Unit rationale, description and aim
Highly skilled educators benefit from an awareness of diverse world views and cultural perspectives. In order to effectively engage with people and communities characterised by diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds, students benefit from an immersive overseas learning experiences.
This unit includes both study and placement experiences that will enable the development of an ethical and international perspective on education. It focuses specifically on the international context of developing nations including academic study into developing nation educational contexts, fostering critically reflexive skills in the areas of intercultural and ethical understandings in education, comparative studies between developed and developing nation contexts and an in-country professional and community engagement experience program where students will have the opportunity to engage with the local community and schools. It is anticipated that students will have the opportunity to facilitate learning activities during the in-country experience.
The aim of this unit is to foster critically reflective and ethically responsible educators who can contribute to the global education community.
NOTE: Admission into the unit is achieved through a competitive application and selection process.
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.
Identify and describe different political, social ...
Learning Outcome 01
Critically analyse the place of education in addre...
Learning Outcome 02
Demonstrate capacity to actively engage in cultura...
Learning Outcome 03
Critically analyse and report on personal and prof...
Learning Outcome 04
Content
Topics will include:
Module 1: The Human Development Index and Equity and Justice
- Human Development Index (HDI) and its relationship to different political, social and economic contexts across the world
- Developing/developed - Global North and Global South World countries
- Anthropocentric and Eco-centric worldviews
- World Sustainability Goals
- Gender Equity
- Poverty
- Sustainability
- Education
- Universal Human Rights
- How and Why Education Matters
- Hand Up or Hand Out?
Module 2: Personal and Professional Learning
- Personal and Professional Learning Goals
- Individual Research on an Issue of a low HDI country
- Critical Reflexive Practice
Module 3: Your International Placement
Content will be relevant to specific countries in which students are involved and will cover:
- country-specific communication and cultural awareness
- country-specific expectations for engagement
- country-specific capacity-building activities to be planned for and undertaken
- In-country engagement and application of relevant personal and professional learning goals. This experience will be supported in-country by program leader(s).
Module 4: Reflection and Action for Lifelong Learning
- Application of Theory to the International Experience (Sustainability Goals, Quality Education for All, Capacity Building)
- Critical Reflection and Comparative Analysis of Individual Experiences (including Presentations from Assessment Task 3)
- Critical Reflection and Analysis of Rights and Responsibilities as Global Citizens – acting and campaigning for equity and justice in the world.
Assessment strategy and rationale
The assessment tasks for this unit are designed to demonstrate achievement of each learning outcome. In order to pass this unit, students are required to demonstrate achievement of learning outcomes by submitting all assessment tasks and obtaining a combined score of at least 50%. A pass in Assessment Task 2 is a further requirement to meet the learning outcomes of this unit as LO3 is only assessed in this task.
Overview of assessments
Assessment Task 1 Report on a World Sustainabili...
Assessment Task 1
Report on a World Sustainability Issue
Students research and write a literature review of a political, social and/or economic issue associated with the specific context of the individual student’s in-country placement.
30%
Assessment Task 2 Critical Reflection on Placeme...
Assessment Task 2
Critical Reflection on Placement Experience
A critical reflection and analysis of the individual student’s engagement in the placement. Include a description of the cultural context and reflect on at least three World Sustainability Goals and subsequent personal and professional learning from their in-country experience.
35%
Assessment Task 3 Multimedia Presentation A mu...
Assessment Task 3
Multimedia Presentation
A multimedia campaign regarding equity and justice for a selected issue relevant to the international placement experience.
35%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
There are three assessment tasks in this unit; each contributes to meeting the unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes and is consistent with University assessment requirements. Each task is designed to meet a particular goal of global citizenship: background knowledge and content; critical reflection on experiences; planning for action. These goals are reflected in the nature of the three assessment tasks respectively.
AUSTRALIAN PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR TEACHERS - GRADUATE LEVEL
On successful completion of this unit, pre-service teachers should be able to: