Unit rationale, description and aim
Entrepreneurial skills and mindset are increasingly important for dietetic graduates/professionals so that they can innovate and capitalise on existing and emerging opportunities and solve complex problems. In this unit, students will be expected to explore entrepreneurial thinking, skills, and strategies relevant to all modern workplaces and vital for graduates pursuing careers as business owners, business innovators and within cause-driven organisations. Students will be provided with the opportunity to demonstrate a broader range of complementary non-technical skills that employers value including business acumen, strategic planning, communication, and people skills. Through examination of the requirements for setting up and running private practice, consultancy or social enterprise students will be supported to build a business plan, and to develop a marketing strategy that incorporates the use of a wide range of media. Students will be supported to develop the confidence and capabilities to take an entrepreneurial approach in any workplace, so they stand out as a valuable and innovative employee, and to building a career in emerging areas of practice such as culinary nutrition and food and nutrition media. The aim of this unit is to provide the opportunity for students to develop extended knowledge, deep understanding, and real-life complementary non-technical skills to support the development of entrepreneurial thinking to successfully realise, and grow, new food and nutrition-related business opportunities.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Apply a social entrepreneurship model to propose a...
Learning Outcome 01
Demonstrate advanced understanding of the diverse ...
Learning Outcome 02
Apply small business skills to create a business p...
Learning Outcome 03
Proficiently use multiple media to communicate tar...
Learning Outcome 04
Content
This unit includes topics related to the development and demonstration of professional dietetic practice and competence according to the Accreditation Standards of Dietitians Australia. These are described under the heading ‘Building professional dietetic practice’ in each unit outline and build on topics delivered synchronously and progressively throughout the degree. Those in bold reflect ‘new’ topics addressed in this unit. Students will have opportunities for collecting evidence of competence in these, and in other areas (italics).
Building professional dietetic practice
- reflection and evaluation of practice, peer support and assessment
- acknowledges, reflects and understands own values, beliefs, attitudes, biases and assumptions privilege and power, at the individual and systems level, and their influence on practice
- scope of practice and standards of care, codes of conduct
- continuing professional development
- attributes (empathy, flexibility, adaptability, resilience, ethical, respectful, demonstrates integrity honesty, fairness, critical thinker)
- workload and time management, prioritising workload
- excellence of practice
- feedback cycles
- client-centred approach to practice
- technological proficiency
- culturally safe and responsive practice (requiring emotional, spiritual and cultural intelligence)
- active listening, interpersonal and interviewing skills
- collaboration and communication skills with stakeholders
- systematically acquires, evaluates and applies findings into practice
- appropriate decision-making
- understanding and advocating for the role of the dietitian in emerging areas of practice
- digital literacy
- critical, problem-solving approach to practice
- communication skills for conflict resolution
- documentation (preparation, storage and transmission) in accordance with accepted industry standards
This unit requires the completion of 5 days of placement. Content delivery is arranged as required to support these placements and the underpinning theoretical components. This content includes:
Entrepreneurship and innovation
- Entrepreneurship theories: economic, psychological, sociological, anthropological, opportunity and resource-based
- Developing an entrepreneurial mindset
- Research, development, and marketing, knowing your clients and their needs
- Solution-focused approaches and ‘start-ups’
- Social entrepreneurship in focus (social enterprise models, creating social and ethical change, social impact, sustainability)
- Introduction to developing a professional identity/brand
Media skills
- Translating science for stakeholders
- Communication via (multiple) media with stakeholders
- Digital marketing (email, websites, social media, mobile technologies, search engines)
- Building a competitive edge
- Writing for media
Small business skills
- Developing a business plan for a small business that brings together entrepreneurship, marketing and client service with budgeting and book-keeping, project, and time management
- Private practice and consulting logistics
Application to food industry, culinary sector and food and nutrition media
- Targeting media product development
Both professional practice and performance will be directed by the university and the appointed placement supervisor at the host organisation, through a pre-defined and monitored set of criteria which encompass:
- completion of defined project or project element/s
- professional practices/attributes to be demonstrated whilst undertaking the experience
- ability to seek, respond to and provide feedback from supervisors
- overall student performance throughout the placement
Assessment strategy and rationale
Three assessment tasks are sequenced to progressively support students' learning and development of professional competence through authentic assessment.
Assessment task 1, provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to examine the theoretical underpinning of entrepreneurial approaches to business within the food and nutrition context.
Assessment task 2 requires students to constructively apply their learning and feedback to extend the theoretical understanding of assessment task one, by requiring students to focus on producing media to address a food and nutrition problem/s.
Assessment task 3 requires students to constructively apply their learning and feedback to extend the theoretical understanding from assessment tasks one and two, and formulate of a business plan that consolidates the development of professional business competence.
Assessment task 4 (graded hurdle,) is an extension of the professional practice portfolio. In addition to continuing to collect evidence of developing professional competence, students will reflect on the development of their entrepreneurial thinking, supervisor assessment of placement, and development of professional dietetic practice competence. This task is a hurdle to ensure students demonstrate the competency standards required by Dietitians Australia.
There is one ungraded hurdle requirement for this unit, the successful completion of 5 days of professional practice placement.
Overview of assessments
To pass the unit, students must demonstrate that they have achieved each learning outcome, passed any graded or ungraded hurdle tasks and obtained a total mark of 50% in the unit as the minimum standard.
Completing 100% of placement hours is a requirement to pass this unit. Students are required to submit a medical certificate or statutory declaration for any professional experience placement hours missed. An interim grade of “IP” will be made if 100% attendance at the professional experience placement is not achieved.
Assessment 1: Written assessment task Enables st...
Assessment 1: Written assessment task
Enables students to demonstrate their ability to critically review relevant theories and their application to solving food and nutrition problems with entrepreneurial business approaches.
25%
Assessment 2: Multimedia assessment Enables stu...
Assessment 2: Multimedia assessment
Enables students to demonstrate abilities to write and produce a range of assets to market a solution to a food and nutrition problem.
35%
Assessment 3: Written assessment task Enables s...
Assessment 3: Written assessment task
Enables students to demonstrate ability to apply theories to develop a small business plan.
30%
Assessment 4: Professional practice portfolio (G...
Assessment 4: Professional practice portfolio (Graded hurdle)
Enables students to gather evidence of entrepreneurial practice, and critically reflect on supervisor’s report of placement.
*Graded hurdle
10%
Ungraded hurdle Completion of 5 days of placemen...
Ungraded hurdle
Completion of 5 days of placement.
**Ungraded
hurdle
*If a student has not achieved a mark of ≥ 50% for the graded hurdles, one re-attempt may be offered for each to allow demonstration of an appropriate level of competency. The offer of one re-submission will only be made if the student has also successfully completed the ungraded professional practice placement hurdle.
**If a student has not successfully completed the ungraded hurdle, additional placement time (up to one third of total placement time) may be offered to allow demonstration of an appropriate level of competency.
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
The unit content will be over the first three-quarters of semester to allow for practice placements requirements of concurrent units in the latter weeks of semester.
The learning and teaching strategy adopted aligns with the sequencing of the learning outcomes and consists of three phases that are designed to provide students with a developmental learning experience. The unit begins with approaches designed to support acquisition of specialist knowledge needed to understand the theories, principles, and approaches to entrepreneurial small business dietetic practice.
The approaches used to facilitate students’ learning include online learning modules and readings. The unit then builds on this theoretical knowledge and assists students to develop understanding and then application through practical skills development first through case studies and role play/simulation and then practice placement. The practice placement aims to provide students with the opportunity to observe and contribute to an element of work that will support students develop and entrepreneurial approach to practice. Overall, the approaches used in this unit have a constructively aligned developmental sequence designed to progressively, and logically, support students’ learning in ways that maximise the perceived (and actual) relevance and value of each stage. As an overarching strategy, this is expected to engender high levels of engagement, efficiency, and effectiveness in students’ study behaviours, and to maximise their learning achievements. This strategy and approaches will allow students to meet the aim, learning outcomes and graduate attributes of the unit. Learning and teaching approaches will reflect respect for the individual as an independent learner. Students will be expected to take responsibility for their learning and to participate actively in learning activities.