Critical Analysis of Australian Curriculum Unit Plan: Report

This report offers a comprehensive critical analysis of the Australian Curriculum unit plan, examining its structure, purpose, and effectiveness in imparting knowledge and skills to students. The analysis focuses on the curriculum's alignment with the Melbourne Declaration, its emphasis on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, Asia's engagement with Australia, and sustainability. The report evaluates the lesson plan's strengths, resource accuracy, and the teacher's planning to develop student skills, including critical thinking and analytical abilities. It explores the use of self-directed quizzes, ICT integration, and collaborative learning methods. The report also discusses the limitations of the approach, such as potential opinionated differences, and suggests improvements based on Australian professional standards for teachers and the NSW Quality Teaching Model. Overall, the analysis provides insights into the curriculum's impact on student learning and suggests areas for further development.

Running head: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM UNIT PLAN
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM UNIT PLAN
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

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Introduction
The Australian curriculum has been formulated and structure in order to help the students
gather necessary educational and academic skills along with proper knowledge and
understanding, which in turn would help them to engage effectively to the ever-expanding
Global world. In order to attain such, the Australian Curriculum has been structured and created
in such manner, which exhibits strong relevance with the students and their daily chores as well
as the issue, which they come across daily (Brady & Kennedy 2013).
This essay mainly criticizes the structure and the purpose of the Australian Curriculum plan,
which intends to impart the students, which absolute and corrigible learning, to help them gather
awareness regarding the world around them. This report mainly emphasizes the strength of the
unit plan and defines the validity of the lessons with respect to the curriculum plan. On a further
note, this report investigates and criticizes the significance of the lesson plan, which has been
embedded within along with the teacher’s planning to develop the skills of the students. This
essay also validates and focuses on the accuracy of the resources, with the historical occurrences
and validity.
The main purpose of the essay is to investigate and analyze the significance and the
rationality of the Australian curriculum plan, which in turn is instrumental in contributing to the
knowledge and skills gathering of the students in the end.
Critical analysis of the Australian Curriculum Unit Plan
According to the Australian Curriculum, it can be considered to hold relevancy with both
the daily lives of the students along with the daily chores or occurrences that take place in the

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lives of the student. With these contemplation, along with the Melbourne Declaration on the
Educational goals for young Australians, the curriculum has been specially structured and
devised to impart information on three specific priorities, which includes the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander History and Culture, Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia and
Sustainability (Gosper & Ifenthaler, 2013).
The main reason to consider such priorities, is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island
communities hold highly rich and fertile cultural values along with deep knowledge with a
holistic view of the world. The people living in these communities are exceptional in nature and
hold a unique sense of identification and one of the oldest living cultures. Therefore, learning
about such a culture is an advantage to gather knowledge regarding one of the oldest cultures in
Australia. The knowledge regarding the cultures of the Aboriginal and the Torres Strait Islander
provides a huge opportunity for the young to enhance their knowledge with respect to the culture
in Australia (Price, 2015). The main reason to include the Asia’s Engagement with that of
Australia being Asia’s extensive engagement with Australia based in the social, economic,
political and cultural aspects. The rising nations of Asia have been growing rapidly and
contributing to the development of Australia. This section has been included in the curriculum to
help the students impart them with activeness and explain them to work with the other
community in harmony. In addition, this also helps in the understanding of the diversity in the
cultures of the both countries as well as helps develop empathy and integration towards the
social and cultural attributes along with the connection of the people from the two continents
with the rest of the world. The inclusion of sustainability has been done with the purpose of
helping the learning minds to understand the ways of social, economic as well as the
environmental systems, which can help in the support and the maintaining of human lives. This

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has been introduced cultivate the feeling of empathy and respect for the diverse view and culture,
which in turn can facilitate a source of sustainable development. In addition this section would
also help the young mind to cultivate creativity and critical thinking to develop more effective
and unconventional ways of sustainability and livelihood.
For each cross-curriculum and set of priories have been demonstrated in order to reflect
the essential knowledge and understanding along with the needed skills to engage the student,
which is obviously one of the intelligent methods to help the students enhance their own innate
abilities of understanding and analyzing. The organizing of these ideas have been embedded in
form of content descriptions in each area of learning, whatsoever is necessary (McKeachie &
Svinicki 2013). This organizing of the ideas with the interconnections, which in turn facilitates
the support of information and supporting of the fact is, in turn, a smart method of keeping the
young minds and learners interested and meets their requirements. This module of organizing of
ideas is considerably helpful, for the teachers, who can furthermore establish a connection with
the ongoing topic with another subsidiary topic. This is also helpful in pinpointing other
perspectives, which can help students to develop their analysis and analytical skills. For example,
students are being taught English with respect to the Aboriginal and Torres Islanders History and
cultural priority, in this prospect, the teachers select stories for the specific study units from the
different culture related to the Aboriginal and Torres Islanders History and cultural through
different range of media, like magazines, newspaper and other digitals forms. This would not
only help the students to gather knowledge about the history of the Torres islanders but also help
them analyze the power of media, how it influenced by the context and the purpose, the
effectiveness of the language selection and features of the story. These aspects would help the
student to only learn but develop their thinking capability as well as analytical skills.

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In order to teach the students regarding the cross-curriculum and the general capabilities
the new unit plan includes Aboriginal and Torres Islander cultures, which are presented in the
form of a self-directed quiz. Self-directed quiz can be described a learning process that is taken
by the individuals with or without the help of other to diagnose their learning needs and devising
their learning goals, as well as identifying the human and material resources need for the
learning, thus evaluating the learning outcomes. The self-directed analysis can be done on
various options such as school-industry cooperative projects, contemporary challenges and
opportunities in work, cross-cultural enterprise, Aboriginal and Torres Islander people and work,
gender and work along with school development options. Based on these options the selection of
the area of interest can be identified. These topics focus on the development of the self-varying
contexts. The good use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) such as smart
boards and portable devices is a smart method to expose the student to a new and interesting
method of learning (Barnes, 2015). The module as selected by the teachers encapsulates the
learning in a detailed manner, which in turn stimulates the critical and creative thinking of the
student through the discussions that are done in an interactive manner (Berglund, Shanneik &
Bocking 2016). The students are also introduced to “Self and relationship” assessment topic,
which mainly focuses on the self-analysis and development in diverse context. This is a positive
effort to help the students recognize and understand their abilities to perceive things in the
desired manner. Students are also exposed to various opportunities, which in turn help the
student to illustrate and demonstrate the range of challenges, and opportunities, that they
experience in the developing stage of their lives (Wyse, Hayward & Pandya, 2015). Therefore, in
other words, it can be said, that the methodology, which the teachers, have adopted, not only
helps the students in gathering bookish information and knowledge, but it also helps them shape

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their cognitive abilities in the course. In the lesson plan, the commencement of the self-directed
learning by the teachers can thus help the students identify their skills and strengths, which in
turn can be applied within the educational setting and furthermore use this strategy to improve
the individual's knowledge retention capacity. With the topics of historical and cultural
significance, the students are exposed to the concepts of identity and cultural attributes and
reflect on the fact how it influences or lays impact on the individuals and the society as a whole.
The students are made to watch and observe the following with the help of resources, which
primarily focuses on the indigenous Australian Cultures and Communities. The resources mostly
consist of video graphic resources consisting of bibliographies, autobiographies and case studies,
along with PowerPoint slides. In the end, the students are asked to place their own personal
opinion and reflect upon the videos or resources to improve their sense of identity along with
their individual perspectives. This, in turn, can be considered that the students are being exposed
to one of the most self-reliable and strong techniques to teach and educate their young receptive
minds (Pegrum, Oakley & Faulkner, 2013). In case of any lags or pitfalls, the support from the
teacher or the guiding figure, also keeps the student maintain a sense of security to learn and
rectify their mistakes, in case they make any or tends to do so. In certain techniques, the teacher
adopts the method of forming small group amongst the students and tends to direct them to
investigate the topic based on the perceptions they form with relevance to the identity and create
a mind map based on the same. This adaptation of can be perceived as one of the vital and
positive efforts since this kind of approach encourages the unity amongst the individuals,
stimulates the cognitive functioning and reasoning ability amongst the individuals also enhances
the ability to assemble the different perspectives, consequently combining them into a complete
and resonant outcome. However, this can be argued that this approach has certain limitations

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such as opinionated differences can give rise to clashes and affect the ability to relate to the
various opinions amongst the teammates. Nonetheless, these differences can be averted by
proper guidance and instructions from the teacher.
Based on the factual data, with relation to the lesson plan, there are certain areas that need
to be improved, which can be addressed through the Australian professional standards for the
teachers and the New South Wales (NSW) Quality Teaching Model. With respect to the
standards, the pattern of teaching used in the teaching modification includes the models and
strategies for teaching about the Aboriginal and Torres Islander to the students. With relevance
to the elements in the quality of the teaching, the historic relevance hold immense significance
since it in utmost needed when informing the students regarding the validation of the data comes
into the play. However, there are certain modifications that have been done in the lesson plan
along with the utilization of certain strategies to help in the process of better learning. The main
strategies that have been used for the teaching process in the application of collaborative
measures and lecturing. The teachers have been using the method of collaboration within the
lesson plan by the formation of groups in the class discussions in the making of a mind map (Bell
& Aldridge, 2014). However, it can be argued that the collaboration provides a greater benefit in
the learning process and helps the students to gather better knowledge and exhibit better higher
productivity through higher levels of care, analysis, support, social competence, and self-esteem.
It can be further elaborated that a mixture of the Information and Communication Technology
(ICT). The lecturing and collaboration, results in the positive outcomes, in terms of learning and
retention. Furthermore, the literary work by Maude, (2014) states that the teaching style has also
had a close connection with the content and the lesson plans. This is significant since it allows
the students to follow and keep up with the lessons and follow them accordingly, based on the

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last model, which has been implemented on the modified lesson plan with a purpose to teach the
students about the Aboriginal and Torres Islander.
On further elaboration of the topic regarding the Australian Curriculum and the
interrelation of both History and Geography, it can be stated that the cross-curriculum objective
is to provide diverse information related to both the cultural and physical demographics of any
particular place. In other words, it can be stated that the Australian curriculum is formulated with
the intention of helping the students to get a clear and definite idea related to the understanding
about the cultural and ethnocentric views regarding Asia and its close relationship with the
Australian life (Barrett & Rata, 2014). It also includes the historical and cultural aspects of the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural and historical with its co-relation with the
Australian Curriculum. Based on the analysis of the Historical and Geographic lesson module, it
has been found that there is a close comparison with the historical and geographic significance of
Asia with Australia. This, in turn, helps in the developing of the understanding of the History and
geography through the priorities in the cross-curriculum of Asia and Australia's engagement with
Asia. The curriculum elaborates on the key inclusions of the cross-curriculum priorities to assist
the students in developing a clear understanding regarding the distinctiveness and connection of
the people of Asia and Australia with the people from the rest of the world. The new module is
effective since it encapsulates and details about the diversified cultures of the Asian societies as
well as the beliefs and the environments along with its close connection with the democracy of
Asia, Australia with the rest of the world (Tudball, 2016). In context with the historical values,
the cross-curriculum objective includes the intentions of elaborating on the history of both Asia
and Australia to assist the student in their understanding and the ability to relate and analyze the
contributions of their historical significance to the world (Thornton, 2013). With respect to the

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geographical significance, the lesson module intends to impart the students with the knowledge
about the different demographics as well as investigate the different regions of the Asian
countries along with their environments (Gersmehl, 2014). This would facilitate the development
of the knowledge and help understand the impact of the skills, to analyze the diversity influence
along with its interactions with the places and the environments.
Thus it can be argued that the closeness and the accuracy of the resources are somewhat
related to the lessons. This can be considered, since the accuracy of the information would
impact the students with authentic data and would not tamper with the authenticity in their
perceptions and help them understand the relativity in terms of the identification and analysis of
the diversity, societies, the cultures and the demographic attributes of the different societies (E.
Dyment, Hill & Emery, 2015). It can also be argued that the cross curriculum-learning module
is, in fact, a strategy to develop an effective partnership between the school with the wider
community. This is important since a clear justification and understanding regarding various
aspects of the diversity would help the students to shape their knowledge and perception
regarding the diversification in the different societies of the different countries in the whole
world. This would also benefit the students when a critical analysis or comparison has been
asked to be demonstrated between any two cultures, which they can deliberately fail to deliver,
due to the lack of knowledge and accuracy in the data (Rahman, 2013).
Conclusion
With the help of this essay, it has can thus be concluded, that lessons have been planned to
effectively teach the student with close relevance and accuracy of the data. The closeness to the
cross-curriculum priorities has been demonstrated with the correct utilization of the strategies in

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incorporation the lesson plans with the content of the lesson plan to cultivate the learning and
knowledge of the students with the updated form of information regarding the diversity of the
different societies. The good management of the strategies such as team or group formation in
the creation of a mind map amongst the students in one of the effective steps that can be taken by
the student to keep the students active in their concept and perception development. The contents
of the lessons can be thus be arguably considered to be effective in building partnerships since
the teaming up of the accurate data along with the right guidance and the perception would
enable the students to culminate the discrepancy and the discrimination between the different
cultures of the world, in comparison to their host culture.

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