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Staffing

Examiner:

Requisites

Pre-requisite: ESP2200 or EDS2402 and Students must be enrolled in one of the following Programs: BEDU or BSED

Other requisites

It is highly recommended this course be undertaken after successfully completing all teaching area courses.

Students must have successfully completed the entire previous year’s Professional Experience courses in order to enrol in this course. Students must be available for a prescribed period of time to undertake a placement in a school or other approved site as required in this course.

Before commencing this course students will be assumed to have read the full details of Professional Experience particulars and familiarised themselves with the requirements. Please see the Education Placement Professional Experience website and the Professional Experience Book for full details.

State law in Queensland (Australia) requires that all adults working/undertaking professional experience/researching with children under the age of 18, in the state of Queensland must hold a valid blue card OR exemption card .
If undertaking placement outside of Queensland you must ensure that all relevant checks are completed and evidence of this is provided to the Professional Experience office .

Provided a blue card renewal application has been submitted at least 30 days before expiry of the current card, the blue card will remain active while the renewal application is processed (details available at .

Blue Card Services cannot process a form dated more than 16 weeks prior to lodgement. In addition, a representative of USQ or a Justice of the Peace, must sight the applicant’s identification documents and check the information on the form, before signing and dating the USQ declaration (refer to .

Where a student is denied approval for a blue card, enrolment in any initial teacher education program will be withdrawn (refer to .
If undertaking Professional Experience outside of Queensland, students are advised to check the Working with Children requirements of the state within which Professional Experience will be undertaken (refer to .

Rationale

As the final course with an embedded Professional Experience placement, the Reflexive Practitioner provides opportunities for pre-service teachers to engage in data driven instruction and provide clear and accountable evidence of their learning and readiness for the classroom. Data driven instruction is the core business of teachers’ work, enabling teachers with a process of practice that targets instruction to meet the needs of all students. Consisting of a cyclical set of stages, teachers collect, collate and analyse student data to inform planning. Throughout the cycle, teachers participate in critical reflection to consider their teaching practice and the impact of their teaching on student learning. In doing so, teachers have a mechanism by which their teaching can undergo continuous improvement for the benefit of all students.

Synopsis

The Reflexive Practitioner course is built on the understanding that reflexivity is central to teaching and learning in the teaching profession. This course provides opportunities for pre-service teachers implement a data driven instruction cycle through the Graduate Teacher Performance Assessment (GTPA). This course is the final Professional Experience before pre-service teachers complete their Unsupervised placement. The course requires pre-service teachers to gather evidence of the teacher they are becoming and evaluate the impact this has upon their learners as well as justifying their repertoire of teaching practices.

A 25-day professional experience placement is attached to this course. For full details of the Professional Experience particulars, please refer to the Professional Experience website and the Professional Experience Book.

Objectives

Topics

Text and materials required to be purchased or accessed

Reference materials

Student workload expectations

Assessment details

Important assessment information

1. Attendance requirements:
   
   It is the students’ responsibility to attend and participate appropriately in all activities scheduled for them, and to study all material provided to them or required to be accessed by them to maximise their chance of meeting the objectives of the course and to be informed of course-related activities and administration
   
   
2. Requirements for students to complete each assessment item satisfactorily:
   
   To complete assessment items satisfactorily, students must obtain at least 50% of the marks available for each item in addition to the successful completion of the Professional Experience component. Failure of the Professional Experience component will result in a Fail grade for this course.
   
   
3. Penalties for late submission of required work:
   
   Students should refer to the Assessment Procedure (point 4.2.4)
   
   
4. Requirements for student to be awarded a passing grade in the course:
   
   To be assured of receiving a passing grade a student must successfully complete the Professional Experience component and must achieve at least 50% of the total weighted marks available for the course. Failure of the Professional Experience component will result in a Fail grade for this course.
   
   
5. Method used to combine assessment results to attain final grade:
   
   The final grades for students will be assigned on the basis of the aggregate of the weighted marks obtained for each of the summative assessment items in the course.
   
   
6. Examination information:
   
   There is no examination in this course.
   
   
7. Examination period when Deferred/Supplementary examinations will be held:
   
   There is no examination in this course, there will be no deferred or supplementary examinations.
   
   
8. University Student Policies:
   
   Students should read the USQ policies: Definitions, Assessment and Student Academic Misconduct to avoid actions which might contravene University policies and practices. These policies can be found at .
   
   

Assessment notes

1. Referencing in assignments must comply with the APA referencing system. This system should be used by students to format details of the information sources they have cited in their work. The APA style to be used is defined by the USQ library's referencing guide. This guide can be found at .
   
   
2. Students are required to demonstrate competence in and appropriate use of academic language and literacy, including spelling, grammar, punctuation, and referencing in all assessment responses. Marks allocated to the aforementioned criteria will be specified in the criteria for assessment of all assessment items.
   
   
3. Students are required to submit ALL assignments to evidence meeting or exceeding the mandatory requirements of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs).
   
   
4. The successful completion of the Graduate Teacher Performance Assessment (GTPA) is a requirement for graduation from all Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs.
   
   
5. Professional Experience is a compulsory component of this course and integral to completion of the assessment tasks. Dates for each Professional Experience course are selected to support students’ capacity to apply the theory of the coursework in the Professional Experience placement. Students are advised not to select a course that includes Professional Experience in a semester where they are unable to meet the specified requirements of Professional Experience. Any application for a ‘change of dates’ for Professional Experience placement must qualify for consideration under the conditions of the USQ Assessment Extension Policy. An unsupported application will delay program completion.
   
   
6. APSTs with an * in the objectives indicates a context-dependent APST for the GTPA task. Preservice teachers may have the opportunity to demonstrate these APSTs as a result of Professional Experience in relevant contexts.
   
   

Evaluation and benchmarking

In meeting the University’s aims to establish quality learning and teaching for all programs, this course monitors and ensures quality assurance and improvements in at least two ways. This course:
1. conforms to the USQ Policy on Evaluation of Teaching, Courses and Programs to ensure ongoing monitoring and systematic improvement
2. forms part of the Bachelor of Education and is benchmarked against the:

1. internal USQ accreditation/reaccreditation processes which include (i) stringent standards in the independent accreditation of its academic programs, (ii) close integration between business and academic planning, and (iii) regular and rigorous review
2. Queensland College of Teachers
3. Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL).

Other requirements

1. Pre-requisite knowledge: Students can expect that questions in assessment items in this course may draw upon knowledge and skills that they can reasonably be expected to have acquired before enrolling in this course. This includes knowledge contained in pre-requisite courses and appropriate communication, information literacy, analytical, critical thinking, problem solving or numeracy skills. Students who do not possess such knowledge and skills should not expect the same grades as those students who do possess them.
   
   
2. Participation: Students can expect it will be necessary to participate in and contribute to a range of learning opportunities in this course including online study activities, lectures, tutorials, seminar presentations, group discussions and self-directed study activities in order to apply the coursework that will enable quality assessment tasks to be submitted as evidence of professional development.