EXSC106 - Social and Emotional Wellbeing of Young People

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Unit rationale, description and aim

Professionals working with adolescents require contemporary knowledge, understanding and skills to reflect on and engage with issues related to the social and emotional well-being of young people. The aim of this unit is to provide students with opportunities to examine the issues which impact on the welfare and health status of adolescents (eg mental health, risk taking, drug use, media and body image, bullying, technology/social media, eating disorders, self-harm/suicide, homelessness, Indigenous/rural health, diversity etc). Students will analyse and develop appropriate strategies and learning activities in raising awareness, providing accurate information, accessing services, prevention and intervention. They will explore issues of diversity, marginalisation, alienation, inclusion, culture and identity. Students will examine processes for increasing supportive environments, community capacity and empowerment, while providing students with an appreciation of social justice, an understanding of equity and a respect for the human being.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

Content

Topics will include: 

• Introduction to social and emotional well-being 
• Understanding mental illnesses and challenging stigma 
• Celebrating diversity 
• Importance of social and emotional wellbeing in young people 
• Adolescence 
• Impact of marginalisation, exclusion, diversity, social justice on the social and emotional wellbeing of young people (e.g., cultural/religious groups, homelessness/poverty, rural health, Indigenous health) 
• Adolescent brain development 
• Social and cultural perspectives e.g. media and body image, impact of technology,  
• Mental health and illness concerns in young people (e.g., depression, anxiety, disordered eating, self-harm, suicide) 
• Drug education 
• Behavioural difficulties in young people (e.g. bullying/cyberbullying, violence, risk-taking activities) 
• Creating safe and supportive environments and strategies to empower young people. 
• Teaching pedagogy principles  
• Strategies and activities for the classroom 
• Reflective writing 

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

Student centred teaching and learning strategies will be the focus in the unit based on the theory of constructivism. Students will construct new meaning (build on prior knowledge) and make sense of what they are learning, why they are learning this and how this learning is applied. These strategies encourage independent and lifelong learning, where students take responsibility for their learning. The learning tasks are authentic (engage in tasks that are real), reflective (deep learning) and collaborative (engaging and working with peers). Student centred strategies include reflective writing, critical thinking activities, co-operative/ collaborative learning, incorporating Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and peer/independent learning. These strategies link directly to the assessment tasks, as the assessments are a teaching and learning strategy in itself. These strategies have been chosen to give students opportunities to actively engage with the content and to provide variety within the tutorial and assessment tasks. The knowledge and skills acquired can be applied and are relevant to what is required in real world situations and for future profession/practice/workplace. 

Assessment strategy and rationale

Employers today seek more than knowledge from students, they want them to transfer learning to real situations, problem solve and have higher order thinking skills. Authentic assessment provides students with these skills, because the tasks are real, meaningful, require judgment and innovation and are related to one’s workplace, personal and social life. Students learn in different ways; professionally we need to explore and provide opportunities so they perform to their very best, feel worthwhile, empowered and enjoy learning. In order to best enable students to achieve unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes, standards-based assessment is utilised, consistent with University assessment requirements. A range of assessment strategies are used including: 

A range of assessment strategies are used including: 

1. Reflective writing: Written reflection on the social and emotional wellbeing as a foundation for the Teaching Resource File. Reflect and analyse the influences and issues that can have positive/negative impacts on social and emotional wellbeing
2. Constructivism strategy: Resource File - create your own teaching/learning activities related to adolescent wellbeing that will become the start of a resource file for your future teaching. This assessment type can be used and applied in real life situations/contexts (school, community, and youth groups) and future practice/profession.
3. Collaborative Learning: Multimedia team teaching presentation- In teams select an area/topic related to the social and emotional wellbeing of adolescents. The multimedia presentation is to either raise awareness, reflect a concept or skill relevant to the topic and become a future resource for teaching/practice. Explain and demonstrate the implementation of the multimedia presentation with reference to where and how it would be used in a lesson/workshop. This assessment type can be used and applied in real life situations/contexts (school, community, and youth groups) and future practice/profession.
4. Examination: Requires students to demonstrate their understanding and application of course content.

This unit contains a graded hurdle task whereby a particular assignment is the only assignment piece to assess one or more of the learning outcomes of the unit. This can occur when it is deemed necessary to have an explicit learning outcome linked to a key piece of skill or knowledge students are expected to develop within the unit and an assignment is developed to ensure it assesses this learning outcome effectively. This is the case within this unit as it forms part of the collection of units required for students to have Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) as a teaching area once qualified. These units are designed to meet the entry conditions of post graduate teacher training courses as well as state-based PDHPE teacher registration requirements.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Cranston, A. (2022). Creating Social and Emotional Learning Environments. Hawker Brownlow Education: Victoria, Australia.

Manocha, R. Ed (2017). Growing Happy, Health Young Minds. Hachette: Australia.

Manocha, R. Ed (2017). Nurtuting Young Minds. Hachette: Australia.

M, Sprenger. (2021). Social-Emotional Learning and the Brain: Strategies to Help Your Students Thrive. Hawker Brownlow Education: Victoria, Australia.

White, R., Wyn, J., & Robards, B. (2017) Youth and Society (4th edition). South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press.