Course Coordinator:Ciara Treacy (ctreacy@usc.edu.au) School:School of Health - Psychology
Online |
Online | You can do this course without coming onto campus, unless your program has specified a mandatory onsite requirement. |
Please go to unisc.edu.au for up to date information on the
teaching sessions and campuses where this course is usually offered.
Nutrition, physical activity, sleep, substance use, stress management, social networks and the environment are all lifestyle factors that shape and impact mental health and wellbeing. Lifestyle interventions are behaviours and actions that an individual can modify or change to improve their mental and brain health. In this course you will cover the emerging evidence base in lifestyle medicine and explore ways this approach can be adopted as an early intervention strategy as well as how it can supplement other therapies in the treatment of mental health disorders.
| Activity | Hours | Beginning Week | Frequency |
| Online | |||
| Online – The online activities will include a variety of asynchronous, interactive learning materials, and options for lecturer and peer to peer collaborations, and lecturer and peer zoom drop-ins. | 3hrs | Week 1 | 12 times |
700 Level (Specialised)
12 units
| Course Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this course, you should be able to... | Graduate Qualities Completing these tasks successfully will contribute to you becoming... | |
| 1 | Select and evaluate current and emerging approaches to mental health disorders, as well as propose novel approaches, based on current practice and theory in lifestyle medicine. | Creative and critical thinker |
| 2 | Argue persuasively for multidisciplinary approaches to complex mental health disorders to target a specific audience, based on neuroscientific evidence. | Empowered |
| 3 | Critique multidisciplinary lifestyle medicine approaches to mental health disorders against the limitations of traditional approaches, and then address the affordances and impacts, as well as justifying the methods of approach when proposing new approaches. | Sustainability-focussed |
| 4 | Apply advanced communication skills to targeted audiences using relevant presentation genres. | Empowered |
Refer to the UniSC Glossary of terms for definitions of “pre-requisites, co-requisites and anti-requisites”.
Enrolled in Program AR602 or AR706.
Not applicable
Not applicable
Not applicable
Not applicable
Standard Grading (GRD)
| High Distinction (HD), Distinction (DN), Credit (CR), Pass (PS), Fail (FL). |
You will be provided with multiple opportunities to gain early formative feedback relevant to your first assessment task by engaging with your learning materials. These include interactive self-check activities in the modules, posting responses to discussion forums and responding to your practice activities in the indicated manner.
| 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 | Case Study | Individual | 20% | 1200 words |
Week 5 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All | 2 | Oral and Written Piece | Individual | 30% | 15 mins |
Week 9 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All | 3 | Written Piece | Individual | 50% | 3000 words |
Exam Period | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All - Assessment Task 1:Case studies | |||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal is to evaluate a current approach to lifestyle based initiatives to improve mental health in the community. |
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| Product: | Case Study | ||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||||||||
| Format: | You will appropriately select and present a case study for this. Your case study will focus on either a health promoting factor being the environment, OR on addressing a lifestyle risk factor. You will find an initiative addressing the selected factor, and explain how the initiatives are evidence based. Your case study will evaluate their effectiveness based on current practice evidence, and suggest potential future avenues for such initiatives. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Problem solving, Information literacy |
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| All - Assessment Task 2:TED Talk style presentation | |||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal is to argue persuasively for multidisciplinary approaches to address complex mental health disorders with a focus of highlighting the neuroscientific evidence. |
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| Product: | Oral and Written Piece | ||||||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | You will present a TED style talk to an audience of the general population, evaluating the emerging ‘Big 5’ approaches utilised in multidisciplinary lifestyle approaches to mental health. You will argue for their inclusion as interventions for a specific mental health disorder, using the neurobiological evidence behind each as your core message. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Problem solving, Applying technologies |
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| All - Assessment Task 3:Grant funding application | |||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal is to propose a multidisciplinary lifestyle medicine community intervention or research program, to address a specific mental health issue. |
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| Product: | Written Piece | ||||||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | You will prepare a grant funding application to propose a multidisciplinary lifestyle intervention program or research project, addressing a specific mental health issue. Using the examples provided as a guide, your application to a funding body will also include addressing limitations of past approaches, affordances and suggested methodology of your proposed approach, and a discussion of its impacts. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Problem solving, Organisation |
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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.
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.
All work submitted for assessment is to be word processed and submitted electronically. It is expected that students will have ready access to a computer with common productivity software and reliable Internet access. Students will be able to participate in video conferencing, and therefore it is recommended to have computer capabilities to join these sessions (e.g. webcam, microphone).
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.
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
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
For more information on Academic Learning & Teaching categories including:
For more information, visit https://www.usc.edu.au/explore/policies-and-procedures#academic-learning-and-teaching
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