Overview
This unit requires you to engage with student data affecting teaching and learning in one of your discipline teaching areas (Secondary) or in the English specialisation (Primary and Early Childhood) for the purposes of improving student learning and educational outcomes. You will plan and implement an action research project, which requires the collection and analysis of data from a 'real world' teaching context. You will construct a project report that documents the collection and analysis of these data, identifies implications for teaching practice in English or your teaching area, makes recommendations for improved student learning outcomes, and indicates how you would modify learning goals and teaching practices to enhance learning outcomes for students. You will engage with literature associated with the specific discipline of teaching and learning issue being investigated. You will also explore ethical considerations when collecting, analysing, evaluating and interpreting student data and discuss strategies for working confidentially and professionally within a values-based context and sharing your findings with colleagues, parents and carers and students to support the educative process.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Co-requisite EDFE20037 Professional Praxis 4: Transition to Teaching
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2023
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes – in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Student feedback
Provide further support for assessment in the unit.
More support should be added to the assessment within the unit.
Feedback from Student feedback
Provide more examples of topics not relevant for research in this unit.
Topics not relevant for research should be added to the unit.
- Justify a focus for research inquiry for the purposes of enhancing professional knowledge and improving student learning and educational outcomes in an area of specialisation
- Plan a research proposal that requires the purposeful and ethical collection of student data
- Identify and evaluate school and classroom data from a range of sources
- Identify and apply relevant legislative, administrative and organisation policy and processes to the ethical collection, analysis, evaluation and interpretation of student data
- Identify implications for teaching practice based on student data
- Make informed recommendations for a range of audiences including colleagues, students and parents and carers on pedagogical practice for improved student learning in an area of teaching specialisation.
Successful completion of this unit provides opportunities for students to demonstrate the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers focus areas of:
1.2 Understand how students learn
2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area
3.6 Evaluate and improve teaching programs
3.7 Engage parents/carers in the educative process
6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice
6.4 Apply professional learning and improve student learning
7.1 Meet professional ethics and responsibilities
7.2 Comply with legislative, administrative and organisational requirements
7.3 Engage with the parents/carers
7.4 Engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment - 50% | ||||||
| 2 - Presentation and Written Assessment - 50% | ||||||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 1 - Knowledge | ||||||
| 2 - Communication | ||||||
| 3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills | ||||||
| 4 - Research | ||||||
| 5 - Self-management | ||||||
| 6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility | ||||||
| 7 - Leadership | ||||||
| 8 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | ||||||
Textbooks
There are no required textbooks.
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: American Psychological Association 7th Edition (APA 7th edition)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
r.vanderburg@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
Teacher as Researcher
Chapter
Readings:
Action Research in Education: A Practical Guide
Chapter 1 & Chapter 2
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Approaches to Action Research & Ethics - Privacy and Confidentiality
Chapter
Readings:
Action Research in Education: A Practical Guide
Chapter 3
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Developing a Plan of Action
Chapter
Readings:
Action Research in Education: A Practical Guide
Chapter 4
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Data Collection Tools
Chapter
Readings:
Action Research in Education: A Practical Guide
Chapter 5
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Using Assessment Data In Action Research
Chapter
Readings:
Action Research in Education: A Practical Guide
Chapter 6
Events and Submissions/Topic
Assessment Task 1 Due
Written Assessment - Research Proposal Due: Week 5 Thursday (6 Apr 2023) 11:59 pm AEST
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Data Generation
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Data Generation
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Data Analysis and Interpretation
Chapter
Readings:
Action Research in Education: A Practical Guide
Chapter 7
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Writing, Sharing, and Implementing the Research Findings
Chapter
Readings:
Action Research in Education: A Practical Guide
Chapter 8
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Poster Presentation Preparation
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Assessment Task 2 Due
PRESENTATION AND WRITTEN ASSESSMENT - POSTER AND WRITTEN SUMMARY Due: Week 10 Thursday (18 May 2023) 11:59 pm AEST
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
1 Written Assessment
Your task is to identify an educational problem/concern/issue and design a research proposal that will enable the problem to be explained and explored through the analysis of (self-generated) student data. The problem chosen must enable you to generate both primary and secondary data. After analysing the data (Assessment Task 2), you will need to identify implications for teaching practice based on the analysis of the student data and make recommendations for improved student learning outcomes that are explicitly linked to, and based on, your analysis and findings. Therefore you need to select a topic that will allow data analysis to explain future teaching practice. If you are getting a a Master's in primary education, you must chose a problem/concern/issue which specifically addresses student literacy.
The following structure will assist in your planning:
- What is the concern/problem/issue you are addressing?
- What type/s of data are required to be collected to allow you to explain and explore the concern/problem/issue?
- What are the most appropriate methods of data collection?
- How will the data be analysed and presented in order to address the concern/problem/issue?
- What ethical issues are involved in the evaluation and how will they be addressed?
Word count: 2000 words (maximum).
WORD COUNT for written assignments:
The word count is considered from the first word of the introduction to the last word of the conclusion. It excludes the cover page, abstract, contents page, reference page and appendices. It includes in-text references and direct quotations.
Week 5 Thursday (6 Apr 2023) 11:59 pm AEST
Week 7 Friday (28 Apr 2023)
Criteria used for this assignment include:
- Knowledge of topic or problem
- Methodology and theoretical framing
- Use of relevant literature
- Knowledge of ethical approaches with handling data and participant information
- Research design
- Written presentation
- Justify a focus for research inquiry for the purposes of enhancing professional knowledge and improving student learning and educational outcomes in an area of specialisation
- Plan a research proposal that requires the purposeful and ethical collection of student data
2 Presentation and Written Assessment
There are two components to this task that enable you to communicate your case study and findings.
Component 1 - is to present your case study as a poster presentation. Within your poster presentation, you are to (at a minimum):
- Design a poster that clearly communicates your research project
- Identify your research context (concern/problem/issue)
- Briefly outline your research design including participants
- Briefly outline the data collection process
- Elaborate on the ethical issues associated with your case study
- Document your findings and interpretation
Component 2 - Submit a 500 - 600 maximum word summary looking specifically at the implications of your research for your teaching practice and role of teacher as researcher. When discussing the implications for practice identify how you could modify learning and teaching practice to enhance the learning outcomes for your participants. In other words, how does your modification or your practice demonstrate a positive impact on student learning. In the conclusion of your summary outline strategies you could use for reporting the data collection and analysis to participants involved in your project.
WORD COUNT for written assignments:The word count is considered from the first word of the introduction to the last word of the conclusion. It excludes the cover page, abstract, contents page, reference page and appendices. It includes in-text references and direct quotations.
Week 10 Thursday (18 May 2023) 11:59 pm AEST
Exam Week Friday (16 June 2023)
Criteria for this assessment includes:
- Knowledge of topic or problem
- Research design
- Ethical approaches used with handling of data and participant information
- Documenting findings and interpretations
- Summary of the research process
- Poster presentation
- Justify a focus for research inquiry for the purposes of enhancing professional knowledge and improving student learning and educational outcomes in an area of specialisation
- Identify and evaluate school and classroom data from a range of sources
- Identify and apply relevant legislative, administrative and organisation policy and processes to the ethical collection, analysis, evaluation and interpretation of student data
- Identify implications for teaching practice based on student data
- Make informed recommendations for a range of audiences including colleagues, students and parents and carers on pedagogical practice for improved student learning in an area of teaching specialisation.
As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.
Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.
When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.
Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.
As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.
What is a breach of academic integrity?
A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.
Why is academic integrity important?
A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.
Where can I get assistance?
For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.
What can you do to act with integrity?
