EUN254 Exploring Professional Contexts
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 code: | EUN254 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisite(s): | EUN160 and EUN262 |
| Credit points: | 12 |
| Timetable | Details in HiQ, if available |
| Availabilities |
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Unit Outline: Summer 2 2027, Online
| Unit code: | EUN254 |
|---|---|
| Credit points: | 12 |
| Pre-requisite: | EUN160 and EUN262 |
Overview
This unit will explore professional teacher identity, teaching careers and critical skills for understanding school contexts. It is designed to support beginning teaching. The unit will demonstrate ways to identify professional learning needs, implement strategies for professional wellbeing and be career ready. It will consider critical teaching practice skills of communication and collaborative work practices. The unit will explore school contexts (such as the demographics, school policy documents, regional and rural locations) and the ways that these impact on teaching practice. This unit will build skills for strategic engagement with the teaching environment and skills for beginning teaching, building teacher identity and career success.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:
- Evaluate professional learning needs based on the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs)
- Reflect on emerging teacher identity and career readiness for beginning teachers
- Identify strategies to support teacher resilience and wellbeing
- Assess real-world teaching programs, contexts and policies by applying professional frameworks and concepts
- Examine the impact of school contexts on teaching practice
Content
The unit includes topics related to professional identity and practice of beginning teachers. This includes:
- the role of teachers as reflective learners committed to ongoing professional learning
- professional skills of engaging in professional dialogues and reflecting on practice to support ongoing learning
- cultivating collaborative work practices
- fostering growing identity and building career readiness as a teacher
- teacher wellbeing strategies and building resilience
- examining school contexts - demographics and learning environments
- analysing school policy and other documents
- impacts of school contexts on teaching practice
This unit is taught with EUB280 to support those in early practice at both the Bachelor's and Master's levels. These units will share timetabling and delivery, enabling students from both cohorts to attend the same lectures and/or tutorials, as both groups are preparing for early practice and developing the same core skills in professional conduct, working in schools, and understanding their role as beginning teachers.
Learning Approaches
In this unit you will learn through engaging in the following:
- Workshops (online and/or face-to-face);
- Online self-directed learning;
- Personal research and readings; and
- Collaborative activities with peers.
Feedback on Learning and Assessment
You will receive formative feedback throughout the unit through discussions and in-class activities. You will receive summative assessment feedback about your assignments for each task.
Assessment
Overview
There are two assessment items in this unit:
1. Reflective journal - This assessment task draws on professional experiences and the learning in this unit to examine teacher identity, career readiness and wellbeing.
2. School case study - This assessment connects specific school contexts with the implications for teaching practice.
Unit Grading Scheme
7- point scale
Assessment Tasks
Assessment: Reflective Journal
In this assessment task, you will audit your current professional skills against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers and consider areas that require further development. You will then create a professional learning plan that identifies a goal and a series of relevant actions, collaborative and future-focused that might support and broaden your professional knowledge and practice during your internship. In addition, you will need to identify and discuss strategies you can implement to support your well-being as a beginning teacher.
This is an assignment for the purposes of an extension.
Assessment: School case study
You will develop a case study about beginning teaching in a specific school. You will identify and discuss key aspects of the school and its programs that will be central for beginning teaching in this context. The case study should take account of contextual factors such as the school’s location, demographics and community profile. Key policies, yearly plans, curriculum and assessment programs, as well as school operations and practices should all be considered. Examine how these key aspects and contextual factors will inform your teaching practice in this context.
This is an assignment for the purposes of an extension.
Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is a commitment to undertaking academic work and assessment in a manner that is ethical, fair, honest, respectful and accountable.
The Academic Integrity Policy sets out the range of conduct that can be a failure to maintain the standards of academic integrity. This includes, cheating in exams, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion and contract cheating. It also includes providing fraudulent or altered documentation in support of an academic concession application, for example an assignment extension or a deferred exam.
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.
Breaching QUT’s Academic Integrity Policy or engaging in conduct that may defeat or compromise the purpose of assessment can lead to a finding of student misconduct (Code of Conduct – Student) and result in the imposition of penalties under the Management of Student Misconduct Policy, ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.
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.