Course Outline
EDU359 Teaching Senior Secondary History
Course Coordinator:Craig Johnston (cjohnston1@usc.edu.au) School:School of Education and Tertiary Access
2026Trimester 2
UniSC Sunshine CoastUniSC Moreton Bay |
Blended learning | Most of your course is on campus but you may be able to do some components of this course online. |
Please go to unisc.edu.au for up to date information on the
teaching sessions and campuses where this course is usually offered.
What is this course about?
Description
In this course, you will develop knowledge and skills for implementing the Queensland Senior Secondary History curriculum. You will learn how to design lesson plans and learning sequences that will engage diverse learners. You will explore and analyse a range of pedagogy, assessment and reporting strategies that maximise learning outcomes for senior students, including developing strategies for supporting literacy, numeracy and ICT learning within History.
How will this course be delivered?
| Activity | Hours | Beginning Week | Frequency |
| Blended learning | |||
| Learning materials – You are required to engage with online learning materials, associated activities and required/recommended course reading materials accessed through Canvas and using the required textbooks. | 2hrs | Week 1 | 9 times |
| Tutorial/Workshop 1 – A face to face tutorial which involves on-campus activities using technology to engage with and apply course content and outcomes. | 2hrs | Week 1 | 10 times |
Course Topics
- Queensland Senior history curriculums as devised by the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA)
- Curriculum design, planning and alignment of content, pedagogy and assessment for senior history
- Teaching and learning strategies for engagement of diverse learners in history
- Assessment, marking, moderation and reporting practices in senior history
- Historical inquiry skills for senior secondary students
- Integrating resources including information and communication technologies (ICT) into the history curriculum
- Literacy and numeracy in senior history
- Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, culture and knowledges in the senior history curriculum.
What level is this course?
300 Level (Graduate)
What is the unit value of this course?
12 units
How does this course contribute to my learning?
| Course Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this course, you should be able to... | Graduate Qualities Mapping Completing these tasks successfully will contribute to you becoming... | Professional Standard Mapping * Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership | |
| 1 | Identify and apply knowledge of history content and historical inquiry and the Senior Secondary History curriculum. |
Knowledgeable Creative and critical thinker |
2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2 |
| 2 | Identify and apply a range of teaching and learning strategies, including ICT, that provide achievable challenges and engage the diversity of students in senior histories. |
Knowledgeable Creative and critical thinker |
2.2, 2.6, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, 4.5 |
| 3 | Plan, create, explain and justify principles of assessment, moderation, feedback and reporting, that measure senior students' progress towards achievement standards in senior history. |
Creative and critical thinker Empowered Engaged |
2.3, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 |
| 4 | Explain and justify planning, resourcing, teaching strategies, ICT, literacy, numeracy and 21st century skills developed through senior History curriculum and historical inquiry. |
Creative and critical thinker Ethical Engaged |
2.1, 2.2, 2.5, 2.6, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 |
* Competencies by Professional Body
| CODE | COMPETENCY |
| Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership | |
| 2.1 | Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the concepts, substance and structure of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area |
| 2.2 | Content selection and organisation: Organise content into an effective learning and teaching sequence. |
| 2.3 | Curriculum, assessment and reporting: Use curriculum, assessment and reporting knowledge to design learning sequences and lesson plans. |
| 2.5 | Literacy and numeracy strategies: Know and understand literacy and numeracy teaching strategies and their application in teaching areas. |
| 2.6 | Information and Communication Technology (ICT): Implement teaching strategies for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students. |
| 3.1 | Establish challenging learning goals: Set learning goals that provide achievable challenges for students of varying abilities and characteristics. |
| 3.2 | Plan, structure and sequence learning programs: Plan lesson sequences using knowledge of student learning, content and effective teaching strategies. |
| 3.3 | Use teaching strategies: Include a range of teaching strategies. |
| 3.4 | Select and use resources: Demonstrate knowledge of a range of resources, including ICT, that engage students in their learning. |
| 4.1 | Support student participation: Identify strategies to support inclusive student participation and engagement in classroom activities. |
| 4.2 | Manage classroom activities: Demonstrate the capacity to organise classroom activities and provide clear directions |
| 4.5 | Use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically: Demonstrate an understanding of the relevant issues and the strategies available to support the safe, responsible and ethical use of ICT in learning and teaching. |
| 5.1 | Assess student learning: Demonstrate understanding of assessment strategies, including informal and formal, diagnostic, formative and summative approaches to assess student learning. |
| 5.2 | Provide feedback to students on their learning: Demonstrate an understanding of the purpose of providing timely and appropriate feedback to students about their learning |
| 5.3 | Make consistent and comparable judgements: Demonstrate understanding of assessment moderation and its application to support consistent and comparable judgements of student learning. |
| 5.4 | Interpret student data: Demonstrate the capacity to interpret student assessment data to evaluate student learning and modify teaching practice. |
| 5.5 | Report on student achievement: Demonstrate understanding of a range of strategies for reporting to students and parents/ carers and the purpose of keeping accurate and reliable records of student achievement |
Am I eligible to enrol in this course?
Refer to the UniSC Glossary of terms for definitions of “pre-requisites, co-requisites and anti-requisites”.
Pre-requisites
Enrolled in Program (AE304 and a History Major or History Studies Extended Minor) or (ED315 and a History Minor)
Co-requisites
Not applicable
Anti-requisites
Not applicable
Specific assumed prior knowledge and skills (where applicable)
It is expected that students engaging in this course have undertaken tertiary history content courses that will be drawn upon within this course
Microcredential Information
Not applicable
How am I going to be assessed?
Grading Scale
Standard Grading (GRD)
| High Distinction (HD), Distinction (DN), Credit (CR), Pass (PS), Fail (FL). |
Details of early feedback on progress
In preparing for Task 1, a formative peer review process will occur in the course discussion board in Canvas.
Assessment tasks
| Delivery mode | Task No. | Assessment Product | Individual or Group | Weighting % | What is the duration / length? | When should I submit? | Where should I submit it? |
| All | 1 | Examination - not Centrally Scheduled | Individual | 25% | 1000-1250 words |
Week 4 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All | 2 | Written Piece | Individual | 30% | 1200 words |
Week 5 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All | 3 | Oral and Written Piece | Individual | 45% | 2500 words |
Refer to Format | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check and in class |
| All - Assessment Task 1:Senior History Syllabus Evaluation | |||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal of this task is for you to investigate and evaluate the QCAA Senior Ancient and Modern Syllabi. |
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| Product: | Examination - not Centrally Scheduled | ||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||||||||
| Format: | Submit 4pm Monday Week 4. With reference to the QCAA Senior Ancient History Syllabus and the QCAA Senior Modern History Syllabus, provide responses to the items on the questions on the examination paper. This is an open book exam that is to be completed in your own time over the first three weeks of Trimester. Some of your responses will require engaging with your peers on the course discussion board on Canvas. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Organisation, Information literacy |
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| All - Assessment Task 2:Pedagogy for senior history assessment | |||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal of this task is to demonstrate your ability to identify and explain senior history content, curriculum and teaching strategies for internal assessment. |
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| Product: | Written Piece | ||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||||||||
| Format: | Submit Monday Week 5, 9am. You will be allocated a QCAA senior history summative internal assessment task. You will critically analyse this task to demonstrate your ability to apply your understanding of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment in Senior History. Your analysis will: • Identify how the selected summative assessment task connects to the final grade reported in this subject. • Critically analyse the Internal Assessment task; identify the strengths and weaknesses of the task and the Instrument Specific Marking Guide (ISMG) with respect to students and the senior syllabus. You should refer to research literature on assessment in History. • Explain and justify the quality assurance processes that relate to the design, development, marking and moderation of the selected summative task. • Identify and justify your teaching of one task-specific QCAA senior history assessment criterion to illustrate your knowledge of: o scaffolding of assessment for your students o syllabus content knowledge o discipline-specific pedagogy o student engagement and participation |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Problem solving, Organisation |
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| All - Assessment Task 3:Senior history learning sequence and lesson plan, plus presentation | ||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal of this task is to demonstrate your ability to develop a historical inquiry sequence and write a lesson plan that identifies a set of resources and teaching strategies that are connected to the lesson. Teach a segment of the lesson and engage in a professional conversation about your lesson sequence and assessment task. |
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| Product: | Oral and Written Piece | |||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | ||||||||||||||||
| Format: | Submit: Written Friday Week 10, 9am; presentations during tutorials Week 9/10; professional conversation as booked with your tutor. Critically analyse the Senior History curriculum to identify an inquiry topic from your chosen syllabus. You will design a four-lesson learning sequence for the inquiry topic. Your learning sequence must include the following components: • Outline of a four-lesson sequence for the topic • A detailed lesson plan developed for one lesson in the sequence • Learning goals and relevant content with reference to literature • Resources, including use of ICT to enhance learning • Considerations for diversity, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and their histories • A shortened IA1 summative assessment task, which will include the essay question, four (4) seen and two (2) unseen sources with context statements Formative feedback will be provided prior to submission. In week 9/10, you will teach a short (7-10 minute) segment of the developed lesson to your peers in the tutorial. Peer and lecturer feedback will be given. You will engage in a final professional conversation about your inquiry lesson sequence and assessment task with your tutor. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Problem solving, Organisation, Applying technologies |
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Directed study hours
A 12-unit course will have total of 150 learning hours which will include directed study hours (including online if required), self-directed learning and completion of assessable tasks. Student workload is calculated at 12.5 learning hours per one unit.
What resources do I need to undertake this course?
Please note: Course information, including specific information of recommended readings, learning activities, resources, weekly readings, etc. are available on the course Canvas site– Please log in as soon as possible.
Prescribed text(s) or course reader
You need regular access to the resource(s) below. Many texts are available as ebooks through the Library at no additional cost.
| Required? | Author | Year | Title | Edition | Publisher |
| Required | Hoepper, Brian, et al | 2019 | Senior Modern History for Queensland | 2019 | Cambridge University Press |
| Recommended | Barrie, Alan, et al | 2019 | Senior Ancient History for Queensland | 2019 | Cambridge University Press |
Specific requirements
Not applicable
How are risks managed in this course?
What administrative information is relevant to this course?
Assessment: Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is the ethical standard of university participation. It ensures that students graduate as a result of proving they are competent in their discipline. This is integral in maintaining the value of academic qualifications. Each industry has expectations and standards of the skills and knowledge within that discipline and these are reflected in assessment.
Academic integrity means that you do not engage in any activity that is considered to be academic fraud; including plagiarism, collusion or outsourcing any part of any assessment item to any other person. You are expected to be honest and ethical by completing all work yourself and indicating in your work which ideas and information were developed by you and which were taken from others. You cannot provide your assessment work to others. You are also expected to provide evidence of wide and critical reading, usually by using appropriate academic references.
In order to minimise incidents of academic fraud, this course may require that some of its assessment tasks, when submitted to Canvas, are electronically checked through Turnitin. This software allows for text comparisons to be made between your submitted assessment item and all other work to which Turnitin has access.
Assessment: Additional Requirements
Eligibility for Supplementary Assessment
Your eligibility for supplementary assessment in a course is dependent of the following conditions applying:
(a) The final mark is in the percentage range 47% to 49.4%; and
(b) The course is graded using the Standard Grading scale
Assessment: Submission penalties
Late submissions may be penalised up to and including the following maximum percentage of the assessment task’s identified value, with weekdays and weekends included in the calculation of days late:
(a) One day: deduct 5%;
(b) Two days: deduct 10%;
(c) Three days: deduct 20%;
(d) Four days: deduct 40%;
(e) Five days: deduct 60%;
(f) Six days: deduct 80%;
(g) Seven days: A result of zero is awarded for the assessment task.
The following penalties will apply for a late submission for an online examination:
Less than 15 minutes: No penalty
From 15 minutes to 30 minutes: 20% penalty
More than 30 minutes: 100% penalty
Links to relevant University policy and procedures
For more information on Academic Learning & Teaching categories including:
- Assessment: Courses and Coursework Programs
- Review of Assessment and Final Grades
- Supplementary Assessment
- Central Examinations
- Deferred Examinations
- Student Conduct
- Students with a Disability
For more information, visit https://www.usc.edu.au/explore/policies-and-procedures#academic-learning-and-teaching
Student Charter
UniSC is committed to excellence in teaching, research and engagement in an environment that is inclusive, inspiring, safe and respectful. The Student Charter sets out what students can expect from the University, and what in turn is expected of students, to achieve these outcomes.
General Enquiries
For course-specific questions, contact your teaching staff or Course Coordinator.
For other enquiries or to access support, please contact Student Central: