EDEC11030 - Teaching Health and Sustainability in the Early Years

General Information

Unit Synopsis

In this unit, you will adopt an holistic view of learning and wellbeing and apply knowledge of the general capabilities of Personal and Social Competence and Sustainability that underpin the Australian curriculum to examine the rationale, aims and content of the Personal, Social and Community Health strand of the Australian curriculum: Health and Physical Education. You will evaluate the strength of the Health strand in facilitating the connectedness of children, families and community with each other and with the environment for sustainable futures. You will explore these concepts personally by identifying strategies that support their own wellbeing as members of a profession and reflect on their own experiences as they position children as active informed citizens of the future. You will observe children’s experiences in a range of learning, natural and social environments to identify the contributions children make to sustainable futures as they build and exercise personal and social competence. You will engage with research that documents both the impact of nature and natural play on health and wellbeing and the effects on healthy lifestyles of a disconnection from nature. You will apply knowledge gained from a policy analysis into public expressions of commitment to healthy, sustainable ways of living to their engagement with the curriculum strand. The implications of these factors for children and futures are analysed and students propose strategies and pedagogical approaches for implementing the Health strand of the curriculum in ways that optimise the transition of young children to formal school environments and that create learning environments as places of belonging for children and families and as sites for cultivating dispositions and knowledge necessary for sustainability where children are active agents in shaping healthy futures.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 1
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 1
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites There are no pre-requisites for the unit.

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).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 3 - 2024

Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Online

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).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate 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.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Portfolio 60%
2. Written Assessment 40%

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

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2023 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 90.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 25.64% response rate.

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.

Source: Student Evaluations
Feedback
Use real life applications to the content.
Recommendation
Continue to explicitly link the intent of the assessment tasks and the unit content to real life future applications.
Action Taken
Case studies and personal teaching experiences were shared to support unit content.
Source: Student Evaluations
Feedback
Be mindful of students studying other degrees who enroll in this education unit.
Recommendation
Allowances were made for students studying psychology degrees by including relevant examples into the content delivery. Offer an additional tutorial to explore the Early Years Learning Framework and the Australian Curriculum to ensure that they understand the educational links to the assessment tasks.
Action Taken
Specific reference was made to curriculum documents with examples and explanations.
Source: Student Evaluations; emails; tutorial conversations
Feedback
Lecturer support
Recommendation
Continue to share unit content with personal stories connected to student experiences.
Action Taken
Continue to personalize the content and share real life examples of the unit content in action.
Source: Evaluation
Feedback
Update references and external links
Recommendation
The weekly content will be edited and updated where necessary.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Evaluation
Feedback
Connection with real classroom teaching
Recommendation
Continue to share real life classroom examples of the content being used in an authentic way.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Email
Feedback
Relevant content and assessment
Recommendation
Continue to link assessment tasks to personal life situations.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

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

  1. Identify and discuss the contextual knowledge including knowledge of diversity needed to support the wellbeing and engagement of young children
  2. Identify, discuss and represent how the wellbeing of children, self and others can be enhanced by educators’ attitudes, actions and relationships with others
  3. Synthesise research obtained from multiple sources including interviews with children to draw implications for pedagogical decisions for teaching health and sustainability
  4. Describe strategies for implementing curriculum that creates responsive and healthy early childhood environments and contributes to personal, social and community sustainability
  5. Identify strategies to facilitate child participation in building a sustainable, democratic, equitable and just society by critically reflecting on curriculum aims and the diversity of children’s experience
  6. Engage in professional learning to evaluate and enhance education for health and wellbeing in early childhood contexts and classrooms.

Successful completion of this unit provides opportunities for students to engage with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (Graduate Career Stage) focus areas of:

1.1 Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students

1.2 Understand how students learn

2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area

3.3 Using teaching strategies

3.5 Use effective classrrom communication

3.7 Engage parents/carers in the educative process

4.1 Support student participation

4.4 Maintain student safety

6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice

6.4 Apply professional learning and improve student learning

7.2 Comply with legislative administrative and organisational requirements

7.3. Engage with the parents/carers

Additionally students build understandings required by the registering body for early childhood (ACECQA – Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority) including child health, wellbeing and safety and early childhood pedagogies.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 - Portfolio • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 - Communication • • • • •
3 - Critical Thinking • • • • • •
4 - Information Literacy • • • • •
5 - Team Work • • • •
7 - Cross Cultural Competence • • • • • •
8 - Ethical practice • • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - Portfolio • • • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • • • •