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The Australian Curriculum requires F-6 learners to engage in the subject of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS), the study of human behaviour and interaction in social, cultural, environmental and political contexts. In the Bachelor of Education Primary program, pre-service teachers are required to develop an understanding of how the HaSS learning area engages students in authentic topics through the integration of HaSS with the other primary learning areas (English, Mathematics, Science, Technology, The Arts, Health and Physical Education) and through the General Capabilities (Literacy, Numeracy, ICT, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, Ethical Understanding and Intercultural Understanding). These knowledges, skills, behaviours and dispositions enable students to develop capabilities in their learning at school and in their lives outside school. This course builds on the teaching strategies of previously studied courses in this program and develops teacher competency in appropriately selecting resources that engage students in authentic learning.

The aim of this course is to investigate how the Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) learning area connects with the other Australian Curriculum learning areas in the primary context. Pre-service educators in this course will develop a knowledge and understanding of the theoretical principles that explain the implications for teaching and learning through an integrated approach. They will be immersed in learning about the General Capabilities, as a significant dimension of the Australian Curriculum. The integration of learning areas transpires when General Capabilities from the Australian Curriculum are embedded in learning and teaching to connect HaSS content to another learning area. To enable this strong connection, teachers identify links within the content descriptions from the various learning area curriculums and need to be judicious when selecting appropriate teaching strategies that bring the intended General Capabilities to the fore. When HaSS is integrated across the curriculum, learning is linked to real life contexts, is efficient in covering suitably the content of an increasingly crowded curriculum, and motivates students towards a natural way of learning. The outcome of the relationship between HaSS and the General Capabilities can be best described as supporting students to be successful learners, as well as developing ways of being, behaving and learning to live with others.

On completion of this course students should be able to:

1. investigate theoretical principles about how students cognitively and motivationally manage their learning, and the implications for teaching Australian Curriculum learning areas through an integrated approach (APST 1.2, 3.3);
2. identify content and teaching strategies of primary Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) that can be applied to connect with the content from the other primary teaching areas (APST 2.1);
3. design teaching strategies that draw on and bring to the fore the General Capabilities to integrate primary in Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) with other learning areas (APST 2.5, 2.6);
4. select and embed a range of teaching resources that engage students to connect the Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) with other primary learning (APST 3.4); and
5. demonstrate advanced cognitive, literacy and communication skills, including spelling, grammar, punctuation and referencing.