James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2023

ED4995 - Education Across Culturally Diverse Contexts

Mixed attendance offering available only to RATEP students.

Subject Description

Pre-service teachers will engage with the culturally diverse and complex local contexts of schools and classrooms, in the context of regional, national and international influences and issues on Australian educational outcomes and sustainable futures. The subject attends to the cross curriculum priorities of the National Curriculum and intercultural understandings for culturally responsive teaching and learning practice. The subject is integrated and works to prepare for ED4460 Service Learning for Sustainable Futures. The subject consolidates a range of learnings across the four year degree requiring students to critically reflect on pedagogical and ethical practice, professional experience, research, and policy to assure understanding of the APST standards 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7. Students will engage with the historical and contemporary issues touching education including systemic disparity, inequity and wicked problems within Australia; globalization and global sustainable development objectives; ethnic, racial and religious diversity; gender and accessibility, acknowledging the shifting and dynamic changes of contemporary debates. Students will apply critical, developmental and interpretivism theoretical frameworks to critique and challenge given social constructions and normative assumptions and take a reflexive stance on their own identity and agency as a graduate teacher as a civic minded and futures oriented, teacher leader. The subject will take a blended learning approach and focus on providing opportunities for students to practice their knowledge application and refine teaching skills in a safe and supported environment. PSTs will engage deeply with concepts of social justice and ethics to enact change through wider professional experience in this capstone phase.

Learning Outcomes

• apply critical knowledge and understanding of the role of education in addressing contemporary social, economic, environmental and cultural issues, locally and globally
• demonstrate professional communication skills to build productive and collaborative relationships with colleagues and community partnerships
• develop professional identities and ethical frameworks by analysing and reflecting on narratives of practice in diverse contexts to identify continuing professional learning needs and goals
• evaluate school community contexts using theoretical frameworks and applied research techniques with a focus on diverse community assets and attributes
• apply knowledge of learners and differentiate learning within the framework of the Australian Curriculum to respond successfully and ethically to diverse contexts

Subject Assessment

• Written > Critical appraisal/review - (25%) - Individual
• Written > Learning plan - (50%) - Individual
• Written > Self-reflection task - (25%) - Individual

Note that minor variations might occur due to the continuous subject quality improvement process, and in case of minor variation(s) in assessment details, the Subject Outline represents the latest official information.

Availabilities