Unit rationale, description and aim
Pre-service teachers must support all students as unique learners with diverse strengths, backgrounds, challenges, interests, and capabilities. They need to be flexible, open-minded, and reflective life-long learners who can adapt curricula to teach all students effectively, including those with disabilities, through inclusive practice.
This unit promotes strength-based, student-centered inclusive practice. It covers contemporary knowledge about sociocultural impacts on learning and strategies to overcome barriers to equitable access and participation. It also includes forming collaborative partnerships with parents/carers, community services, and professionals, and differentiating for students with disabilities. Human rights, anti-discrimination, and ethical principles are analysed within policy frameworks and legislative requirements.
Students will develop the ACU Graduate Capabilities of Insight by reflecting on their attitudes and role in inclusive practice; Empathy by engaging with stakeholder perspectives; Imagination by designing creative differentiated strategies to address barriers to access and participation; and Impact by building capacity for future ethical engagement in inclusive practice.
The aim of this unit is to equip pre-service teachers with evidence-based knowledge, innovative pedagogical skills, and practical experiences to support all students as unique individuals and help them reach their full potential through effective inclusive practice.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Describe the complex nature of student diversity a...
Learning Outcome 01
Explain how relevant policy, legal and curriculum ...
Learning Outcome 02
Construct responsive differentiated teaching, lear...
Learning Outcome 03
Evaluate strategies for building respectful collab...
Learning Outcome 04
Exercise critical thinking and judgements through ...
Learning Outcome 05
Content
Topics will include:
- The fundamental concepts of inclusive education, how inclusive school cultures are promoted through ethical practices and notions of social justice, and current international, national and state legislative requirements and policies relating to inclusive practice and equity of educational experiences. The historical development of inclusive education from exclusion to inclusion includes concepts with specific reference to the difference between the medical model of disability and the social model of disability, and the difference between integration and inclusion.
- The nature of diversity, including students with disability
- Diversity statements in the Australian Curriculum and the foundations of the Disability Standards for Education
- Student resilience and well-being as supported through pro-social practices and embedding the teaching of social-emotional skills within the curriculum
- Evidence of the impact of inclusion for students with and without disability, and the importance of ‘student voice’ in devising effective adjustments to curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment.
- Foundations of differentiation for content, process, product and learning environment through Universal Design for Learning.
- Measurement and recording techniques to assess students’ progress, guide appropriate instructional programming decisions, modify teaching practice, and report to parents/carers of students with diverse learning needs
- Curriculum knowledge to program effectively for the diverse students in every classroom with discussion of case studies on literacy, numeracy, language development and behaviour
- A range of diverse teaching and learning strategies and resources (including assistive technologies) to engage all students in learning, including verbal and non-verbal communication strategies
- Positive behaviour strategies and social skills development in conjunction with instructional programs
- Attitudes, strategies, and skills required for effective collaboration and productive partnerships with colleagues, parents/carers, community groups, medical professionals, and other external professionals
- A range of support networks and services at a class, school, system and community level to support the inclusion of students with disability.
Assessment strategy and rationale
The assessment strategy ensures pre-service teachers develop a deep understanding of diversity, inclusive practice, and evidence-based approaches to supporting students with Disability, aligned with the learning outcomes.
The first task (50%) is a critical reflection and analysis, focusing on teaching students with disability and effective inclusive practices. Supported by academic research, this task helps students understand diversity and disability (LO1), and relevant policies (LO2), and develop differentiated teaching strategies (LO3). It also involves evaluating collaborative strategies (LO4) and critical thinking about educational needs (LO5).
The second task (50%) is a case study on differentiation, where students plan inclusion strategies for a hypothetical student with Disability. This task applies theoretical knowledge in practical scenarios, building on the first task. It further develops an understanding of diversity and disability (LO1), policies (LO2), differentiated plans (LO3), collaborative strategies (LO4), and critical thinking (LO5).
This strategy ensures students build a strong theoretical foundation first, followed by practical application, achieving a comprehensive understanding of inclusive education practices.
Minimum Achievement Standards
The assessment tasks and their weighting for this unit are designed to demonstrate the achievement of every learning outcome. In order to pass this unit, pre-service teachers are required to submit all assessment tasks, to meet the learning outcomes of the unit and achieve a minimum overall passing grade of 50%.
Both assessment tasks in EDES603 are Critical Tasks which are core to the demonstration of a number of Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Pre-service teachers must demonstrate mastery of every summative Graduate Teacher Standard identified and attain a score of at least 50% on both tasks in order to pass this unit.
Overview of assessments
Assessment Task 1: Critical Reflection and Analys...
Assessment Task 1: Critical Reflection and Analysis
Critical Task
This assessment requires you to critically reflect on teaching students with disability, with a focus on effective ways to support their learning through inclusive practice. You must support your reflection with recent academic research and address issues of access and participation in learning. This will be achieved through engagement with relevant Australian legislation and policy frameworks, international documents, and academic literature. This will address the journey from exclusion to inclusion in the Australian context and the medical and social models of disability. This requires an understanding of the perspectives of a focus student and a range of relevant stakeholders on the benefits and challenges of inclusive practice.
50%
Assessment Task 2: Case Study on Differentiation ...
Assessment Task 2: Case Study on Differentiation
Critical Task
Plan successful inclusion strategies for one of the four students in the following hypothetical scenarios. This will include differentiated teaching, learning, and assessment planning, and strategies for how to provide support for their participation and achievement in learning activities. In the report, you should:
- Describe the learner and their specific condition
- Identify the learner’s strengths and barriers to learning with reference to research and the implications for teaching
- Analyse the demographic and academic context
- Identify relevant and contemporary Australian legislation that protects and supports the learner’s access, participation, inclusion, and learning
- Plan for three SMART learning outcomes to overcome barriers to learning for the selected learner
- Design differentiated teaching strategies to support your learner’s needs and inclusion and ways to assess the student’s progress on achieving the SMART outcomes
- Identify ongoing professional learning that currently exists to support the engagement, learning, and success of students with disability in inclusive contexts
Reflect on the broader implications of the impact of disability on learning, teachers’ responsibilities to overcome barriers to learning and How schools can provide high-quality inclusive education for students with disability
50%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
The teaching and learning strategy in this unit is designed to be flexible and promote self-regulated and guided learning, underpinned by adult learning principles. Unit content related to inclusive practice will be presented in a variety of teaching-learning modes and active participation in the learning process will be encouraged where possible through self-directed, collaborative and problem-based learning experiences, as well as guided reflection. Through the adoption of a reflective approach to the teaching-learning process, pre-service teachers will be encouraged to critically analyse their own learning approaches and preferences in relation to the content of the unit. This is a 10-credit point unit and has been designed to ensure that the time needed to complete the required volume of learning to the requisite standard is approximately 150 hours in total across the teaching period.
The unit is hosted on a Learning Management System (LMS) site with resources and online links, announcements, and a discussion board to post questions and reflections that promote connection between content and educational experiences.
Representative texts and references
Required Texts
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) (2016). Student Diversity. http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/student-diversity.
Commonwealth Government, Department of Education and Training Education (1992). Disability Discrimination Act. https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A04426/2016-07-01/text
Commonwealth Government, Department of Education and Training Education (2005). The Disability Standards for Education. https://docs.education.gov.au.
Education Council (2019). NCCD. Nationally consistent collection of data on school students with a disability. 2019 Guidelines. https://www.nccd.edu.au/sites/default/files/2019_nccd_guidelines.pdf.
United Nations (2016). General Comment No. 4. Article 24: Right to inclusive education. Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. https://www.refworld.org/docid/57c977e34.html.
Recommended Texts
Ashman, A., & Elkins, J.R. (Eds.). (2019). Education for inclusion and diversity (6th ed.). Pearson Australia.
Carrington, S., & Kimber, M. (2020). Ethical leadership for inclusive schools. Australian Educational Leader, 42, 10-14.
Foreman, P., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2022). Inclusion in action. Cengage Learning.
Gargiulo, R., & Metcalf, D. (2017). Teaching in today’s inclusive classrooms: A universal design for learning approach (3rd ed.). Cengage Learning Australia.
Graham, L. (2023). Inclusive education for the 21st century: Theory, policy and practice. Allen & Unwin.
Hyde, M., Dole, S., & Tait, K. (Eds.) (2021). Diversity, inclusion and engagement (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.