EXSC313 - Aquatics and Athletics

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Teaching organisation

Unit rationale, description and aim

The ability to plan, teach and reflect upon aquatic and athletic movement experiences, and how they might be used to provide core learning experiences, is important in the education and promotion of physical activity. The aim of the unit is to develop in students an understanding of the role and purpose of participating in a range of aquatics and athletic activities to encourage and promote life-long physical activity. Students will participate and actively engage in aquatic and athletic movement skills and the knowledge related to these sports. Students will be able to apply the safety requirements and issues around water activities, athletic equipment and school carnivals. This unit will also focus on an appreciation of social justice, an understanding of equity and a respect for the human being.

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.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Design a variety of teaching and learning activities that develop skills and knowledge in the area of aquatics and water safety for future practice (GA1, GA5, GA8, GA9, GA10)

LO2 - Evaluate and reflect upon effective teaching and learning experiences that facilitate the progression and development of track and field skills in athletics (GA1, GA5, GA7, GA8, GA9)

LO3 - Demonstrate basic athletic and aquatic skills (GA1, GA5)

LO4 - Explain and apply fundamental scientific principles of exercise and progressive movement patterns to facilitate learning and performance in aquatics and athletics (GA4, GA8, GA9)

Graduate attributes

GA1 - demonstrate respect for the dignity of each individual and for human diversity 

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA7 - work both autonomously and collaboratively 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media 

GA10 - utilise information and communication and other relevant technologies effectively.

Content

Topics will include: 

AQUATICS  

• Water familiarisation and principles of movement in water  
• Fundamentals of competitive strokes  
• Aquatic safety and survival skills  
• Organising safe and competitive activities in aquatics  
• Considerations in teaching aquatics  

 ATHLETICS  

• Brief history and organisational structure of athletics.    
• Organising safe and competitive activities in athletics.   
• Fundamentals of athletics events: sprints, hurdles, relays, jumps and throws  
• Basic coaching principles for athletics  

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

This unit employs student-centred teaching and learning strategies based on the principles of constructivism and reflective practice. These strategies encourage independent and life long learning, where students take responsibility for their learning. The learning tasks are authentic (engage in tasks that are real), reflective (deep learning) and collaborative (engaging and working with peers). Student centred strategies include reflective writing, critical thinking activities , co-operative/ collaborative learning, incorporating Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and peer/independent learning. These strategies link directly to the assessment tasks, as the assessments are a teaching and learning strategy in itself. These strategies have been chosen to give students opportunities to actively engage with the content and to provide variety within the tutorial and assessment tasks. The knowledge and skills acquired can be applied and are relevant to what is required in real world situations for future profession/practice/workplace. 

Assessment strategy and rationale

Employers today seek more than knowledge from students, they want them to transfer learning to real situations, problem solve and have higher order thinking skills. Authentic assessment provides students with these skills, because the tasks are real, meaningful, require judgment and innovation and are related to one’s workplace, personal and social life. Students learn in different ways, professionally we need to explore and provide opportunities so they perform to their very best, feel worthwhile, empowered and enjoy learning. In order to best enable students to achieve unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes, standards-based assessment is utilised, consistent with University assessment requirements.

A range of assessment strategies are used including: 

1. Constructivism strategy: Aquatics - Water safety work booklet for Year 7 students to complete in their Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) theory lessons. The booklet should reinforce concepts taught in the practical component and cover other concepts of water safety. This assessment type will prepare students and be applied in real life situations/contexts (school, coaching) and in their future practice/profession.
2. Activity engagement – The first and second assessments are designed to facilitate students’ aquatics and athletic skills learning, understanding and ability to demonstrate related skills for future learners. Students will be required to demonstrate a level of involvement and competency in the skills presented.
3. Collaborative Learning: Athletics teaching presentation - In groups conduct a 15-minute skill session with the class for a specific athletic skill or skill component for an allocated athletic event. To develop and assess student’s skills in researching, preparing, and teaching athletic skills in a ‘class’ or coaching environment. This assessment type will prepare students and be applied in real life situations/contexts (school, coaching) and in their future practice/profession.
4. Reflective writing: Self-assessment - Students will be required to evaluate the effectiveness of their Teaching Presentation considering the success and effectiveness of the overall session and separate tasks individually critically.
5. Examination: Requires students to demonstrate their understanding and application of course content.

This unit contains graded hurdle tasks whereby a particular assignment is the only assignment piece to assess one or more of the learning outcomes of the unit. This can occur when it is deemed necessary to have an explicit learning outcome linked to a key piece of skill or knowledge students are expected to develop within the unit and an assignment is developed to ensure it assesses this learning outcome effectively. This is the case within this unit as it forms part of the collection of units required for students to have Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) as a teaching area once qualified. These units are designed to meet the entry conditions of post graduate teacher training courses as well as state-based PDHPE teacher registration requirements.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Athletics

American Sports Education Program. (2008). Coaching youth track and field. Champaign, Il: Human Kinetics.

Athletics Australia (2022). Athletics Australia Website from http://www.athletics.com.au.  

Guthrie, M. (2003) Coaching track and field successfully. Champaign, Il: Human Kinetics.  

World Athletics https://worldathletics.org/

USA Track and Field (2005). USA Track and Field Coaching Manual (1st Edition). Champaign, Il: Human Kinetics. 

World Athletics. (2022). World Athletics Website from http://www.worldathletics.org .   

Aquatics

Austswim. (2014). Teaching swimming and water safety: the Australian way (3rd ed.). Mulgrave, VIC: Austswim

Lees, T. (2007). Water fun. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics  

Royal Life Saving Society of Australia. (2006). Swim and Survive aquapak. Royal Life Saving Society, Australia.  

Royal Life Saving Society of Australia. (2006). Swimming and lifesaving: water safety for all Australians (5th ed.). Marrickville, NSW: Elsevier Mosby.

Stager, J.M. & Tanner, D.A. (Eds) (2005). Handbook of Sports Medicine and Science: swimming (2nd ed.). Massachusetts, USA: Blackwell Science.