| Effective Term: | 2025/05 |
| Institute / School : | Institute of Education, Arts & Community |
| Unit Title: | Engaging Professionally 3: Education for Prior-to-school Children |
| Unit ID: | EDMAS6162 |
| Credit Points: | 15.00 |
| Prerequisite(s): | (EDMAS6026 and EDMAS6062) |
| Co-requisite(s): | Nil |
| Exclusion(s): | (EDMAS6131) |
| ASCED: | 070101 |
| Other Change: | |
| Brief description of the Unit |
This unit is the third in a suite of units designed to enable Pre-Service Teachers (PSTs) to critically attend to, participate in and experience, the many facets of professional engagement in teaching through a 30-day Professional Experience placement with children aged three to five years old. PSTs will create and experience a professional learning community where learning is enhanced through social processes, dialogue, and personal reflection. Communication will take place on campus and in online environments. Guided by a learning mentor, PSTs will critically examine teaching and learning experiences in early childhood settings and make complex connections to prior learning. They will focus on bigger picture issues such as the emotional work of teachers, the changing culture of early childhood education and service improvement issues as well as their own personal questions, investigations, and insights. PSTs will prepare an evidence-based professional portfolio that will form the basis of their assessment and will seek feedback from multiple sources. |
| Grade Scheme: | Graded (HD, D, C, P, MF, F, XF) |
| Work Experience Indicator: |
| Student is undertaking work experience in industry where learning and performance is not directed by the provider, but support is received from the provider. Fees (provider may charge a student contribution amount or tuition fee). |
| Placement Component: | Yes - 30 days |
| Supplementary Assessment:No |
| Supplementary assessment is not available to students who gain a fail in this Unit. |
| Course Level: |
| Level of Unit in Course | AQF Level(s) of Course | | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | | Introductory | | | | | | | | Intermediate | | | | | | | | Advanced | | | | |  | |
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| Learning Outcomes: |
| Knowledge: |
| K1. | Continue inquiries into professional issues related to teaching and learning, identifying significant questions, conducting research, trialling new approaches, evaluating practices, and reflecting on learning and next steps |
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| K2. | Develop deep understandings of the factors that enhance children’s learning |
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| K3. | Investigate the emotional work of teachers |
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| K4. | Understand and critically examine education improvement issues and the complexity of cultural change |
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| K5. | Inquire more deeply into the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs) and make links to theoretical perspectives and practical experiences related to effective teaching |
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| K6. | Articulate personal theories, use the language of learning, and describe and justify the approaches they use as teachers |
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| Skills: |
| S1. | Critically reflect on and examine links between theory, practice and personal views and values to extend understandings |
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| S2. | Communicate effectively and professionally with colleagues in the University setting and in early education and community contexts |
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| S3. | Engage actively and thoughtfully in the professional learning community and undertake leadership roles where appropriate and use problem solving strategies to respond to professional issues |
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| S4. | Draw upon prior learning in the Master of Teaching program to inform practice and further develop teaching knowledge and skills through a 30-day professional placement. |
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| S5. | Reflect critically on practice and actively seek and understand feedback and take appropriate action to further develop teaching and learning goals based on Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, personal needs, and interests; collect evidence of achievement; identify personal learning and consider next steps |
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| S6. | Collect, organise, and manage a wide range of documentation in ethical and professional ways |
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| S7. | Prepare a quality professional portfolio related to key teaching and learning experiences |
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| S8. | Further explore networks with professional associations to enhance professional learning |
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| Application of knowledge and skills: |
| A1. | Participate in a 30-day professional placement in an early childhood setting. Facilitate the completion of an Assessment Report focusing on Graduate Level Standards |
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| A2. | Complete specified tasks during the final professional placement involving planning, programming, teaching, and assessment components |
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| A3. | Articulate and discuss, with ECE Mentors, university mentors and peers, multiple pieces of evidence that supports their readiness to teach effectively and independently, acknowledging ways they will engage in ongoing professional learning as an Early Childhood Teacher. |
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| Unit Content: |
• Developing teaching and learning goals based on the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, collecting evidence, and articulating at round table discussions or online forums, what has been achieved and learned
• Engaging in critical inquiries into practice and education and the tools to assist planning, thinking, documentation and decision-making
• Identifying, through experience and reading, the characteristics of effective professional learning communities
• Re-examining the nature and value of reflective practice
• Identifying, applying, and evaluating frameworks for curriculum planning, thinking and enhancing teaching and learning
• Re-examining the role that feedback plays in teaching and learning
• The environment as the third teacher
• Leading others in the early childhood setting
• Engaging in self-assessment |
| Graduate Attributes: |
| Federation University recognises that students require key transferable employability skills to prepare them for their future workplace and society. FEDTASKS (Transferable Attributes Skills and Knowledge) provide a targeted focus on five key transferable Attributes, Skills, and Knowledge that are be embedded within curriculum, developed gradually towards successful measures and interlinked with cross-discipline and Co-operative Learning opportunities. One or more FEDTASK, transferable Attributes, Skills or Knowledge must be evident in the specified learning outcomes and assessment for each FedUni Unit, and all must be directly assessed in each Course.
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| FED TASK and descriptor | Development and acquisition of FEDTASKS in the Unit | | Level | FEDTASK 1
Interpersonal | Students at this level will demonstrate an advanced ability in a range of contexts to effectively communicate, interact and work with others both individually and in groups. Students will be required to display high level skills in-person and/or online in: • Using and demonstrating a high level of verbal and non-verbal communication • Demonstrating a mastery of listening for meaning and influencing via active listening • Demonstrating and showing empathy for others • High order skills in negotiating and conflict resolution skills\\ • Demonstrating mastery of working respectfully in cross-cultural and diverse teams. | 1 - Yes | FEDTASK 2
Leadership | Students at this level will demonstrate a mastery in professional skills and behaviours in leading others. • Creating and sustaining a collegial environment • Demonstrating a high level of self -awareness and the ability to self-reflect and justify decisions • Inspiring and initiating opportunities to lead others • Making informed professional decisions • Demonstrating initiative in new professional situations. | 1 - Yes | FEDTASK 3
Critical Thinking and Creativity | Students at this level will demonstrate high level skills in working in complexity and ambiguity using the imagination to create new ideas. Students will be required to display skills in: • Reflecting critically to generate and consider complex ideas and concepts at an abstract level • Analysing complex and abstract ideas, concepts and information • Communicate alternative perspectives to justify complex ideas • Demonstrate a mastery of challenging conventional thinking to clarify complex concepts • Forming creative solutions in problem solving to new situations for further learning. | 1 - Yes | FEDTASK 4
Digital Literacy | Students at this level will demonstrate the ability to work competently across a wide range of tools, platforms and applications to achieve a range of tasks. Students will be required to display skills in: • Mastering, exploring, evaluating, managing, curating, organising and sharing digital information professionally • Collating, managing complex data, accessing and using digital data securely • Receiving and responding professionally to messages in a range of professional digital media • Contributing competently and professionally to digital teams and working groups • Participating at a high level in digital learning opportunities. | 1 - Yes | FEDTASK 5
sustainable and Ethical Mindset | Students at this level will demonstrate a mastery of considering and assessing the consequences and impact of ideas and actions in enacting professional ethical and sustainable decisions. Students will be required to display skills in: • Demonstrate informed judgment making that considers the impact of devising complex solutions in ambiguous global economic environmental and societal contexts • Professionally committing to the promulgation of social responsibility • Demonstrate the ability to evaluate ethical, socially responsible and/or sustainable challenges and generating and articulating responses • Communicating lifelong, life-wide and life-deep learning to be open to the diverse professional others • Generating, leading and implementing required actions to foster sustainability in their professional and personal life | 1 - Yes |
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| | Learning Outcomes Assessed | Assessment Tasks | Assessment Type | Weighting | | 1. | K1, K2, K3, K4, K5, S1, S2, S4, S5, S6, A1, A2 | Participate in a 30-day professional placement in an early childhood setting. Receive report, Form A, Professional Experience Assessment Report from classroom Mentor Teacher on identified Professional Standards | Professional Practice | S/N | | 2. | K2, K5, K6, S1, S2, S3, S4, S6, A1, A2 | Develop an indoor and outdoor learning programme plan that considers the room as the third teacher. This programme plan will be implemented while on Professional Experience Placement when the PSTs are in full control of the group in the final two weeks (10 days). The Programme Plan is expected to be modified-in-action to continue to meet the children’s needs and agency. The Programme Plan must incorporate teaching strategies, resources and learning support materials that are wholistic and meet the needs of the age group PSTs are teaching. PSTs must incorporate how each learning area, both indoor and outdoor and intended outcomes meet the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and what teaching strategies they used to meet these.
After implementation of the Programme PSTs will write a reflection on the effectiveness of each learning area in relation to developing children’s agency and levels of inquiry. | Programme planning | 40%-60% | | 3. | K1, K2, K3, K4, K5, K6, S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S6, S7, S8, A3 | Present evidence of continued development towards professional readiness. PSTs will use multiple forms of evidence (including but not limited to Mentor Teachers classroom observation/feedback, curriculum documentation, child/parent/carer feedback, personal reflective journals, classroom artefacts, and evidence drawn from Professional Experience Placement, Form B, Pre-service Teacher Learning Log and Form C, Reflective Self-Evaluation Report, along with evidence of learning throughout the Master of Teaching program, to demonstrate effective classroom practice; educational leadership and ongoing professional learning | Teacher performance e-portfolio | 40%-60% |
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