¾«¶«´«Ã½app

Staffing

Examiner:

Requisites

Pre-requisite: Students must be enrolled in: UCTE or UCTP or BEED or BPED or BSED or BGEN or BECH

Other requisites

Students enrolling in courses which do not follow the recommended enrolment pattern cannot be assured of a developmental learning experience or program completion within their preferred timeframe.

Rationale

A cornerstone of effective education is an understanding of how children develop. Educators must be aware of typical developmental milestones (i.e., physical, cognitive and social emotional) that their learners will experience. This information will help educators to support learners who display atypical patterns of development. To enable informed decision-making and best practice, educators must also be cognizant of how environmental systems can facilitate or impede development. Drawing on their knowledge of individual development and the reciprocal influence of contexts, educators will be able to create supportive learning environments for diverse learners. This knowledge will also assist educators to form effective home-school partnerships.

Synopsis

This course offers an introduction to the key concepts and issues related to child development and learning. The course provides an overview of the constancies and changes in physical, cognitive, and social emotional dimensions of children, and introduces key learning theories and concepts (constructivism, socio-cultural and bio-ecological theories). Contexts such as family and educational settings, peer group and community environments, will be explored. The course will also present information about exceptionalities in development (eg autism spectrum disorder, behaviour difficulties, the impact of trauma and giftedness), which will serve as foundational knowledge for subsequent courses. Pre-service educators will be encouraged to reflect critically on theories of development and learning as applied to educational practice.

Objectives

Topics

Text and materials required to be purchased or accessed

Reference materials

Student workload expectations

Assessment details

Important assessment information

1. Attendance requirements:
   
   It is the students' responsibility to attend and participate appropriately in all activities scheduled for them, and to study all material provided to them or required to be accessed by them, to maximise their chance of meeting the objectives of the course and to be informed of course-related activities and administration.
   
   
2. Requirements for students to complete each assessment item satisfactorily:
   
   To satisfactorily complete an individual assessment item a student must achieve at least 50% of the marks for that item.
   
   
3. Penalties for late submission of required work:
   
   Students should refer to the Assessment Procedure (point 4.2.4)
   
   
4. Requirements for student to be awarded a passing grade in the course:
   
   To be assured of receiving a passing grade a student must achieve at least 50% of the total weighted marks available for the course.
   
   
5. Method used to combine assessment results to attain final grade:
   
   The final grades for students will be assigned on the basis of the aggregate of the weighted marks obtained for each of the summative items for the course.
   
   
6. Examination information:
   
   There is no examination in this course.
   
   
7. Examination period when Deferred/Supplementary examinations will be held:
   
   There is no examination in this course, there will be no deferred or supplementary examinations.
   
   
8. ¾«¶«´«Ã½app Student Policies:
   
   Students should read the USQ policies: Definitions, Assessment and Student Academic Misconduct to avoid actions which might contravene ¾«¶«´«Ã½app policies and practices. These policies can be found at .
   
   

Assessment notes

1. Referencing in assignments must comply with the APA referencing system. This system should be used by students to format details of the information sources they have cited in their work. The APA style to be used is defined by the USQ library's referencing guide. This guide can be found at .
   
   
2. Students are required to demonstrate competence in and appropriate use of academic language and literacy, including spelling, grammar, punctuation, and referencing in all assessment responses. Marks allocated to the aforementioned criteria will be specified in the criteria for assessment of all assessment items.
   
   
3. Students are required to submit ALL assignments to evidence meeting or exceeding the mandatory requirements of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs).
   
   

Evaluation and benchmarking

In meeting the ¾«¶«´«Ã½app’s aims to establish quality learning and teaching for all programs, this course monitors and ensures quality assurance and improvements in at least two ways. This course:
1. conforms to the USQ Policy on Evaluation of Teaching, Courses and Programs to ensure ongoing monitoring and systematic improvement
2. forms part of the Bachelor of Education and is benchmarked against the:

1. internal USQ accreditation/reaccreditation processes which include (i) stringent standards in the independent accreditation of its academic programs, (ii) close integration between business and academic planning, and (iii) regular and rigorous review
2. Queensland College of Teachers
3. Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL).

Other requirements

1. Participation: Students can expect it will be necessary to participate in and contribute to a range of learning opportunities in this course including online study activities, lectures, tutorials, seminar presentations, group discussions and self-directed study activities in order to apply the coursework that will enable quality assessment tasks to be submitted as evidence of professional development.
   
   
2. E-mail and Internet access: Students will require access to e-mail and have Internet access to UConnect for this course.
   
   
3. On-campus enrolments: Should enrolments not reach the minimum number required for on-campus study, students may be transferred to the ONLINE offering and advised of this change before semester commences.