PERM20004 - Permaculture Design in Practice

General Information

Unit Synopsis

This unit is the final unit in the Graduate Certificate of Permaculture Design course. As the 'capstone' of the course, the unit will allow students to build on their learning and experiences gained from previous units, and integrated the learning into real world activities. Supported by online learning resources, the couse includes an intensive residential school conducted at an established permaculture designed property, with input from permaculture design experts. The unit will provide direct access to experts in practical settings and immerse students in learning about sustainable food production, processing, building and living, providing examples of the application of permaculture design in the real world. This unit is benchmarked against the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) – an industry-recognised qualification. The unit is a mix of classroom presentations, workshops, design exercises, practical exercises and visits to properties to see Permaculture in action. The main outcome of the unit is the opportunity to work on a Permaculture Design Project and to discuss and critique the work of others in a face to face setting. Students follow a design project from start to implementation and evaluate the implementation process. One of the key assessments of the unit is a presentation of the design project to the class and a panel of permaculture designers.

Details

Level Postgraduate
Unit Level Not Applicable
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 2
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Prerequisites: PERM20001 and PERM20002 and

Corequisite: PERM20003

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 Compulsory Residential School
View Unit Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2025

There are no availabilities for this unit on or after Term 1 - 2025

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 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.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Presentation 40%
2. Practical and Written Assessment 60%

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 3 - 2017 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 75.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 28.57% 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 feedback.
Feedback
Students found completing two units in term three extremely challenging and this has created difficulties with student retention.
Recommendation
We restructure delivery of the units so that teaching for the Graduate Certificate takes place over two terms from 2018.
Action Taken
This restructure was planned, however, course is now in teach out.
Source: Student feedback.
Feedback
The commencing cohort of students struggled to grasp assessment requirements for the capstone regardless of provision of examples from external sources.
Recommendation
Subsequent cohorts will be provided with examples of capstone projects from previous cohorts.
Action Taken
Students were provided with examples throughout the unit.
Source: Student feedback.
Feedback
Students felt they would like to receive greater assessment feedback prior to submission of the final assessment items.
Recommendation
Some formative assessment processes be introduced ahead of the residential school to ensure alignment of final submissions with learning outcomes and support development of capstone projects.
Action Taken
Students were given clear expectations of assessment and learning outcomes prior to and during the residential school.
Source: Moodle
Feedback
Students appreciated availability and support of Unit Coordinator
Recommendation
This would continue in any future iterations of this unit.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Moodle
Feedback
Students would like additional interaction and speaking time during tutorials.
Recommendation
In any future iterations of this unit, time would be set aside in tutorials specifically for each student to interact. Provided student numbers permitted this.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

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

  1. Debate the relative advantages and disadvantages of permaculture design implementations and their features.
  2. Interpret and discuss a design brief for a permaculture project.
  3. Use practical analysis techniques to assess a property/landscape for a desired purpose, and formulate a design solution that will achieve it.
  4. Communicate a permaculture design project using written, graphical and verbal presentation techniques in the context of presenting to a design client.
  5. Evaluate and critique the designs of others using permaculture ethics and principles to consider re-design and retro fitting.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
1 - Presentation • • • • •
2 - Practical and Written Assessment • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Professional Level
• Advanced Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
1 - Knowledge • • • • •
2 - Communication • • • •
3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills • • • •
4 - Research •
5 - Self-management • • •
6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility •
7 - Leadership • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Professional Level
• Advanced Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 - Presentation • • • • •
2 - Practical and Written Assessment • • • • • •