essay hhp

Assessment 1 essay (1300 words)

Assessment overview

Diversity, equity and inclusion thread through all aspects of the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2014).

For this essay you should demonstrate effective arguments as to how diversity, equity and inclusion have a particular resonance when teaching the Humanities, Health and Physical Education learning areas. Critically evaluate your reasoning, including support from the Australian Curriculum and academic literature.

Assessment details

Within your essay, respond to the following two prompts:

“.. .it is urgent for schools to have a broad focus whereby diverse student groups develop cultural competencies and grapple with issues of equity, justice and democracy.” (Marsh, 2011, p. 385)

“Issues of understanding, valuing, respecting and including cultural diversity have rarely been so prominent….(Benn, 2012, p. 118)…as educators we need to be aware of the disadvantage certain practices perpetuate but also our potential to ‘make a difference’.” (Benn, 2012, p. 133)

Throughout the essay you will:

use your understanding of what diversity, equity and inclusion are, and critically examine how they relate specifically to the teaching of the humanities and how they relate specifically to Health and Physical Education

critically reflect upon key themes and issues relating to diversity, equity and inclusion that occur across these different learning areas

support your discussions with relevant readings from the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2014), readings presented within the unit and your own wider research

adhere to APA referencing style, including in-text citations and a References list (not included in the word count).

To be able to pass this much follow

1. Knowledge and understanding

A sophisticated understanding of how inclusion, equity and diversity are embedded within the teaching of Humanities, Health and PE. The essay makes discerning and original connections between the key themes and issues across the different learning areas.

2. Depth and breadth

The essay synthesises a wide range of meaningful examples, including the Australian Curriculum and academic readings to support a sophisticated discussion in response to the quote prompts

3. Academic expression

The ideas are presented in a well-structured and logical order. The work is free from any spelling errors or problems with grammar. All external sources are referenced correctly in APA style

References:

Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, ACARA (2014) Australian Curriculum retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/

Benn, T. (2012). Towards inclusion in education and physical education In A. Williams (Ed.), Primary School Physical Education (pp. 118-135). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Marsh, C. (2011) Multicultural Education, Global Studies and Studies of Asia. In C. Marsh & C. Hart

(Eds.), Teaching the Social Sciences and Humanities in an Australian curriculum (p. 385) Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Australia.

What are we doing?

The first assessment task is an essay. In this essay you must develop an argument and write to the reader of the veracity and validity of your argument. To complete this effectively is to use evidence, and so you must read widely and support your claims with evidence from literature.

What do I do?

Let’s unpack the task requirements        

 Here’s the “topic statement” and required content specifications:

Diversity, equity and inclusion thread through all aspects of the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2014).

In answering this question, you need to:

1. Demonstrate how diversity, equity and inclusion have resonance (significance) when teaching Humanities, Health and Physical Education;

2. Critically evaluate your reasons by including support from the Australian Curriculum AND academic literature.

You must also include a response to BOTH of the following two prompts:

“...it is urgent for schools to have a broad focus whereby diverse student groups develop cultural competencies and grapple with issues of equity, justice and democracy” (Marsh, 2011, p385).

“Issues of understanding, valuing respecting and including cultural diversity have rarely been so prominent...(Benn, 2012, p.118)...as educators we need to be aware of the disadvantage certain practices perpetuate but also our potential to ‘make a difference” (Benn, 2012, p.133).

Breaking down Assessment Task One:

The focus of Assessment 1 is to demonstrate your understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion and outline why these are important for teaching and learning in Humanities and Health and Physical Education.

As your word limit is 1300 words, we are advising you to focus on key themes and issues relating to diversity, equity and inclusion and how they relate between the curriculum areas (Humanities, Health & PE)

So, if you find you are in the situation where you need to reduce your word count we strongly advise that you do not do this by reducing discussion around diversity, equity and inclusion.

The marking rubric will give you a clear indication of the important points to cover.  In brief:

1) Demonstrates knowledge and understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion in Humanities, Health and PE. Demonstrates connections of key themes across the different learning areas (50%)

2) Synthesise on a wide range of examples from academic readings and the Australian curriculum to support discussion including a response to both of the quote prompts (30%)

3) Academic expression – Essay is presented in a logical order, spelling and grammar accurate. All external sources correctly use APA style referencing (20%).

So to reduce your word count it is also advised that you do not reduce discussion around inclusiveness, engagement, differentiation.  Perhaps look at how many methods you are discussing...

Some comments on structuring your essay

Essays  don’t  typically have headings and sections, so  please don’t use headings. 

 This can be daunting for some people who find this a useful organisational feature for their writing so we’ve provided some comments and suggestions below on structuring your essay. Hopefully these pointers will give some people more confidence about how they could structure their response without headings.

You should also write this essay in third person. Here is a useful link to help you with this:

http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/320179/writing-in-the-third-person.pdf

 The first paragraph is your introduction: aim for 50- 100 words. It needs to mention the particular strategies you will address broadly, and explain how you will respond to the task. As well as this, try to find a way to interest the reader by indicating your particular approach or insight. 

-------Body paragraphs: 900 – 1100 words ------------

 There are a number of ways you could structure the rest of the body paragraphs in your essay that would work well. Remember, the task asks you, first and foremost, to demonstrate how diversity, equity and inclusion have a particular resonance when teaching Humanities, Health and Physical Education.

Aim for an integrated response to avoid repetition and do a close analysis of the task description and the rubric for ideas about how you might structure your paragraphs to hit all the targets.

Conclusion: again 50-100 words. Outline how the strategies support pedagogy for the primary classroom and address the diverse needs of students and restate what these are. Don’t add any new content in this paragraph. Look online for tutorials and tips on how to write effective conclusions to academic essays.

In all parts of your essay, aim to write paragraphs that are well-structured and satisfying to the reader with each topic fully explained and assertions and/or analysis you make strongly supported with references. Have a look at this source with a simple paragraph structure demonstrating this concept -  http://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/paragraph-teel-sample

 

Other useful resources:

http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/waw/089-110_WritersAtWork_CH04.pdf

http://www.hamilton.edu/writing/writing-resources/persuasive-essays

http://scu.edu.au/assignment-navigator/index.php/7

http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/index.xml

What do you mean by academic research?

Have a look at the rubric (always a good idea since that’s what we use to mark your work!). Have a look at a good teaching textbook and you’ll see APA citations throughout for the ideas and information presented about good teaching and other aspects of your profession. These citations refer to academic research work and other material that provides valid evidence for the effectiveness of these practices and approaches.

It’s important to cite the unit learning material as much as possible to provide support for your ideas in the assessment, but you will also have to do a bit of “further exploration” to find strong academic sources to support your discussion. Make sure you put any ideas in your own words and cite these sources correctly to avoid plagiarism issues.

References:

For this assessment, you need to show a good understanding of the Australian Curriculum and academic material (including weekly readings). You do this by citing a number of these to support your discussion regarding your choices of strategies. We also expect that you are looking at other texts to inform your understanding of how strategies support pedagogy for the classroom and that you also cite some of these to support your discussion.

The rubric does not indicate the number of references required (entries in your reference list). You should aim for a mix of unit and wider research sources. We are always asked how many references are required.....this is an interesting question! In short we look for quality over quantity, in saying this you also need to demonstrate that you have read widely, so don’t rely on just one or two authors. You can, of course, cite individual references any number of times in your text if this is appropriate; just vary this throughout your submission.

Here’s a beginner’s guide to APA referencing to add to the other APA resources we've given you in the Tips:

http://library.ucol.ac.nz/~upload/Library%20Documents/APA_Beginners_Guide_6th_edition.pdf

You can also look at the samples used within your unit materials on how APA structure can be applied to some of your readings. Here are a range of resources which may help you further with your research and writing:

APA style guide

Tips for finding academic resources

http://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/paragraph-teel-sample

http://learninghub.une.edu.au/tlc/aso/aso-online/academic-writing/

http://www.csu.edu.au/division/studserv/my-studies/learning/pdfs/apa.pdf

Also be wary of Wikipedia – this is not an academic resource and should not be cited in your submission!

Reminders:

Edit your work carefully. Does it flow? Do your sentences make sense when you read them one at a time? Is each word you have chosen the most appropriate/correct/best word you could use? Have you used three words when one would have done? Have you made deliberate decisions about each word you choose? Have you answered each question? Have you referenced correctly? How do you know? Is your work grammatically correct? Is it typographically correct? Have you written complete sentences? Have you avoided colloquial language? Have you put together a checklist of all these ways to edit your work so that the process becomes an automatic one before you submit your work? Is your work formatted correctly? Is your right margin 3cm? Have you remembered to change the line spacing to 1.5? Have you taken care with your work to ensure you submit the highest quality work you can submit?

Proofread your work thoroughly. Have you started at the end and read backwards? Have you read your work aloud, stopping at the full stops, pausing at the commas? Have you used semi-colons appropriately? Are your apostrophes in the right places? Have you used the correct form of their/there/they’re? Have you avoided using contractions? Have you ensured you’ve written in third person – removing all instances of ‘we’ or ‘our’ or ‘I’?

Read through the marking rubric carefully, noting what the requirements of a pass are so that you are not surprised by any of the descriptors. If you are aiming for more than that, have you fulfilled all of the requirements of the pass level, and then considered what else you need to do to for your work to be awarded a credit (or higher)?

Check your referencing. Have you made claims that you have not supported with evidence? Have you referenced correctly, both in-text and in your reference list?

Take responsibility for your own submission. Submit it to Turnitin early so that you can get an originality report and fix any issues the originality report highlights.