EUB170 Professional Experience: Introduction to Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment


To view more information for this unit, select Unit Outline from the list below. Please note the teaching period for which the Unit Outline is relevant.


Unit Outline: Semester 2 2024, Kelvin Grove, Internal

Unit code:EUB170
Credit points:12
Pre-requisite:EUB104
Equivalent:EUB242, EUB242-2
Coordinators:Sarah James | s35.james@qut.edu.au
Denise Beutel | d.beutel@qut.edu.au
Disclaimer - Offer of some units is subject to viability, and information in these Unit Outlines is subject to change prior to commencement of the teaching period.

Overview

This unit introduces the theory and practice of teaching and learning cycles that integrate curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to design lesson plans for junior secondary students. You will learn how to plan a lesson using knowledge of pedagogy, curriculum and formative assessment. You will have opportunities to conduct classroom observations of students and teachers engaged in teaching and learning.

You will be introduced to national and state curricular documents, pedagogic frameworks and assessment for learning theories that inform contemporary teacher practice. This introductory unit provides a context for applying the theoretical knowledge of teaching and learning cycles. This unit builds on EUB104 - Future Focused Teachers.

You will participate in 15 days of professional experience. Learning in this unit will be related to preparing for and reflecting on the time you will spend in a school.

This is a designated unit which is essential to your course progression. Designated units include professional experience units, units requiring the development of particular skills, and units requiring demonstration of certain personal qualities. If you fail to achieve a satisfactory level of performance in a designated unit, you may be excluded from enrolment or will be put on academic probation. If you fail a designated unit twice within your course, you may be excluded. Supplementary assessment is not available on designated units.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

  1. Draft lesson plans that align to curriculum and apply appropriate teaching and assessment strategies, including literacy teaching strategies.
  2. Select appropriate theories, and academic and professional literature to justify approaches to planning lessons.
  3. Engage in cycles of reflective planning informed by professional knowledge and experience.
  4. Seek and apply constructive feedback from supervisors, teachers and peers to improve teaching practices.
  5. Conduct yourself ethically and professionally in line with the code of ethics for teachers and codes of conduct.
  6. Demonstrate planning, teaching, management of safe and supportive learning environments, assessing and recording learning, and professional conduct during professional experience.

Content

This unit will focus on the knowledge and skills that provide a foundation for teaching in junior secondary school contexts. It will include topics such as:

  • Introduction to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment frameworks for teaching and learning
  • Strategic observations with a focus on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices
  • Designing lesson plans with clear learning intentions (goals) and success criteria that provide achievable challenges for students of varying abilities and characteristics
  • Strategies to check for prior learning and formative approaches to assess student learning
  • Organising content into an effective learning sequence
  • A range of teaching strategies, including verbal and non-verbal communication strategies and age-appropriate pedagogies to support student engagement, and practical approaches to managing challenging behaviour
  • Planning as a cycle of reflection and evaluation
  • Strategies, such as safety and risk assessment, that support students’ wellbeing and safety working within school and/or system, curriculum and legislative requirements
  • Strategies for reflecting on and evaluating teaching to improve student learning

Learning Approaches

Professional experience units explicitly teach and practise course content prior to the commencement of placement. The varied length of placements is dependent on the course requirements. QUT teaching staff ensures each professional experience unit accommodates the teaching and practising of content with regard to the timing of placements as outlined on the Professional Experience, the QUT Semester calendars, and the unit overview.

A range of teaching and learning strategies including lectures, workshops, online materials, as well as participation in large-group discussions and small group interactions will be utilised. Your learning will be enhanced by professional readings and recordings. 

Professional experience will involve 15 days of supervised teaching practice, formal observations and integration with schooling.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

Feedback in this unit is provided to you in the following ways:

  • professional experience reports (interim and final)
  • comments and feedback from your University Partner and Supervising Teacher
  • feedback from peers during group discussions
  • unit coordinator and tutor comments to the cohort
  • formative assessment task - early in the teaching period you will complete a class activity outlining your initial planning for Assessment Task 2. You will be provided with the opportunity to engage in a feedback process with peers and academic staff.

Assessment

Overview

There are two assessment tasks in this unit:

1. Professional Experience Report - This will require you to connect the learning from this unit and your course about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to professional experience.

2. Professional Plan - This will require you to draw on your understanding of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to draft a lesson plan and using your reflections on professional experience, annotate and improve your lesson.

You must receive a passing grade (Satisfactory) on each assessment task to successfully pass this unit. Since this is a Professional Experience unit, special conditions of assessment apply to the second assessment task in the unit— Reflection on Planning. Assessment criteria for Assessment Task 2 number five. You must pass all five assessment criteria to pass the second assessment task. Where an attempt fails to meet any one (1) assessment criterion, a resubmission of the assessment task within 72 hours of the release of results for that task may be permitted. It is your responsibility as a student to (i) resubmit your complete assignment should your unsatisfactory attempt fall within this margin of insufficiency (i.e., of one criterion) and (ii) notify your Unit Coordinator via email of your submission. 

Unit Grading Scheme

S (Satisfactory) / U (Unsatisfactory)

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Professional Experience Report

You will practise your skills related to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers in preparation for meeting the requirements of the final report.

Please refer to your course information. Non-compliance with course requirements relating to professional experience may prevent you from undertaking your professional experience placement.

Threshold Assessment:

You must achieve a passing grade (satisfactory) on each individual assessment task to successfully pass this unit.

Weight: 0
Length: 15 days professional experience
Individual/Group: Individual
Due (indicative): Last day of placement
Related Unit learning outcomes: 4, 5, 6

Assessment: Reflection on planning

Part A - Lesson plan and risk assessment

You will create a detailed lesson planning document that aligns with the Australian Curriculum in one of your teaching areas. It will reflect key learning from the unit on how to structure a lesson and support students' learning and engagement. You will also submit a risk assessment for your lesson, taking into consideration safety and risk in your learning environment. This will be submitted prior to professional experience. Please note: Not submitting this piece may result in you not being able to attend professional experience.

Part B - Reflection

You will reflect on your professional experience to identify the ways in which teachers enact the curriculum in one of your teaching areas. Consider the planning, pedagogies and formative assessment you observed. You will also reflect on how teaching staff planned to manage safety and risk in the learning environments.

You will also reflect on your own experiences during professional experience to explore what worked well, challenges and opportunities for improvement.

Part C - Adjusted lesson plan

Revise the lesson plan and risk assessment that you submitted in Part A or create a new lesson plan and risk assessment. Drawing on your reflections on professional experience, feedback from supervising teachers and/or peers, unit content and links to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers you will annotate your planning document to show how you would improve the lesson.

This assignment is eligible for the 48-hour late submission period and assignment extensions.

Threshold Assessment:

You must achieve a passing grade (satisfactory) on each individual assessment task to successfully pass this unit. Resubmission of Assessment Task 2 may be permitted. See 'Assessment Overview' above.

Weight: 0
Length: 1200 words
Individual/Group: Individual
Due (indicative):
Part A is due prior to Professional Experience. Parts B and C are due in week 13.
Related Unit learning outcomes: 1, 2, 3

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to engage in learning and assessment at QUT with honesty, transparency and fairness. Maintaining academic integrity means upholding these principles and demonstrating valuable professional capabilities based on ethical foundations.

Failure to maintain academic integrity can take many forms. It includes cheating in examinations, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, and submitting an assessment item completed by another person (e.g. contract cheating). It can also include providing your assessment to another entity, such as to a person or website.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Further details of QUT’s approach to academic integrity are outlined in the Academic integrity policy and the Student Code of Conduct. Breaching QUT’s Academic integrity policy is regarded as student misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Requirements to Study

Requirements

Meet, and show evidence of, the public health or employment vaccination mandates/requirements of your state jurisdiction. 

Blue Card

A blue card is required to complete this unit. A blue card confirms that you have passed a screening of your criminal history (the Working with Children Check) and have been approved to work with children and young people. For more information on the blue card and how to apply please visit the QUT website.

Costs

There may be costs related to immunisations.

Resources

The following text will be used throughout this unit.

Resource Materials

Recommended text(s)

Churchill, R., Godinho, S., Johnson, N. F., Keddie, A., Letts, W., Lowe, K., Shaw, K. (2019). Teaching Making A Difference. John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd.

Other

EQ CARA Safety guideline documents

Risk Assessment Statement

There are no out-of-the-ordinary risks associated with the general conduct of this unit. Workplace health and safety protocols in relation to computer use will apply.

Managing the risk associated with your professional experience is bound in an agreement with the systemic employment bodies and individual sites where necessary. The Workplace Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) places duties of care on everyone to ensure the health and safety of themselves and others in the workplace.

Students should be aware of and comply with the QUT work integrated learning policy under QUT's Assessment Policy is at MOPP C/4.4.

Standards/Competencies

This unit is designed to support your development of the following standards\competencies.

Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

1 Professional Knowledge: Know students and how they learn

  1. Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  2. Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  3. Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  4. Strategies to support full participation of students with disability
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report

2 Professional Knowledge: Know the content and how to teach it

  1. Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  2. Content selection and organisation
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  3. Curriculum, assessment and reporting
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  4. Literacy and numeracy strategies
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  5. Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report

3 Professional Practice: Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

  1. Establish challenging learning goals
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  2. Plan, structure and sequence learning programs
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  3. Use teaching strategies
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  4. Select and use resources
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  5. Use effective classroom communication
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  6. Evaluate and improve teaching programs
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning

4 Professional Practice: Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

  1. Support student participation
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  2. Manage classroom activities
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  3. Manage challenging behaviour
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  4. Maintain student safety
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  5. Use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report

5 Professional Practice: Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning

  1. Assess student learning
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  2. Provide feedback to students on their learning
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  3. Make consistent and comparable judgements
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  4. Interpret student data
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  5. Report on student achievement
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report

6 Professional Engagement: Engage in professional learning

  1. Engage with colleagues and improve practice
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning

7 Professional Engagement: Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

  1. Meet professional ethics and responsibilities
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  2. Comply with legislative, administrative and organisational requirements
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  3. Engage with the parents/carers
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report
  4. Engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities
    Relates to: Professional Experience Report

Course Learning Outcomes

This unit is designed to support your development of the following course/study area learning outcomes.

ED59 Bachelor of Education (Secondary)

  1. Knowledgeable: Apply professional knowledge of learning areas, learning and learners.
    Relates to: ULO1, ULO6, Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  2. Scholarly: Consider the ways in which educational theory and research informs and impacts teaching practice.
    Relates to: ULO2, Reflection on planning
  3. Inclusive: Plan for culturally secure, supportive, caring, inclusive and positive learning environments.
    Relates to: ULO6, Professional Experience Report
  4. Responsive: Interpret data, policy and legislative requirements to inform professional decisions about practice.
    Relates to: ULO6, Professional Experience Report
  5. Collegial: Collaborate and connect with professional networks and the wider community.
    Relates to: ULO4, ULO6, Professional Experience Report
  6. Reflective: Reframe challenges into opportunities for capacity building and learning.
    Relates to: ULO3, ULO6, Professional Experience Report, Reflection on planning
  7. Ethical: Engage ethically and respectfully with learners, colleagues and parents/carers and community from diverse backgrounds.
    Relates to: ULO5, ULO6, Professional Experience Report
  8. Communicative: Engage and communicate effectively and professionally.
    Relates to: ULO6, Professional Experience Report