| Semester 1, 2020 On-campus Toowoomba | |
| Short Description: | Contexts for Learn&Development |
| Units : | 1 |
| Faculty or Section : | Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts |
| School or Department : | School of Education |
| Student contribution band : | National Priority - Teaching |
| ASCED code : | 070101 - Teacher Education: Early Child |
| Grading basis : | Graded |
Staffing
Examiner:
Requisites
Pre-requisite: Students must be enrolled in one of the following Programs: BEED or BEDU (Early Childhood) 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
Understanding the ways in which educational and social contexts influence children’s involvement and development as learners is critical to the pedagogy and practice of early educators. A critical role of early childhood educators involves research, observation and documentation in order to support children’s learning and to inform curricular and pedagogic planning. Early childhood educators typically draw upon a range of pedagogical documentation and data to gain insight on how a child thinks, what a child’s interests are, what their abilities are, and how they connect reciprocally with others and their environment. Observational, analytical and reporting skills, together with the interpretation of data, are foundational to quality educational practice, enabling educators to identify potential barriers and challenges to children’s learning and involvement, to plan appropriately challenging learning opportunities, and to report effectively on children’s learning progress.
Synopsis
This course draws on sociocultural theories, social justice frameworks and anti-bias approaches that consider children's development as learners as being shaped by a range of historical, cultural and social contexts within and beyond early education and care settings. The course gives particular emphasis to factors within educational contexts - outdoor and indoor learning environments, playgrounds, peer and pedagogic relationships - and how these contribute to children's access, involvement, engagement and development as learners. Social, relational and contextual factors that support children's full involvement and learning will be considered. Focus will be given to the role of educators in accurately identifying and managing any possible challenges, in order to ensure that all facets of children's educational experiences contribute to positive learning and development. Pre-service educators will learn how to interpret data, as well as learning skills of observation, analysis and reporting as the basis for communicating with parents pertaining to their child's educational experience. They will be introduced to a cycle of professional inquiry and develop knowledge and a rationale for gathering accurate information on and with children, which is the foundation for planning and organising appropriate learning opportunities for learners and for teachers' own professional learning needs.
Objectives
The course objectives define the student learning outcomes for a course in accordance with the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s (AITSL) Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST). On successful completion of this course pre-service educators should be able to:
- develop an informed philosophy to development, involvement and learning by re-examining development domains through sociocultural-historical theory, a contextual lens, a social justice framework and anti-bias approach (APST 1.1);
- examine a range of assessment approaches and strategies for their inclusion of the contextual factors which may influence the development, involvement and learning of children, and understand the purpose of keeping accurate and reliable records (APST 1.2, 5.1, 5.5);
- implement a range of observational techniques to document children’s development, involvement and learning and plan for moderation practices which support consistent and comparable judgements (APST 5.1, 5.3);
- analyse and interpret observational records of children’s development, involvement and learning with reference to current theory and research and demonstrate understanding of the purpose of providing timely and appropriate feedback to learners and strategies for reporting to parents/carers (APST 5.2, 5.4, 5.5);
- plan learning experiences and select suitable resources, including ICTS, that provide achievable learning goals for children based on analysis of observational and assessment records for the purposes of informal and informal data gathering and assessing development and learning (APST 3.1, 3.4, 5.4).
Topics
| Description | Weighting(%) | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Sociocultural theories, social justice frameworks and anti-bias approaches in early learning contexts | 15.00 |
| 2. | Social, historical and cultural contexts influencing involvement and physical, social and intellectual development, and how this may impact learning | 15.00 |
| 3. | Social, relational and contextual factors that support involvement and physical, social and intellectual development, and how this may impact learning | 15.00 |
| 4. | Observation and assessment approaches and strategies, analysis, moderation and reporting - shaped by newly introduced theories, frameworks and approaches | 15.00 |
| 5. | Revisiting development domains with new ways of seeing: sociocultural - historical theories, contextual lenses, social justice frameworks and anti-boas approaches | 10.00 |
| 6. | Planning and organising learning experiences and resources, including ICTs | 20.00 |
| 7. |
|
10.00 |
Text and materials required to be purchased or accessed
ALL textbooks and materials available to be purchased can be sourced from (unless otherwise stated). (https://omnia.usq.edu.au/textbooks/?year=2020&sem=01&subject1=EDE2201)
Please for alternative purchase options from USQ Bookshop. (https://omnia.usq.edu.au/info/contact/)
Reference materials
Student workload expectations
| Activity | Hours |
|---|---|
| Directed ľ«¶«´«Ă˝app | 80.00 |
| Private ľ«¶«´«Ă˝app | 85.00 |
Assessment details
| Description | Marks out of | Wtg (%) | Due Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASSIGNMENT 1 | 40 | 40 | 02 Apr 2020 | (see note 1) |
| ASSIGNMENT 2 | 60 | 60 | 28 May 2020 | (see note 2) |
Notes
- Inquiry task
- Portfolio of work
Important assessment information
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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. -
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. -
Penalties for late submission of required work:
Students should refer to the Assessment Procedure (point 4.2.4) -
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. -
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. -
Examination information:
There is no examination in this course. -
Examination period when Deferred/Supplementary examinations will be held:
There is no examination in this course, there will be no deferred or supplementary examinations. -
ľ«¶«´«Ă˝app Student Policies:
Students should read the USQ policies: Definitions, Assessment and Student Academic Misconduct to avoid actions which might contravene ľ«¶«´«Ă˝app policies and practices. These policies can be found at .
Assessment notes
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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 .
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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.
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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 ľ«¶«´«Ă˝app’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:
- 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
- Queensland College of Teachers
- Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL).
Other requirements
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E-mail and Internet access: Students will require access to e-mail and have Internet access to UConnect for this course.
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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.