Units

---

Sample subject outline - Semester 1 2013

Note: Subject outlines often change before the semester begins. Below is a sample outline.

Rationale

This unit engages you in critical examination of the professional role, organisational requirements, leadership and management, motivations, and personal responses to these workplace factors in the Human Service/Social Work context. You are encouraged to critically analyse policy, societal, organisational, consumer and staff influences on practice and the way these intersect with personal and professional frameworks. The unit is oriented towards building your organisational competence and confidence about functioning in the practice context, as well as your commitment to reflective practice.

Aims

This unit aims to prepare students for a professional career by building awareness, knowledge and skills of how the organisational context impacts on practitioners and practice as well as an understanding of the nature of organisational processes, including change.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this unit, students will:

1. apply appropriate organisational and management theories to analyse and improve professional practice in human service agencies

2. demonstrate knowledge and skills for effective and ethical engagement with organisational procedures and processes

3. apply skills for project management and leadership in an organisational context
4. critically evaluate personal needs for professional development and for responding to and managing change within the organisational context

Learning outcomes link to:
AASW Education and Accreditation Standards: 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 4.1.1, 4.1.2, 4.1.3, 4.1.4, 4.1.5, 4.1.6
AASW Practice Standards for Social Workers: 1.1, 1.5, 1.8, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.9, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.6, 4.1, 4.2, 6.5
ACWA Core Competencies: 1.3, 1.4, 1.6, 2.3, 2.5, 3.6, 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, 4.5, 5.3, 5.4, 5.6

Content

The unit will comprise a combination of formal lectures, professional development activities, collaborative team activities and student facilitated workshops comprising the following broad content areas:
· Understanding organisational contexts
· Skills for working in various organisational context
· Self management in organisations
· Organisational leadership and human resource management
· Resolving organisational conflicts
· Organisational and professional values and ethics
· Project management

Approaches to Teaching and Learning

This unit will be taught through a mixture of lectures and similar presentations as well as collaborative small group exercises and discussions in tutorials and workshops. After the introductory sessions there will be a fortnightly sequence of two-hour lecture / professional development activity as well as fortnightly tutorials.
A significant part of student learning will occur in six two-hour workshops. In these workshops and associated small group collaborations you will discuss and analyse problematic organisational scenarios and develop procedural knowledge and skills in organisational communication, leadership and project management. Students will also be involved in analysing and addressing a range of organisational / professional dilemmas and encouraged to reflect on their use of self and personal frameworks. This process aims to help to develop contextualised problem solving skills and to integrate relevant theory and research as students develop practice wisdom. This development of practical skills will be framed within a model of reflective knowledge development: empirical, theoretical, procedural, self knowledge and practice wisdom.
The Blackboard site for this unit will include group sites so that you will have a range of communication tools to use and can show effective use of these tools.

Assessment

There are three items of assessment in this unit.You will receive formative feedback on assessment items 1 & 3 in the workshop sessions. Assessment item 3 is summative but will include some response to formative feedback. Assessment item 2 involves giving and receiving feedback to peers.

Assessment name: Workbook/critical reflection
Description: This workbook will collate and critique your tasks and experiences associated with the six workshops. You will copy and present selected documents developed in your workshop group. These will be items such as project plans, reports, change proposals and meeting notes etc. You will also submit a brief (600 - 1,000 word) statement that summary of your learning which will also identify goals for ongoing professional development (1,000 +or- 10%).
Relates to objectives: 1-4
Weight: 60%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: End Week 14

Assessment name: Peer Review
Description: At the completion of each of the six workshops students will complete a peer review within their small group assessing each member's engagement with the workshop process. In the early tutorials there will be discussion of what makes for effective collaborative and ethical engagement with organisational procedures and processes practice and students' ideas will be used to generate the peer review tool for assessment.
Relates to objectives: 2
Weight: 10%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Group
Due date: Various

Assessment name: Self-assessment
Description: In this essay-style document (1,500 words) you will use the theories and concepts used in this unit to examine your knowledge and skills for working in a human service agency. You will complete and comment on a number of self-assessment tools and critically reflect on interpersonal processes at work in organisations as well asand your approach towards change.
Relates to objectives: 1, 2 & 4
Weight: 30%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: Week 5

Academic Honesty

QUT is committed to maintaining high academic standards to protect the value of its qualifications. To assist you in assuring the academic integrity of your assessment you are encouraged to make use of the support materials and services available to help you consider and check your assessment items. Important information about the university's approach to academic integrity of assessment is on your unit Blackboard site.

A breach of academic integrity is regarded as Student Misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties.

Resource materials

TEXT:
McDonald, C., Craik, C., Hawkins, L. & Williams, J. (2011). Professional practice in human service organisations. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Risk assessment statement

There are no out of the ordinary risks associated with this unit

Disclaimer - Offer of some units is subject to viability, and information in these Unit Outlines is subject to change prior to commencement of semester.

Last modified: 12-Nov-2012