This task below is the second of a sequence comprising a total of three assessment items, which have been designed to build on each other in the form of a project:
- Assessment 1 consists of a quiz that tests students’ knowledge and understanding of key concepts of power, structure, human rights, social justice, and respect for diversity, and which are required for the completion of their second assessment task.
- Assessment 2 is the task presented in the following. It consists of a set of group-based activities at the end of which students submit a portfolio containing a peer-reviewed conference abstract on a human rights, social justice or diversity-related concern of their choice.
- Assessment 3 entails the production of a recorded conference presentation and PowerPoint slides, based on the abstract produced for Assessment 2. It requires students to draw on additional concepts, taught after their peer-reviewed conference abstracts (Assessment 2) were due.
Students are asked to produce their conference abstract (Assessment 2) and conference presentations (Assessment 3) with reference to a fictitious student conference entitled Advancing Human Rights, Social Justice, and Respect for Diversity in Australia Today. All students in this class have an opportunity to participate in an international online student symposium after the completion of the course. In this symposium, students from selected universities can share their concerns around human rights, social justice, and respect for diversity and discuss their ideas about how their concerns might be addressed, thereby teasing out both commonalities and differences with students studying towards the same degree in other regions of the world. The date of this post-semester symposium falls on International Human Rights Day.
Details
- CLASS SIZE
- 40-60
- CLASS LEVEL
- First year
- ASSESSMENT SECURITY
- Medium security
- TIME REQUIREMENTS
- Medium time
- CONDITIONS
- Group, Peer-assessed, Sequence
- FEATURES
- Authentic, Problem based
Advantages
- Fully integrates teaching and learning activities
- Hinges on students identifying and selecting topics that they feel passionate about.
- Keeps students present and engaged in the classroom.
- Makes theoretical material interesting and accessible, and it encourages students to explore the relevance of theoretical concepts for their future professional practice.
- Teaches students key skills for teamwork, including seeking, offering, and responding constructively to respectful and constructive feedback.
- Is extendable to a real-life student symposium or conference with international groups of students, who are working towards the same end: a student conference presentation on human rights, social justice and respect for diversity.
Challenges
- Tutors require confidence in their own theoretical, practical, and professional knowledge base to be able to guide students as they identify viable topics for their conference abstracts.
- The marking guide is fairly complex and requires attention to a considerable number of details across the different parts of the student portfolios.
- Marking requires not just grading; it also has a feed-forward component to provide guidance to students as they prepare for their final assessment piece, that is, their conference presentations.
Tips for implementation
The task description provides detailed guidelines for the implementation of this task across the course of four weeks.
Learning outcomes
This assessment item seeks to meet five of the seven learning outcomes set for this course. Two further outcomes require teaching and tutorial content covered in weeks 9 to 12, i.e. after the due date for this assessment.
1. Understand the concepts of power and structure, using a range of theoretical perspectives.
2. Understand the concepts of human rights, social justice, and diversity, using relevant theoretical perspectives.
3. Explain the relationship between power and structure on the one hand, and social (in)justice, human rights, and respect for diversity on the other.
4. Articulate challenges facing people in contemporary Australia in terms of human rights, social justice, and respect for diversity.
7. Write, critique, and receive feedback on a conference abstract, and present a conference paper.
How it supports academic integrity
The use of artificial intelligence or machine translation technologies is permitted but must be referenced. Directions are provided on when and how the use of such technologies might prove useful. The use of these technologies must be referenced and will be assessed as part of the skills criterion in the marking rubric.
Dr Dorothee Hölscher
d.holscher@uq.edu.au
Dr. Dorothee Hölscher is a social work lecturer in the School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work at The University of Queensland and a research associate with the Department of Social Work & Criminology at the University of Pretoria. Previously, she worked at Griffith University in Australia and the Universities of KwaZulu Natal, and the Witwatersrand in South Africa.
Dorothee began her social work education in Germany, followed by the completion of a Master of Social Science (cum laude) and a Ph.D. (by publication) in South Africa. Her practice experience comprises social work with refugees and other cross-border migrants, community development, and child protection.
Dorothee’s research areas are applied ethics (with a focus on justice), anti-oppressive social work theory and practice, and social work with migrants and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Her research skill set comprises a wide range of qualitative and post-qualitative methodologies. To date, she published a total of 40 books and edited collections, book chapters, and scholarly articles; serves as a reviewer for eight local and international journals and presents regularly at local and international conferences.
A co-founder and a longstanding executive member of the Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa (ASSWA), Dorothee currently serves on the editorial board of the journal, Ethics & Social Welfare (ESW), and has recently completed - with Profs Richard Hugman from the University of New South Wales and Donna McAuliffe from Griffith University - an edited volume on social work theories and ethics with Springer Nature (June 2023). Find out more