Course overview
Australian schools and classrooms are typified by their increasing diversity. Students need to be provided with school and classroom learning environments that are engaging and supportive of their ontologies and are inclusive and respectful of their cultures, wellbeing and learning needs. These need to be underpinned by teacher knowledge of specific strategies to address challenges to student learning, especially those relating to student behaviour, difference and disabilities. This course provides initial teacher education students with contemporary theories, knowledge and pedagogies to create classroom management strategies that effectively address differences in and barriers to school student engagement with learning.
Course learning outcomes
- Understand the increasing diversity of Australian classrooms including, but not limited to, learning (dis)abilities, cultural variance, social disadvantage, and the breadth of gendered identities
- Develop an understanding of whole-of-school strategies for fostering and sustaining positive student behaviour
- Understand the situatedness of schools in communities and the need to engage with students' social and family contexts in the behaviour management process
- Identify and plan for students' learning in the context of student wellbeing, safety and classroom management, especially in relation to students who are challenged by barriers to learning, such as disabilities
- Build a subject -specific pedagogic 'tool-box' fostering positive ecologies for student learning outcomes
- Relate classroom management to theoretical, ethical and legislative professional requirements