EDU8011 Professional Culture, Dynamics and Change in Early Childhood Education
|Semester 2, 2013 Online Toowoomba|
|Faculty or Section :||Faculty of Education|
|School or Department :||Education|
|Version produced :||21 July 2014|
Examiner: Nicole Green
Moderator: Karen Noble
This course requires students to examine the nature of values and professional culture and how these are central to the early childhood professional's connectedness with children, families, community and the profession. In this engagement with the ethical dimensions of early childhood education, students will be provided with the opportunity to explore a range of ethical issues including the ethics of care, the commitment to the profession and issues around workforce capacity building in different early childhood contexts. Importantly, students will explore the intersection of their personal and professional identities. Professional culture, dynamics and issues of change will be examined by drawing upon global perspectives impacting the early childhood field.
In this course you will develop a deeper and broader understanding of the culture and dynamics of professionalism in early childhood education in contemporary times. This will involve:
- building a critical awareness of the complexity, commitments and the ethical dilemmas inherent in the work of an early childhood professional;
- critical reflection of early childhood practice;
- exploration of professionalism in early childhood education through work force capacity building, leadership and change management in early childhood education for both individuals and organizations.
Strategies and processes for effective professional relationships in early childhood settings are examined with particular emphasis on managing roles and relationship in complex teams; supporting families and guiding young children.
Leadership skills, professionalism and teacher researcher and critical reflection are highlighted.
The course objectives define the student learning outcomes for a course. The assessment item(s) that may be used to assess student achievement of an objective are shown in parenthesis. On completion of this course students will be able to:
- identify different theoretical frameworks and contexts that have influenced the culture of the early childhood workforce (Assignment 1)
- analyse various paradigms employed to construct the early childhood professional (All assessments).
- Build upon knowledge and skills for effective leadership and management in early childhood services
- Explore critical reflection and democratic processes for professional development and efficacy development
- explicitly articulate personal and social values base for critically reflecting on, practicing and innovating within the early childhood field (All assessments).
- demonstrate competence in and appropriate use of language and literacy, including spelling, grammar, punctuation and bibliographic referencing. (All assessments)
|1.||Theory and the impact of social and political contexts influencing the culture of early childhood education.||20.00|
|2.||Professionalism in early childhood education||20.00|
|3.||Critical reflection of early childhood practices||30.00|
|4.||Professional learning in early childhood education||30.00|
Text and materials required to be purchased or accessed
ALL textbooks and materials available to be purchased can be sourced from USQ's Online Bookshop (unless otherwise stated). (https://bookshop.usq.edu.au/bookweb/subject.cgi?year=2013&sem=02&subject1=EDU8011)
Please contact us for alternative purchase options from USQ Bookshop. (https://bookshop.usq.edu.au/contact/)
- There are no texts or materials required for this course.
Anning, A., Cullen, J. & Fleer, M 2009, Early childhood education: society and culture, 2nd edn, Sage Publications, Los Angeles, California.
Dahlberg, G., & Moss, P 2005, Ethics and politics in early childhood education, Routledge Falmer, London: New York.
Dahlberg, G., Moss, P., & Pence, A 2007, Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Languages of evaluation, 2nd edn, Routledge, London.
MacNaughton, G 2005, Doing Foucault in early childhood studies: Applying post-structural ideas, Routledge, London.
MacNaughton, G., & Hughes, P 2009, Doing Action Research in Early Childhood Studies: a step-by-step guide, Open University Press, Maidenhead, England.
Student workload requirements
|Description||Marks out of||Wtg (%)||Due Date||Notes|
|ASSIGNMENT 1||50||50||04 Sep 2013|
|ASSIGNMENT 2||50||50||23 Oct 2013|
Important assessment information
There are no attendance requirements for this course. However, it is the students' responsibility to participate appropriately in all activities including discussion fora 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.
Requirements for students to complete each assessment item satisfactorily:
To satisfactorily complete an individual assessment item a student must achieve at least 50% of the marks.
Penalties for late submission of required work:
If students submit assignments after the due date without (prior) approval of the examiner then a penalty of 5% of the total marks gained by the student for the assignment may apply for each working day late up to ten working days at which time a mark of zero may be recorded. No assignments will be accepted after model answers have been posted
Requirements for student to be awarded a passing grade in the course:
To be assured of receiving a passing grade a student must achieve at least 50% of the total weighted marks available for the course.
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.
There is no examination in this course.
Examination period when Deferred/Supplementary examinations will be held:
As there are no examinations in this course, there will be no deferred or supplementary examinations.
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 http://policy.usq.edu.au.
APA style is the referencing system required in this course. Students should use APA style in their assignments 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. http://www.usq.edu.au/library/referencing
Students will require access to e-mail and have Internet access to UConnect for this course.