Master of Teaching (Early Childhood and Primary)

This subject examines historical, cultural, sociological and philosophical constructions of childhood, families and the educative process. By exploring these themes, Teacher Candidates have the opportunity to develop a sense of how the role of the family, constructions of childhood and youth, and questions of curriculum and pedagogy are determined by global historical and colonial movements that influence contemporary educational systems.

This subject also places educational sociology in an Australian context by recognising the central contribution that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, culture, peoples, perspectives and pedagogies make to our national identity. By locating Indigenous issues in this way, the importance of relationships with parents, carers and the broader community are emphasised, and the educative process is seen to be intimately connected to the impact of culture, cultural identity and linguistic background on the education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners. Candidates will cover a broad range of strategies for working effectively and sensitively and confidentially with parents/carers and wider community in the education process.

The subject is built around four central themes

1. Curriculum: historical and sociology of knowledge: focusing on school knowledge, the Australian Curriculum, the nature of power and knowledge
2. Sociological constructions of childhood and youth: gender, generational change, sociological and historical purpose of schooling
3. Purposes of education and care: education systems, mass schooling, academic and vocational education, markets, neoliberalism and equity
4. Debates: Philosophical Provocations: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island education (including the impact of culture, cultural identity, linguistic background, pedagogy, curriculum and community partnerships); Pedagogy and curriculum (including the VEYLDF and Victorian Curriculum documents); Community and family; Inclusion and exclusion

This subject will provide the general conceptual framework for understanding teaching and learning in early childhood. It will examine how learning can be enhanced from a range of evidence-based theoretical perspectives. Candidates will develop a range of strategies for reporting to children/students and parents/carers and develop understanding of the purpose of keeping accurate and reliable records of student achievement. Topics include: the clinical teaching cycle (observational assessment including making consistent judgements about learning, planning for learning, curriculum programming, implementation; critical reflection and evaluation); theories of learning; play-based learning; intentional teaching; and designing productive learning environments. These topics underpin the learning as articulated in the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), and the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF); National Quality Frameworks (NQS); The Victorian Curriculum; Australian Curriculum.

This subject will introduce Teacher Candidates to theoretical perspectives on physical, personal, social, emotional, cognitive and spiritual aspects of infant and toddler development and learning as an integrated process. Teacher Candidates will examine the relationship of development and learning, with a focus on the developing brain and the significance of early relationships and wellbeing for learning. Teacher Candidates will explore infant and toddler positioning in family, friend and community networks and the range of factors contributing to young children’s learning and development, emphasising agency, wellbeing and social connectedness. Links will be made between children’s learning and development and the VEYLDF learning framework and outcomes. Content includes the underlying learning processes being established in infant and toddler development, such as regulation, memory, attention, curiosity, and gathering information. The subject includes a focus on diversity and inclusion to promote the learning and participation needs of all learners across the full range of abilities, to build effective relationships with families, and in managing the use of professional documentation.

This subject investigates the ways in which children learn language and literacy, as well as the critical importance of both language and literacy in children’s successful learning. The content in this subject will focus on both the typical developmental progression in language and literacy and the evidence-based strategies to build rich language and literacy programmes in early childhood settings.

Teacher candidates will be introduced to the VEYLDF Outcome 3: Children are Effective Communicators and to the Victorian English Curriculum: Language Modes of Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening; and the Strands of Language, Literature, and Literacy.

Additional topics covered in this subject include adult interactions supporting infant communication and language development, family literacy and the home learning environment, reading and writing development, as well as evidence based pedagogies for language, reading and writing learning. Digital technologies as a tool to support language and literacy learning will also be discussed. Students will also be introduced to the assessment of language and literacy in the context of children’s learning.

This subject provides opportunities for Teacher Candidates to demonstrate the nexus between the theory and practice of teaching when teaching children aged from birth to 35 months, drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives and contemporary research to support their teaching practice. This subject requires teacher candidates to demonstrate their developing professional knowledge, clinical practice, and professional engagement. Teacher Candidates will integrate the content of academic subjects taught during the semester with their teaching practice in an intentional manner, in order to demonstrate developing understanding of children’s progression along learning and development trajectories. During clinical teaching practice, experienced Mentor Teachers support Teacher Candidates in collaboration with Clinical Specialists who have relevant areas of expertise, and with Teaching Fellows who are employed in early childhood-related roles by local government or Early Childhood Education providers.

Guided by the National Quality Framework, Teacher Candidates undertake graduated responsibility for the planning, implementation and assessment of learning experiences. Teacher Candidates will differentiate their teaching to include children with diverse needs and backgrounds and consider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives on learning and development.

The Clinical Teaching Practice seminars are framed by the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers at the Graduate Level. At seminars, Teacher Candidates will engage in collaborative learning and critical reflection.

This subject engages teacher candidates in extended practical and theoretical studies based on learning about and through visual arts, drama, dance and music in Early Childhood and Primary. Topics focus on how to design, implement and evaluate arts experiences suitable for young children, informed by theoretical knowledge of arts-centred pedagogies and how the arts support integrated curriculum. Teacher candidates engage in their own arts processes and reflect critically and creatively on these through a range of practices that will extend their knowledge of planning and implementing arts experiences with young children. Teacher Candidates will explore Design and Technologies through the lens of design thinking and the arts, involving strategies for planning, analysing and generating design solutions. Practice-led workshops provide opportunities for individual and collaborative projects to illustrate how teacher candidates engage, guide, scaffold and assess children’s creative expression in an arts-centred curriculum.

This subject builds on the work of EDUC90898 Introduction to Clinical Practice (EC) to further develop the investigation into clinical teaching practices and strategies that support participation and learning of all children/students. It will examine how to collect evidence of the learner’s current understandings to to extend this learning by designing learning sequences and lesson plans. Candidates will gain knowledge and understanding of how to provide timely and appropriate feedback to children/students about their learning. There will be analysis of how to use clinical judgements that support and extend the learner’s thinking. Candidates will develop a range of strategies for reporting to children/students and parents/carers and develop understanding of the purpose of keeping accurate and reliable records of student achievement. Topics will include: Indigenous perspectives; theoretical paradigms to inform play-based pedagogy; young children as diverse learners; differentiated learning and teaching that meets the specific learning needs of learners across the full range of abilities; models of curricula; teaching for creativity. These topics underpin the learning as articulated in the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), and the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF); National Quality Frameworks (NQS); The Victorian Curriculum; Australian Curriculum.

This subject examines the theoretical perspectives on physical, personal, social, emotional, cognitive and spiritual aspects of early childhood development and learning, with an emphasis on the age range 3 – 8 years. Teacher Candidates will explore the range of factors affecting the development, learning and wellbeing of young children across the age range three to eight years. Teacher Candidates will examine the relationship of development and learning, with a focus on the developing brain and the significance of early relationships and wellbeing for learning. Content includes the learning processes being established in children’s (3-8 years) development, such as regulation, memory, attention, curiosity, and gathering information. Teacher Candidates will explore children’s (3-8 years) positioning in family, friend and community networks and the range of factors contributing to young children’s learning and development, emphasising agency, social connectedness, and transitions across diverse educational contexts. Links will be made between children’s learning and development and the VEYLDF and Victorian Curriculum. Topics will include: learning and development across diverse contexts, factors of identity, wellbeing and social connectedness; understanding the legislative requirements and working within approved learning and regulatory frameworks to meet the development and learning needs of all children.

High quality early childhood education curricula recognize the important role played by the home numeracy environment and provide opportunities for young children to engage with mathematical concepts and to acquire mathematical language. Addressing children’s numeracy skills from infancy into the early years of school, the subject is informed by the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework and the Victorian Curriculum.

Strong content knowledge supported by opportunities to rehearse mathematics teaching practice in a collaborative environment contributes to pre-service early childhood teachers’ increased self-confidence. This subject will focus on both Teacher Candidates’ content knowledge acquisition and their teaching practice by unpacking the strands of early childhood mathematics in lectures, and then providing opportunities in workshops for Teacher Candidates to apply academic content to a range of typical play activities. Teacher Candidates develop a range of learning experience plans that may then be differentiated for enactment during the Professional Experience practicum placement.

Topics include number and counting; comparing, ordering and estimating; addition and subtraction; composition and place value; spatial thinking, shape; patterns and structure; measurement; and data collection, representation and analysis. The importance of assessing children’s emerging numeracy skills in order to enact interventionist practice will be emphasized throughout the subject.

This subject provides further opportunities for Teacher Candidates to consolidate their understanding of the nexus between theory and practice of teaching, drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives and contemporary research whilst teaching children aged three to five years.

This subject requires Teacher Candidates to demonstrate their developing professional knowledge, clinical practice, and professional engagement. Guided by the National Quality Framework, Teacher Candidates will extend their ability to closely observe children’s learning and development, taking increasing responsibility for the planning, implementation and evaluation of learning experiences, demonstrating their developing understanding of children’s progression along learning and development trajectories. Teacher Candidates will continue differentiate their teaching to include students with diverse needs and backgrounds and will take into account Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives on learning and development. Experienced Mentor Teachers will continue to support Teacher Candidates in collaboration with Clinical Specialists who have relevant areas of expertise, and with Teaching Fellows who are employed in early childhood-related roles by local government or Early Childhood Education providers.

The Clinical Teaching Practice seminars are framed by the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers at the Graduate Level. At seminars, Teacher Candidates will engage in collaborative learning and critical reflection.

In this subject, Teacher Candidates will develop an understanding of research in education, as the first part of their capstone experience in the Master of Teaching (Early Childhood/ Early Childhood and Primary). Candidates will participate in a series of lectures, focusing on: what constitutes research in education; the function of a literature review; common methodologies and methods in education research; key issues in research ethics; the management and analysis of data and the fundamentals of research writing. Workshops in this subject provide the opportunity for candidates to develop insight into common approaches to research in early childhood education and care (ECEC), and to consider how principles of research apply to their developing professional practice in ECEC.

This subject provides candidates with an understanding of research principles and methods applicable to education practice or policy, a focus on the use of research to inform and improve education practice, and prepares them to undertake a research project as the second part of their capstone experience.

This subject explores the role of the Educational Leader in early childhood and primary settings and the impact of effective leadership on outcomes for learners. Participants will investigate their own leadership vision and style, and develop an understanding of change management theory, professional collaboration, advocacy, and models to support them in the field. This subject will introduce the professional standards documents, the ACECQA, National Quality Standards and the AITSL Professional Standards for Teachers. This subject will give participants the opportunity to engage with contemporary educational debates and to develop their vision as leaders in the early childhood and primary sector. Topics will include leadership and management in early childhood education and care services; pedagogical leadership; creating a leadership vision; quality improvement; professional identity and development; including identifying professional learning needs; effective collaboration and engagement with parents, carers, colleagues & other key stakeholders; teamwork, seeking feedback from supervisors & colleagues team-building and change management; report writing responsibilities; and leadership as activism and advocacy.

This subject introduces Teacher Candidates to research and practice that inform current approaches to language and literacy education in the primary school, positioning this within the discipline of subject English. The subject embraces the scope and sequence of teaching and learning in the primary years and the diverse nature of children’s language and literacy experiences and practices in and out of school. It focuses on how language, literature and literacy form essential strands in the development of students’ skills and knowledge around the modes of reading, viewing, writing, speaking and listening in the Victorian English Curriculum.

Emphasis is placed on theoretical perspectives of early literacy acquisition and approaches that support the interrelationship between speaking and listening, reading and writing (language modes). In terms of the early years of school, the subject focuses on language development with particular attention to phonology, vocabulary and grammar related to early reading and writing; the importance of literature in language and literacy development (English curriculum strands); theories of reading acquisition that inform the teaching of reading; the development of writing; curriculum frameworks and assessment tools; strategies to support whole, small-group and individualised instruction in relation to print-based and multimodal texts to support literacy learning. Subject areas of focus that pertain to the middle and upper primary school include: investigation of the multiple forms of literacy and diverse forms of language awareness required for the comprehension, composition and production of complex texts central to English and other areas of the curriculum; reading and viewing strategies that assist all students to engage in comprehension; higher order thinking; critical analysis and inquiry around various written, visual, multimodal and technological texts; and the development of academic language proficiency in reading, writing, listening and speaking.

This subject will develop and consolidate teacher candidates’ understanding of major science concepts through an examination of children’s everyday experiences. This development in science conceptual understandings will occur through the dynamic exploration of phenomena such as weather, motion and food, and understandings of students’ motivations to learn science, and their curiosity about the natural world.

This development in science conceptual understandings will occur through the dynamic exploration of phenomena such as weather, plants, motion and food, and align with, and contribute to, with students’ interests and motivation to learn science. Candidates will develop pedagogical skills that support students to be curious about the natural world and create.

Teacher Candidates will be introduced to key resources for science teaching in the form of activities, artefacts and digital technologies that will help them to plan for teaching science and technology concepts effectively in the classroom. They need to demonstrate that they can respond to the learning needs, curiosity and interests of primary students and design a sequence of learning experiences.

Candidates will also be assisted to design, teach and evaluate a sequential unit of science that they have implemented. Candidates will become familiar with, and know how to utilise, the educational research that addresses science conceptual teaching challenges and appropriate pedagogical approaches that respond to the well - documented learning needs of primary aged students.

This subject synthesises Teacher Candidates’ understanding of the characteristics of professional knowledge, clinical practice and engagement for professional accountability when teaching children aged from three years to five years. Teacher Candidates will reflect critically on the ways in which educational theory and research inform practice in the context of an informal, play-based curriculum.

Guided by the National Quality Framework, Teacher Candidates will demonstrate capacity to make sound clinical judgements and to independently deliver high impact clinical instruction for sustained periods engaging children in developmentally appropriate learning experiences. Mentor Teachers will continue to support Teacher Candidates in collaboration with Clinical Specialists who have relevant areas of expertise.

The Clinical Teaching Practice seminars are framed by the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers at the Graduate Level. At seminars, Teacher Candidates will engage in collaborative learning and critical reflection. 

In this subject, Teacher Candidates also undertake five days’ clinical teaching practice in a primary school, observing teaching and learning in the early years of formal school education and engaging in team-teaching. During this school-based teaching practice, experienced primary teachers mentor Teacher Candidates in collaboration with Clinical Specialists.

This subject readies the generalist classroom teacher for the teaching of Health and Physical Education. It does so by drawing on the skills of high quality classroom teaching and applying these in the conduct of Health and Physical Education, both inside and outside the classroom. While Health and Physical Education is an integrated Learning Area within the Victorian Curriculum, the subject is structured via two parallel paths, taken by all Teacher Candidates, one of which emphasizes teaching of the Personal, Social and Community Health strand, the other the Movement and Physical Activity strand. Both of these paths focus on unit development in order to situate the curriculum content in activities that are meaningful to the children involved. A proportion of classes are conducted in primary schools local to the University in order to provide a concrete context within which the teaching of Health and Physical Education may be experienced.

In this subject Teacher Candidates will plan and execute a substantial research-based project as the second part of their capstone experience in the Master of Teaching (Early Childhood/ Early Childhood and Primary). The research project provides an opportunity for sustained and systematic study of an issue in education practice or policy. Teacher Candidates in the Early Years Option must complete a project focusing on literacy and numeracy in the early years of primary school. Candidates will be supported to define a feasible research question within a given project topic area, using appropriate methodology and methods to respond to the research question. Candidates analyse an existing dataset that will be provided, including relevant literature, policy documents, or empirical data from a project that already has ethics approval. The capstone project will culminate with students synthesizing the findings of their research in the form of a conference paper, journal article or report. Throughout this subject, Candidates will be expected to consider how research can inform and improve education practice.

This subject focuses on the mathematics pedagogical knowledge and skills needed for teaching students from Foundation to Year 6. This subject will use the current mathematics education research findings, the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics and the new Victorian Curriculum: Mathematics. The focus will be on the content descriptors for the three strands: Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, Statistics and Probability, and the proficiencies: Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning. Teacher Candidates will explore the ways in which students from Years 3 – 6 learn mathematics, the structure of the mathematics curriculum, the attributes of effective mathematics teaching, and strategies to engage, support and assess student learning. Teacher Candidates will develop and improve their own mathematical knowledge, skills, understanding along with confidence with the concepts and operations required for problem solving and investigation, real world applications, and for effective teaching of mathematics.

This subject builds on the skills and knowledge developed in EDUC90373 Primary Humanities Education. This subject aims to explore how the Humanities curriculum can be designed to help students understand the world around them. Emphasis will be placed on effective teaching and learning practices in the Humanities, with a particular focus on inquiry, digital and design technologies, student agency, questioning, critical thinking, authentic problem solving and communication strategies. Teacher Candidates will apply their understanding of these processes in a critical inquiry-based project focusing on Geography, History, Economics and Business, and Civics and Citizenship. The development of an inquiry-based unit aims to encourage young learners to explore and clarify values and attitudes, and to develop relevant knowledge and skills to understand their world. Through the inquiry process, opportunities for active and informed citizenship for the 21st century will be explored.

In this subject Teacher Candidates will explore research, theories, and strategies that are useful for examining diversity and inclusion in Australian school classrooms. Teacher Candidates will investigate ways in which schools reinforce and/or challenge the social norms. Furthermore, Candidates will gain knowledge and understanding of physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students and how they affect learning.

The subject will also explore the school and the classroom itself with their own dominant systems of values, ideologies and differing relationships of power and authority. Teacher Candidates will examine curriculum and legislative requirements that inform school policy and the development of systems and strategies that support student safety and wellbeing. Inter-personal relationships in schools, classrooms and school communities will also be examined. Teacher Candidates will identify the types of interactions that occur as well as what opportunities for learning and development arise. As part of this subject teacher candidates will understand strategies for working effectively, sensitively and confidentially with parents/carers.

This subject will develop participants’ skills in using student achievement data to inform teaching practice to support student learning. It will consider the use of a wide range of data types and sources to evaluate learning, teaching and assessment and make recommendations for improving practice. Through case studies and practical activities, participants will be exposed to ideas, methods and techniques to support high quality, evidence-based decision making.

This subject synthesises Teacher Candidates’ understanding of the characteristics of professional knowledge, clinical practice and engagement for professional accountability in the primary school context. Teacher Candidates will reflect critically on the ways in which educational theory and research inform practice.

The subject comprises of two placements in generalist primary classrooms, undertaken sequentially. School placements are focused on clinical teaching across all curriculum areas. Teacher Candidates will demonstrate capacity to make sound clinical judgements and to independently deliver high impact clinical instruction for sustained periods using sequenced lessons and units of work. Teacher Candidates will demonstrate a high level of 21st century skills and their ability to develop these skills in students. Teacher Candidates will differentiate their teaching to include students with diverse needs and backgrounds and will take into account Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives on learning and development. Experienced Mentor Teachers support Teacher Candidates in collaboration with school-based Teaching Fellows and Clinical Specialists who are also engaged in the on-campus teaching program.

The Clinical Teaching Practice seminars are framed by the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers at the Graduate Level. At seminars, Teacher Candidates will engage in collaborative learning and critical reflection.