Chemistry: Curriculum Studies (EDUC4633)

All students are expected to complete a safety declaration in order to work in the laboratory. The university requires this declaration to be current within 5 years. Records are kept on the OHS database. Laboratory conditions for Education are considered to be any space where scientific activity is taking place. Students must be aware that this also translates to secondary classrooms where safety is paramount and risk assessment is critical. 

Assessment Task 1 includes the successful completion of three components: (1) the Online Safety Course, (2) Student Safety Declaration and (3) a Laboratory Induction video. 

The Undergraduate Online Safety Course is completed at the link provided on the course Blackboard site. The Student Safety Declaration is completed as an online quiz on the course Blackboard site. 

Assessment Task 1 is a Hurdle Task, meaning it must be completed to complete the course successfully. You must also successfully complete it prior to being allowed to continue to participate in laboratory sessions throughout the course. 

There is no percentage of your grade associated with this task.

Objectives: 

• Provide an opportunity to consider content knowledge and effective teaching strategies associated with well-researched hard-to-teach concepts for your science curriculum studies area(s).
• Consider how best to represent complex ideas and processes in your science curriculum studies area(s) to make learning more accessible to students;
• To enhance understanding of the development and classroom management of mathematical reasoning activities in your science curriculum studies area(s);
• To enhance understanding of the development and classroom management of practical activities in your science curriculum studies areas(s);
• To gain exposure to the teaching of a variety of laboratory activities and topics in your science curriculum studies area(s);
• To plan and work/teach collegially within a team;
• To develop pedagogical skills around investigative inquiry;
• To gain ideas around mandatory/suggested practical activities that permit first-hand data collection (aligns with syllabus requirements for Student Experiments and Data Test question). 

Task description:

Plan, present and evaluate a 30-minute lesson based on a practical activity from the relevant senior syllabus.  

Task requirements:

This assessment consists of three components:  

Component 1: Lesson proposal including:

• Identification of the practical
• List of equipment and variables
• Methodology for the practical
• Risk assessment (using the template available on Blackboard)
• A detailed lesson plan identifying:
• objectives of the lesson
• a strategy for assigning student into groups
• timing for each phase of the lesson
• contribution of each presenter
• any other resources

You must email the proposal documents to your course coordinator and laboratory officer at least one week prior to your presentation. 

Consult with the course coordinator or laboratory officer only on this part of your task.

Component 2: 30-minute lesson presentation

You will present the lesson, typically as a member of 2-3 person teaching group (in some smaller cohorts you may present individually). Each member of the group will present a section of the lesson. 

Other members of your Curriculum Studies class will participate in the lesson as ‘students’. Consider providing a handout for each lesson participant. This could include:  

• background information
• diagrams and/or methodology
• table for recording data
• questions for individual, group or whole class discussion
• space to determine science inquiry skills, e.g., writing a research question or conclusion
• references

Component  3: Reflection on the lesson

• A report (up to 1800 words) to be submitted through Turnitin on the Blackboard site one week after your group presentation.
• Include your lesson proposal and any handouts or presentation slides used during the lesson as appendices. (Similarity report should be no higher than 30%)
• The report must be done individually.
• Frame your report around the following headings:

o  Critical Reflection: Evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson by identifying:

• Strengths and weaknesses in teaching practice, presentation, classroom management etc.
• Alternative strategies to address perceived deficiencies
• Issues associated with the timing of activities, e.g. strategies used to keep on time, changes to lesson plan timing (where necessary)
• Changes made to the original lesson plan (either made during the delivery of the lesson or proposed for future lessons)

o  Background concepts:

• Identify how the practical aligns with the current senior syllabus
• Provide an explanation of the concepts that were covered in the lesson suitable for students at an appropriate age (i.e. Year 11 or 12). You may refer to resources used in your lesson.

o  Safety Considerations:

• Consider whether your risk assessment adequately managed the risks associated with this practical.

o  Data test ideas:

• Use the data collected in the practical activity (or similar authentic data) to design a set of data test questions.
• Include at least one question for each of the Syllabus objectives assessed by the data test (i.e. objectives 2-4)
• See the QCAA website for a sample data test. (Note you cannot use the sample data test questions for your assessment)

APST 2.1, 3.3, 4.2, 5.1, 6.4

Objectives:

The main objective of this assignment is to support the development of skills for planning a unit of work plan (formerly called a Teaching Learning and Assessment Plan (TLAP) and this language is still common in schools). The focus is on choosing a variety of strategies and learning experiences for a series of lessons in a sequence of learning and supports the goal for inquiry-based design. More specifically the objectives are to: 

• Develop a practical understanding of the relationships between curriculum, assessment, learning sequence and resource design.
• Gain an understanding of how to align the planning of learning sequence and assessment a unit of work for years 7-10 with the P-10 Australian Curriculum: Science in the content sub-strands of Biological, Chemical, Physical or Earth or Environmental Science (i.e. within your science curriculum studies area(s)).
• Design an inquiry-oriented learning sequence using the 5Es or LIA instructional planning framework.

Task Description:

This task requires you to develop a unit of work plan for a Year 7, 8, 9 or 10 class. The plan will align with the Australian Curriculum for 7 to 10 Science.

You will

• choose the topic from a selection of year level overviews provided to you,
• follow the QCAA unit of work template P–10 Science planning resources (Version 9.0) | Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority,
• use the 5Es or LIA inquiry instructional planning framework to sequence the teaching, learning and assessment.

 Your unit of work plan will follow the QCAA guides and will include:

1.      Overview:

 Provide an overview of the context of the school (with identified learning needs within the cohort) and then the unit that specifically links to the Australian Curriculum for Year 7 to 10 Science content. Consider:

a)      How the concepts connect in your unit of work plan using a concept map.

b)     What are questions that will shape the inquiry? These questions could relate to content (the science understanding strand) or skills (the inquiry skills strand) or to the ethical, social, legal or economical impact of science on society (consider the science as a human endeavour strand here).

c)      How does your unit of work plan fit within the context of a 10-week school term? If your plan is for the first part of the term, what will students do in the subsequent weeks? If your TLAP is the end of the term, what will students do in the preceding weeks? Identify any prior learning that is expected.

d)     Describe the big ideas of the unit, e.g. key content/concepts.

2.      Assessment:

a)      Identify the achievement standard and content description V9.0 for the year level to be addressed and the particular aspects of the achievement standard that the unit of work plan will focus on found at P–10 Science (Version 9.0) | Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority

b)     Describe what students are to do to demonstrate their understanding of the content/skills being focused on within the unit of work plan. Identify the range of assessment strategies to be used (e.g. formative, summative etc.)

c)      Identify the assessment technique that will be used to gather summative evidence of learning (i.e. Research Investigation, experimental investigation, found in ‘techniques and conditions’ at P–10 Science assessment resources (Version 9.0) | Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority).

d)      Include details of your assessment in the task sheet template found on P–10 Science assessment resources (Version 9.0) | Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority.

e)      Create a task-specific criteria sheet using the task-specific standards under ‘standard elaborations’ at https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/p-10/aciq/version-9/learning-areas/p-10-science/p-10-science-assessment-resources

f)       Consider how many lessons within the unit of work plan you will need to provide for students to work on the culminating assessment task using the advice in the ‘techniques and conditions’ at P–10 Science assessment resources (Version 9.0) | Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority.

Describe what students are to do to demonstrate their understanding of the content/skills being focused on within the unit of work plan. Identify a range of assessment strategies to be used (e.g. formative, summative etc.

3.      An overview for integration of general capabilities (GCs)/cross-curriculum priorities (CCPs):

a) The curriculum and assessment plan https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/p- 10/aciq/version-9/learning-areas/p-10-science/p-10-science-planning- resources will suggest which general capabilities (GCs) and cross-curriculum priorities (CCPs) to address

b) Provide a description of how the GCs and CCPs are embedded within the learning sequence and assessment. Give specific examples from the learning sequence.

4.      A sequence of learning planned weekly with justified teaching and learning experiences:  

a) Within the QCAA unit of work template provided, describe a weekly plan assuming three 70-minute lessons within the week. Consider carefully what can realistically be delivered in the available lesson time across the week.

b) Use the 5Es or LIA instructional planning framework to sequence learning; selecting and describing activities that align with each phase of your chosen framework.

c) Identify how curriculum requirements, and prior assessment and reporting, will inform design of the learning sequence. Identify what you want students to be able to do (learning intentions and success criteria) by the end of each lesson or series of lessons, and list strategies you would use to check that students have met these objectives (opportunities for feedback).

 d) Demonstrate knowledge of and skill in planning and sequencing content and tasks so that they become increasingly challenging and incorporate spacing and retrieval practice (CC 2.1 – assessed). In addition, demonstrate knowledge of and skill in explicit teaching, modelling and scaffolding practices that support how a student’s brain learns (CC 2.2 – assessed).

e) Identify adjustments for one of the following: culturally, religiously or linguistically diverse need; low literacy or low numeracy need; any other disability either intellectual, physical, well-being or mental health need.

5.      Resources:

a.   Include a list of resources directly relevant to your 5E or LIA activities (with URLs or textbook name and page numbers etc) in your unit of work plan. Identify any additional resources that are relevant to the content, but not to the particular teaching and learning sequence, in a list of ‘other’ resources at the end of your plan.

b.     Include a vocabulary list in your unit of work plan.

c.       Where necessary, identify any risk assessment strategies.

d.       Identify and describe one of your 5E or LIA learning activities:

-Addressing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

-Focussing on a literacy skill associated with assessment or around a cognitive verb

-Focussing on a numeracy skill (e.g. graphical representations)

-Focussing on ICT (you could include this in your STEM activity)

There are both group and individual aspects to this assignment. Once the group tasks have been completed in the time provided to you within your practical sessions, cease to collaborate and continue planning individually. 

Group Tasks:

As a group you will complete:

a)      the concept map

b)     the assessment task for the unit with a task and task-specific criteria sheet

c)      a large collection of possible resources/learning experiences/strategies

d)     a possible learning sequence using the 5Es or LIA inquiry instructional planning framework

e)     the STEM task

 Individual Tasks:

As an individual you will complete:

a)      a description of the context for the school you are considering in your unit of work plan

b)     the list of questions that guide the inquiry through the unit of work plan

c)      the weekly learning sequence using the 5Es or LIA inquiry instructional planning framework

d)     the justified selection of learning experiences/strategies/resources that align with your learning objectives and success criteria

e)     the adjustment for a diverse need across the unit of work plan

 Please submit your concept map, unit of work plan, assessment task sheet and task-specific criteria sheet to Turnitin through the Blackboard site for the course.

APST: 1.5, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 5.1

Core Content Learning Outcomes assessed: 2.1, 2.2

Objectives:

This assignment is intended to strengthen skills in translating ideas from engagement with professional networks, associations, professional development activities and the research literature into classroom practice. This has become an international focus – to foster teachers as researchers with the view to getting teachers to focus on their impact on learning in the classroom through varied evidence-informed strategies. The assignment also achieves other objectives including:

• To gain knowledge of contemporary approaches related to science education and an ability to incorporate them into pedagogy, curriculum and assessment design;
• To broaden disciplinary knowledge base and develop qualities as a reflective practitioner,
• To gain ideas on pedagogy, curriculum design and delivery
• To develop the capacity to translate professional learning/research into practice
• To build your capacity for professional engagement and communication

Rationale:

It is important that you not only professionally engage with multiple sources of information and support but also that you come into contact with some of the professional literature that relates to science education. It is easy to access research literature through Google Scholar, where there are often pdf or html attachments available to the public. The benefits of engaging with the profession and regular literature (books and articles) reading cannot be over-estimated. Teachers can quickly feel they are part of a global group rather than an isolated local one. Ideas can be gleaned and exchanged. Specific benefits include: 

• ideas for new, or modified topics
• information on, and criticism of, new books or equipment
• new ideas for practical activities
• new insights into scientific knowledge
• suggestions for the resolution of student difficulties
• strategies for helping particular special needs
• recreational science ideas and competitions
• historical, philosophical and social relevance ideas
• a wide variety of viewpoints which extend beyond our immediate colleagues

Task description:

You will select a personal professional goal related specifically to science education based on your own reflection of areas of interest or need in your professional practice. You will need a unique professional goal for each curriculum studies area/course in Science in which you are enrolled.

The task is in two parts, a 10-minute presentation to your peers during a lab session and a commentary on four literature sources.

Presentation:

You will deliver a 10-minute presentation that briefly outlines your professional goal, how you have engaged during the year with professional networks (i.e., professional learning opportunities, teacher discussion groups etc.) or associations/organisations (e.g. STAQ, ASTA, CSIRO, QCAA, QLD MUSEUM this is not an exhaustive list) and how that has benefited your professional goal (give examples in the context of science classroom practice). You will also engage your peers in discussion through questioning or a very short activity. 

Commentary:

As part of this assignment, one week after your presentation, you will also submit commentaries on 4 pieces of literature related to your goal and taken from 4 different sources. The sources chosen should (a) be in professional academic publications - peer reviewed journal articles or book chapters, (b) be appropriately current - focus on the past 5 years, but there may be key, highly cited and influential papers that are older than that and (c) directly influence and inform your own teaching practice in the senior secondary discipline you are preparing to teach, not teaching or science teaching more broadly. Your commentaries should consist of:

The full APA formatted source and approximately 400 words commentary for each source that includes:

1. A concise but detailed synopsis describing the salient points of the source
2. A description of how the source relates to your experiences around your personal professional goal
3. A description of how you will apply the ideas within the source within the classroom with specific examples

First person language is appropriate

Refer to other references where required to acknowledge intellectual property.

Note on submission:

On the final deadline, please submit your commentary and your presentation (appended) to Turnitin through the Blackboard site for the course. 

APST 1.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4