In Progress
Please note that this Unit Profile is still in progress. The content below is subject to change.Overview
In Chemical and Physical Sciences, students apply theoretical concepts and current research related to teaching and learning in Science to engage in authentic evaluation and pedagogical design practices. Chemical and Physical Sciences examines both theoretical perspectives and the content and pedagogy required to teach Science in Primary and Early Childhood classrooms. Students develop understanding of the content and structure of these two strands in the Australian Curriculum and build on the knowledge and skills they developed in the Biological and Earth and Space Science unit to further examine views around best practice in Science pedagogy linked to current research. Chemical and Physical Sciences includes an emphasis on assessment practices in Science which can be applied to other strands of this learning area. Planning to teach and assess students’ understanding of Science is addressed with an emphasis on how best to engage students in this learning area and scaffold understanding to enhance the ability to provide scientific explanations for phenomena.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
There are no requisites for this unit.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 2 - 2025
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from SUTE evaluations, email and workshop feedback.
Assessment requirements
Revise assessment requirements to improve clarity
Feedback from SUTE evaluations, email and workshop feedback.
Moodle materials
Revise Moodle materials
Feedback from Workshop and email feedback
Zoom workshops
Develop more hands-on materials to support student engagement.
- Evaluate examples of teaching and assessment practice in Science to identify how connections are made to students’ prior knowledge or experience to promote learning
- Access and apply professional literature on contemporary Science education to critically evaluate or justify planning and assessment practices
- Plan lesson sequences that use appropriate research-based teaching strategies and ICTs to structure content and address students’ possible misconceptions in Science
- Develop diagnostic , formative and summative assessment tools that identify students’ understanding of scientific phenomena
- Select assessment strategies that engage students in active learning, promote higher order thinking and scaffold students’ understanding of core concepts in the areas of Chemical and Physical sciences.
Successful completion of this unit provides opportunities for students to engage with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (Graduate Career Stage) focus areas of:
1.1 Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students
1.2 Understand how students learn
2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area
2.2 Content selection and organisation
2.3 Curriculum, assessment and reporting
2.6 Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
3.2 Plan, structure and sequence learning programs
3.3 Use teaching strategies
3.4 Select and use resources
3.6 Evaluate and improve teaching programs
4.1 Support student participation
5.1 Assess student learning
5.4 Interpret student data
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Practical Assessment - 50% | |||||
| 2 - Practical and Written Assessment - 50% | |||||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Communication | |||||
| 2 - Problem Solving | |||||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | |||||
| 4 - Information Literacy | |||||
| 5 - Team Work | |||||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | |||||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | |||||
| 8 - Ethical practice | |||||
| 9 - Social Innovation | |||||
| 10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | |||||
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |
| 1 - Practical Assessment - 50% | ||||||||||
| 2 - Practical and Written Assessment - 50% | ||||||||||