Letter Advice
      • CV Tips
      • Free CV Templates
      • Cover Letters with Examples
      • Personal Profiles
      • CV Resources
    • Jobseeking and Interview Tips
      • Jobseeking Tips
      • Academic Interviews
      • Professional Interviews
      • Jobseeking and Interview Resources
    • Career Development
      • Academic Careers
      • Career Progression Stories
      • Research Careers
      • Professional Careers
      • Working in Industry
      • Career Development Resources
      • Global Careers
      • Working From Home
    • Women in Higher Education
    • FE Career Advice
      • FE CV & Interview Tips
      • Working in FE
      • Managing your Career in FE
      • FE Jobs Profiles
    • Resources
      • Academic Case Studies
      • Professional Case Studies
      • Interview questions tool
      • Vlogs
      • Job Profiles
        • Biological Science Jobs
        • Health and Medical Jobs
        • Engineering and Technology Jobs
        • Computer Science Jobs
        • Physical and Environmental Science Jobs
        • Professional Service Jobs
        • Civil Service jobs
    • Webinars
    • Country Profiles
      • Africa
        • Work in Egypt – Country Profile
        • Work in Ghana – Country Profile
        • Work in Kenya – Country Profile
        • Work in Nigeria – Country Profile
        • Work in South Africa – Country Profile
      • Americas
        • Work in Canada – Country Profile
        • Work in the United States of America – Country Profile
      • Asia
        • Work in Bahrain – Country Profile
        • Work in Brunei – Country Profile
        • Work in China – Country Profile
        • Work in Hong Kong – Country Profile
        • Work in India – Country Profile
        • Work in Japan – Country Profile
        • Work in Kazakhstan – Country Profile
        • Work in Malaysia – Country Profile
        • Work in Qatar – Country Profile
        • Work in Saudi Arabia – Country Profile
        • Work in Singapore – Country Profile
        • Work in South Korea – Country Profile
        • Work in Turkey – Country Profile
        • Work in United Arab Emirates – Country Profile
      • Dubai
      • Europe
        • Belgium Country Profile
        • Work in Denmark – Country Profile
        • Work in Finland – Country Profile
        • France Country Profile
        • Work in Germany – Country Profile
        • Work in Ireland – Country Profile
        • Work in Italy – Country Profile
        • Work in the Netherlands – Country Profile
        • Work in Norway – Country Profile
        • Work in Russia – Country Profile
        • Work in Spain – Country Profile
        • Work in Sweden – Country Profile
        • Work in Switzerland – Country Profile
        • Work in the United Kingdom – Country Profile
      • Oceania
        • Work in Australia – Country profile
        • Work in New Zealand – Country Profile
    • Studentship Advice
      • PhD
      • Studentship Resources
      • Vlogs
    • Need help advertising a job?
    • About jobs.ac.uk

Starting to teach a practical subject

students in fe working on wood work

Discover the main attractions for teaching a practical subject in FE

jobs.ac.uk have put together this article to help guide you on where to start when teaching a practical subject in further education.

Main attractions:

One of the main attractions for learners when choosing to study a vocational course at a Further Education college is they can feel confident that their teachers will have worked in industry before joining the FE sector.

The term “dual professionalism”, is often used to describe the two areas of vocational teachers’ expertise: their subject specialism and the knowledge and skills needed to teach it.

It is not uncommon for practitioners to gain employment straight from industry, with many undertaking a teacher education course after starting work at a college.

Some may continue to work part-time alongside their teaching commitments, whilst others will endeavour to keep themselves current by maintaining close links with employers and attending commercial updates and training.

“Vocational pedagogy” is the term coined by Lucas, Spencer & Claxton in 2012 to describe the specific knowledge and skills required to teach a subject.

This provides a clear route into a working role, making a distinction between courses with a practical element and subjects classified as being more “academic”.

This seminal piece of research highlights nine key features of this type of teaching, which include:

  • Learning from experts
  • Practising
  • Hands-on
  • Feedback for learning
  • One-to-one
  • Real-world learning
  • Against the clock
  • Online
  • Anytime

Many vocational courses provide a combination of learning in real or simulated learning environments (workshop, salon, restaurant, kitchen, animal unit etc) where these pedagogies sit quite comfortably and classroom-based teaching.

Thus making a clear distinction between practical and theory sessions.

The challenge many teachers face as they make the transition from single to dual professional is to blend these two environments as far as possible, to avoid replicating a traditional classroom experience, where learners might not previously have succeeded, whilst incorporating elements of theory within practical settings.

This is a challenge but can be overcome in several ways, e.g.

In the classroom:

Layout:

Plan this to create a collaborative, inclusive environment to suit your learners. 5 minutes taken at the beginning of the lesson to move furniture and stick posters on the wall will pay dividends.

Realia:

It is not always possible to take the learners out to the real world so, bearing health and safety considerations in mind, bring it to them. Tools, products, models, pictures, and even parts of machinery can all be brought into the classroom to help learners make connections between knowledge and skills.

Activity:

Plan for plenty of tasks designed to keep learners involved in the learning. If you do have a lot of content to get through and have created or inherited some high-quality slides to support this, then invite learners in pairs to ask questions, or predict the content of each slide before revealing it.

Check their note-taking skills from time to time too. This can be very revealing! Inject movement by sticking information cards up on the walls, so that learners have to circulate the room to find the answers to questions.

In the workshop

Interactive demonstrations – Before doing a practical demonstration for learners to watch, create a card-sort or drag and drop activity where learners predict the correct order of the different stages of the task. Alternatively, encourage learners to ask questions or predict the stages verbally they observe you carrying out.

To firmly embed maths and English into your vocational subject, set up a Maths and English zone to enable learners to put these functional skills into immediate context. This can be a space where learners access dictionaries and calculators as well as having worksheets to complete or information to read.

A vocabulary box could be set up in a container relevant to their subject specialism e.g. an empty hard hat, bird box, or (clean!) food carton for learners to self-test or play definition games as a starter activity.

Technology:

Learners can take photos of work in progress or record themselves carrying out a process. These can be narrated, annotated, or incorporated into a blog there and then using mobile devices.

Context and relevance are of the utmost importance when teaching a practical subject. Seek out any opportunities to highlight how the lesson content will help learners achieve their chosen career goal. You will then find yourself with a highly motivated group of learners who make substantial progress over the timespan of their studies.

 

jobs.ac.uk has a wide variety of articles covering further education in teaching, explore them below:

  • Career Paths for Teachers in Further Education
  • Getting Into Further Education Teaching
  • What is Teaching in Further Education Really Like?

View jobs in Further Education

What did you think of our article? - please rate

5 / 5. 1


Share this article

Reader Interactions

You may also like:

  • college students Participating in Engineering Class

    What are the benefits of working in Further Education?

  • Students sit on the steps near the college and look at the laptop and digital tablet and talk

    Further Education and your local community

  • Rear View Of College Students Walking Into College Building Together

    What is Further Education (FE)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

16 + two =

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Follow us

Searching for a job in the United Kingdom

Latest Jobs

  • Faculty Position in AI/ML for Biosciences

    Department of Biosciences and Bioinformatics, Xi'an Jiaotong - Liverpool University

    Location: Suzhou

    Salary: Competitive salary in the market


  • Apprentice - Chemical & Environmental Engineering

    Engineering, University of Nottingham

    Location: Nottingham

    Salary: £23,563 - £23,946 per annum, depending on skills and experience.


  • Research Assistant / Research Associate (Fixed Term)

    Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge

    Location: Cambridge

    Salary: £32,546 - £45,413 per annum


  • Senior Scientific Associate, Pre-clinical Genome Editing Facility (12 months Fixed Term)

    Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge

    Location: Cambridge

    Salary: £35,116 - £45,413 per annum


  • Senior Research Fellow

    College of Social Sciences - School of Social Policy and Society, University of Birmingham

    Location: Birmingham

    Salary: £57,422 - £66,537 Grade: 9


  • Housekeeping Assistant

    Trinity Hall , University of Cambridge

    Location: Cambridge

    Salary: £12.77 per hour, plus pension and benefits


Footer

jobs.ac.uk - Great jobs for bright people
  • Find a Job
  • Find PhDs
  • Career Advice
  • Jobs by Email
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Terms of use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Accessibility Statement

Copyright © jobs.ac.uk 1998 - 2025

  • Find a Job
  • Find PhDs
  • Careers Advice
  • Jobs by Email
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Terms of use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Accessibility
jobs.ac.uk - Great jobs for bright people

Copyright © jobs.ac.uk 1998 - 2025