Course Outline
SPX300 Exercise Science Professional Practicum
Course Coordinator:Michelle Small (msmall@usc.edu.au) School:School of Health - Sports and Exercise Science
2024Semester 1
UniSC Sunshine Coast |
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 usc.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
This is a third-year course in the Bachelor of Sport & Exercise Science and Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology programs. By working with healthy populations, you will demonstrate exercise science skills of exercise assessment, prescription, and delivery which are reflected in the Exercise Science Standards. The 140 Hours are completed at on-campus and off-campus sites. To facilitate completion of placement hours face-to-face classes (tutes/ workshop, Labs) starting in OWeek.
How will this course be delivered?
| Activity | Hours | Beginning Week | Frequency |
| Blended learning | |||
| Tutorial/Workshop 1 – You will have one workshop in O week (introduction class)- 2hours, week 3 (learning plan)- 1hour, week 4 (review of Ax's)- 1hour and one workshop in week 8 (discussing submission)- this may be moved to your debrief time. | 2hrs | Orientation week | 4 times |
| Laboratory 1 – You will have 5 labs. Each lab will run between 2 hour to 3 hours long. Three will be in Oweek, two will be in week 1 and week 2. Some labs may be timetabled back to back. | 3hrs | Orientation week | 5 times |
| Placement – You usually attend three placements through the semester: Simulated learning, the Health and Fitness (H&F) Clinic and an external industry placement. Your simulated learning placement is offered in week 1. Your H&F placement is a 6 week block in wk2 to wk7 or wk7 to wk13. Your External placement may run from week 1 to wk 13 but this is dependent on the external site so we ask you are available for placement from wk 1 to wk 13. Frequency of hrs depends on the site. | 140hrs | Orientation week | Once Only |
Course Topics
You will have one tutorial/workshop to introduce the course, 5 workshops around preparing you for placement in exercise assessment, exercise prescription and exercise delivery skills, 2 educational tutorials discussing assessment items, and a final tutorial/workshop to final the course and discuss submission. Your placement experience through semester will involve approximately three placements simulated learning, the Health and fitness program and your external placement.
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 Completing these tasks successfully will contribute to you becoming... | |
| 1 | Demonstrate professional skills in the provision of exercise science services in collaboration with clients | Engaged |
| 2 | Apply evidence and theory to exercise assessment, prescription and delivery, for individuals |
Knowledgeable Creative and critical thinker Empowered Engaged |
| 3 | Assess and reflect on professional skills to develop personal awareness and social responsibility within the placement environment and own professional development |
Empowered Ethical |
| 4 | Practice within ethical, legal and professional boundaries and demonstrates compliance with the student placement Code of conduct | Ethical |
| 5 | Demonstrate effective and appropriate skills in communicating information, advice, education and professional opinion to individuals and other health professionals |
Creative and critical thinker Empowered Ethical Engaged |
| 6 | Demonstrate the ability to design, implement, monitor and evaluate exercise and life-style intervention for individuals that is client-centred |
Knowledgeable Empowered Ethical Engaged |
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
SPX121 and SPX203 and SPX221 and SPX222 and enrolled in Program SC344, or SC304. Mandatory requirements are required to be submitted to SONIA for this course at least 5 months before semester commences. To be eligible to attend a manual enrolment meeting with the Course coordinator all mandatories are required to submitted and approved.
Co-requisites
Not applicable
Anti-requisites
Not applicable
Specific assumed prior knowledge and skills (where applicable)
It is assumed that you will familiarise yourself with the industry peak body-Exercise and Sports Science Australia with the (ESSA) and the requirements of membership as an Exercise Scientist and Accreditation. This information can be found on the ESSA website www.essa.org.au
How am I going to be assessed?
Grading Scale
Limited Grading (PNP)
Details of early feedback on progress
In week 4 you will have a review meeting with the course coordinator to discuss your placement performance and your progress with the assessment items.
Assessment tasks
| Delivery mode | Task No. | Assessment Product | Individual or Group | What is the duration / length? | When should I submit? | Where should I submit it? |
| All | 1 | Code of Conduct | Individual | N/A |
Refer to Format | SONIA |
| All | 2 | Placement performance | Individual | N/A |
Refer to Format | SONIA |
| All - Assessment Task 1:Code of conduct - Adherence | |
| Goal: | This task enables you to become familiar with and demonstrate the requisite professional behaviours captured in the Code of Conduct for your discipline and work environment |
| Product: | Code of Conduct |
| Format: | SUBMIT the Code of Conduct agreement/contract during O'Week. Whilst completing your 140 Exercise Science placement hours, you will be expected to abide by the disciplines code of conduct. The signed student agreement represents an agreement/ contract and asks you to abide by your disciplines code of conduct. Like any authentic work contract, you will be required to comply with the contract. Your Course coordinator will be available to answer any questions. To be eligible to pass, you are required to complete this placement satisfactorily according to the criteria below. - If you fail to meet the student placement code of conduct you may fail the course and can be withdrawn from the workplace immediately, as per the USC Workplace and Industry Placement procedures. |
| Criteria: |
|
| All - Assessment Task 2:Professional Competencies | |
| Goal: | You will demonstrate your competency and professional standard as an Exercise Scientist. To do this you will undertake supervised work integrated learning placements and perform the tasks of an Exercise Scientist working in a professional setting. A key element of this assessment will be the collation of documents demonstrating competency development |
| Product: | Placement performance |
| Format: | SUBMIT: - 1. Internal placement Ax items: Week 4, 6 of your block, plus week 3 of semester. Simulated learning is week 5 of semester. - 2. External placement Ax items: week 1 and final week of placement. The SPX300 final submission meeting is a face to face meeting in Study week. Exercise and Sports Science Australia (ESSA) has identified a number of core skills that are fundamental to Exercise Science Standards. This assessment task captures professional skills in professional practice, exercise assessment, exercise prescription, exercise delivery and other Exercise Science Standards. The skills Portfolio will include the following items: a) a learning plan for H&F Clinic (due week 3) & external placement (due last week) completed by you and your supervisor and signed and uploaded to SONIA. b) Supervisor Feedback: -Initial supervisor feedback for H&F clinic (due wk 4 of block) and external placement site (due last week) completed by your supervisor, signed by you and your supervisor and uploaded by you to SONIA -final supervisor feedback for H&F clinic (due last week) and external placement (due last week) completed by your supervisor, signed by you and your supervisor and uploaded by you to SONIA. You will have a review meeting with your course coordinator in week 4 of semester. c) Professional client files for each client at the Health and Fitness program, completed by you to standard as provided on the client file audit checklist. This is completed at the end of the H&F program by your block. d) Professional practice reflections for your simulated learning and completed by you, signed by you and your supervisor/ course coordinator and uploaded to SONIA. e) Logbook of professional hours: -logbook review in week 4 to review your progress. -excel logbook of Exercise Science hours for each placement site completed by you; -cover page of logbook. - excel logbook with a minimum of all 140 required Exercise Science placement hours (across all sites) across all placements completed by you and uploaded to SONIA after you complete placement and in time for submission; f) Placement Engagement Reflection for Simulated learning (due week 5), H&F Clinic (due week 6 of block) and external placement site (due last week) completed by you, signed by your supervisor and uploaded by you to SONIA for the submission meeting in study week g) SPX300 Final submission- Submission will be completed in study week. Together with your total Exercise Science 140 hours, you are required to have all assessment items ready for final grading in SONIA. You will have two checklists to follow- a quality checklist (utilized through semester) and the submission meeting checklist. You must follow these checklists to pass the course. |
| Criteria: |
|
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
Specific requirements
You are required to submit mandatory requirements to be eligible enrolment in SPX300. A manual enrolment meeting will run in follow soon after the mandatory due date to enrol you in SPX300. You must submit your mandatories by September in the year prior to semester one enrolment, and April before semester two commences. Mandatory information can be found on SONIA online- select Sport & Exercise Science, and/or the UniSC website under Sport and Exercise Science/ Clinical Exercise Science- 'Placements' (SPX300). The steps involved in enrolment are the following and can take some time, so you must commence this process August/ September the year prior to semester one enrolment and March/ April before semester two commences: 1. You will need to access SONIA Online 2. Register your interest in SPX300 3. Complete your pre-enrolment Mandatory Requirements Follow the prompts to the Mandatory Buttons for Blue Card, CPR and First Aid so you are eligible for an enrolment meeting. Please note your Student Placement Agreement and PrePlace will not be available to complete until after you have been enrolled. 4. Once all the required course mandatories are uploaded to SONIA, email shssplacements@usc.edu.au to confirm your eligibility to enrol into SPX300 5. If you are eligible, you will receive an email asking you to select a group meeting time to finalise your enrolment Assessment Criteria You will receive whole class generic guidelines on the structure and content of your assessment items including your log books. They will be consistent with the standards required for submission to Exercise and Sport Science Australia (ESSA) and the university. You will be required hold your logbook to this standard whilst on placement. This will also be discussed further in the first tutorial/ class. All placement hours must be completed through the SPX300 university placement course as it embeds important ESSA accreditation requirements. Any placement hours completed outside formal enrolment in SPX300 will not count towards completion of the course. UniSC may give recognition of prior learning (RPL) to students who have transferred from another university after completing an equivalent placement subject (AQF7)+ accompanying equivalent assessment tasks, but this is dependent on assessment and approval by the SPX300 Course Coordinator and degree Program Lead. RPL may be applied for by contacting Student Central.
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
Limited Graded Course: This course will be graded as Pass in a Limited Grade Course (PU) or Fail in a Limited Grade Course (UF) as per clause 4.1.3 and 4.1.4 of the Grades and Grade Point Average (GPA) - Institutional Operating Policy of the USC. In a course eligible to use Limited Grades, all assessment items in that course are marked on a Pass/Fail basis and all assessment tasks are required to be passed for a student to successfully complete the course. Supplementary assessment is not available in courses using Limited Grades.
Assessment: Submission penalties
You must contact your Course Coordinator and provide the required documentation if you require an extension or alternate assessment.
SafeUniSC
UniSC is committed to a culture of respect and providing a safe and supportive environment for all members of our community. For immediate assistance on campus contact SafeUniSC by phone: 07 5430 1168 or using the SafeZone app. For general enquires contact the SafeUniSC team by phone 07 5456 3864 or email safe@usc.edu.au.
The SafeUniSC Specialist Service is a Student Wellbeing service that provides free and confidential support to students who may have experienced or observed behaviour that could cause fear, offence or trauma. To contact the service call 07 5430 1226 or email studentwellbeing@usc.edu.au.
Study help
For help with course-specific advice, for example what information to include in your assessment, you should first contact your tutor, then your course coordinator, if needed.
If you require additional assistance, the Learning Advisers are trained professionals who are ready to help you develop a wide range of academic skills. Visit the Learning Advisers web page for more information, or contact Student Central for further assistance: +61 7 5430 2890 or studentcentral@usc.edu.au.
Wellbeing Services
Student Wellbeing provide free and confidential counselling on a wide range of personal, academic, social and psychological matters, to foster positive mental health and wellbeing for your academic success.
To book a confidential appointment go to Student Hub, email studentwellbeing@usc.edu.au or call 07 5430 1226.
AccessAbility Services
Ability Advisers ensure equal access to all aspects of university life. If your studies are affected by a disability, learning disorder mental health issue, injury or illness, or you are a primary carer for someone with a disability or who is considered frail and aged, AccessAbility Services can provide access to appropriate reasonable adjustments and practical advice about the support and facilities available to you throughout the University.
To book a confidential appointment go to Student Hub, email AccessAbility@usc.edu.au or call 07 5430 2890.
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
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In person:
- UniSC Sunshine Coast - Student Central, Ground Floor, Building C, 90 Sippy Downs Drive, Sippy Downs
- UniSC Moreton Bay - Service Centre, Ground Floor, Foundation Building, Gympie Road, Petrie
- UniSC SouthBank - Student Central, Building A4 (SW1), 52 Merivale Street, South Brisbane
- UniSC Gympie - Student Central, 71 Cartwright Road, Gympie
- UniSC Fraser Coast - Student Central, Student Central, Building A, 161 Old Maryborough Rd, Hervey Bay
- UniSC Caboolture - Student Central, Level 1 Building J, Cnr Manley and Tallon Street, Caboolture
- Tel:+61 7 5430 2890
- Email:studentcentral@usc.edu.au