P R O S O C I A L  L E A R N I N G  E N V I R O N M E N T S

ASSIGNMENT 2
Evaluate, Construct And Reflect On Prosocial Guidance Approaches
??Important Information
Note: This assignment links with your current Professional Experience and needs to be completed in
this setting. You can be working with any age group – birth – 2 years, 3-5 years or primary school
age. If you are not currently enrolled in a professional experience unit you need to complete the
Alternative Assignment 2 described later in this Learning Guide. You must consult the unit
coordinator before completing the alternative assignment.
LENGTH: 2000 words (excluding reference list and appendix)
WHAT DO I NEED TO SUBMIT?
2000 word report including components 1-6 as specified in the assignment description.
SUBMISSION DETAILS:
Submit a draft of your assignment to Turnitin by 5/6/2015 so you have time to review your
Originality Report and edit your work.
Submit an electronic copy of your final assignment to Turnitin by 5pm 12/6/2015 (Do not include
your cover sheet but do include your reference list) AND
Assignments submitted after the due date and time, without an approved extension, will be
penalised 10% per day for late submission.
You must keep a copy of your assignment.
PURPOSE – HOW THIS ASSIGNMENT RELATES TO LEARNING OUTCOMES
This assessment task requires you to plan, implement and evaluate prosocial guidance in your
placement setting and then present a report about this process. It requires you to demonstrate a
critical understanding of prosocial approaches and strategies, and be able to use and reflect on a
range of skills to guide the prosocial development of children. You are required to apply theory and
research to inform your analysis and planning for guiding children in a prosocial manner. In your
report you are expected to provide a reflection of your own practices and implications for your
future professional development. You will need to communicate your ideas in a clear and
professional manner, and use appropriate referencing.
PROCESSES
To complete this assignment you need to plan, implement, and evaluate a behavioural or prosocial
guidance approach and related strategy/strategies with a group of children in your professional
experience setting. You need to begin this assignment by first observing and analysing disciplinary or
guidance approaches and strategies used in your Professional Experience (PE) setting. Based on the
analysis of the strategies used in your PE setting, you need to develop your own guidance approach
and related strategies in consultation with the centre director, implement these, and reflect on their
effectiveness in guiding young children.
The steps you need to take to complete the assignment:
1. You must have completed child protection training and must obtain informed consent from
families for the focus child/ren in the setting before completing this assignment (a copy of the
consent form can be found on vUWS). 1 0 1 1 0 5 P R O S O C I A L L E A R N I N G E N V I R O N M E
N T S 1 H / A U T U M N 2 0 1 5
1 0 1 1 0 5 P R O S O C I A L L E A R N I N G E N V I R O N M E N T S 1 H 2 0 1 5
2. Collect information relating to behavioural guidance in the PE setting: Before you develop your
own guidance approach and strategies, you need to understand the setting’s approaches, policies
and practices relating to child guidance. Collect information on the following aspects
? What challenging behaviours are displayed by children in the centre/ school?
? Details of what happened in those situations. When did they happen and what were the
reasons for challenging behaviours?
? What disciplinary or guidance strategies did educators use to guide or discipline children?
? How did children respond to educators’ intervention/disciplining?
? What are the guidance policies of the centre/school?
? How did educators organise routines, classroom activities and learning environments to
minimise disciplinary problems?
? How did classroom organisation impact on children’s behaviours?
? How did caregivers promote prosocial learning in that setting?
Collect this information through observations of children in the PE setting on each field visit and also
by talking to staff and referring to the setting’s policies.
3. Analyse behavioural guidance approach and strategies used in the PE setting and develop your
own guidance approach: Analyse disciplinary or guidance strategies utilised in the PE setting using
information from field visits and observations. Next, develop one behaviour guidance approach and
strategies that you would like to utilise in guiding children at the PE setting. You need to justify the
selection of your approach and strategies linking it with the analysis of information from the setting
and current research.
4. Implement your guidance approach: You are expected to integrate and utilise the chosen
guidance approach in your PE setting. Ensure that the following details relating to your selected
guidance approach are present in the documentation of all planned and implemented experiences.
Clearly indicate in the documentation as to how you:
? utilised your selected guidance approach and strategies for guiding children prosocially;
? utilised space, time, resources and grouping to promote positive learning environments and
behaviours;
? planned and implemented experiences/lessons with consideration of the aesthetics of the
environment/promotion of positive learning climate;
? planned and implemented learning experiences/lessons to promote positive social interactions
between children and to promote children’s self-esteem;
?followed ethical and professional requirements in guiding children.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of the chosen prosocial guidance approach and strategies: After
implementing your selected guidance approach and strategies, reflect on and analyse their
effectiveness for guiding children positively. Keep a diary of your personal reflections and
evaluations of experiences as they will be useful in the preparation of the final report.
?Hint: Steps 1-5 will be done whilst on PE and part of your preparation, planning and teaching.
6. Now you are ready to write your report! Write a reflective report (2000 words) on the planning,
implementation and evaluation of your selected prosocial guidance approach and related strategies:
The guidelines below provide information on what is required in this report.
?Hint: You may use subheadings to help structure your report. 1 0 1 1 0 5 P R O S O C I A L L E A R
N I N G E N V I R O N M E N T S 1 H / A U T U M N 2 0 1 5
1 0 1 1 0 5 P R O S O C I A L L E A R N I N G E N V I R O N M E N T S 1 H 2 0 1 5
Guidelines for completing the Assignment 2 Report
This report submitted for marking must include the following details:
? Consent Form – Put this in Appendix 1.
? Overview of the current approaches and strategies used by the PE staff to guide children’s
behaviour. Support this discussion with selected examples of observations and notes from field
visits. Include details relating to these in Appendix 2.
? Outline of your chosen guidance approach and strategies used to guide children’s behaviour;
clear rationale for the selected guidance approach and strategies; their appropriateness to children/
setting/families; supported by theory, literature and analysis of the setting’s guidance approach.
? Discussion on how you utilised your selected approach in your PE setting. This discussion
should have details on how you integrated and utilised your selected guidance approach and
strategies while guiding children prosocially. Be sure to provide brief examples of integration and
evaluations of learning experiences. Submit 3 experiences or lesson (this can be plans) with details
on how you integrated and utilised your chosen guidance approach into your PE work in Appendix 3.
? Critical evaluation of the effectiveness of your guidance strategy for promoting positive social
interactions, self-esteem and cooperative behaviours and limitations in regards to these. Include
selected examples of observations, reflections and notes that support this discussion in your report
and details relating to those in Appendix 4.
? Your reflections on how you met ethical and professional requirements in guiding children
and in communicating or interacting with families on matters of guidance. Such ethical and
professional conduct includes: obtaining parental consent; avoiding biased, stereotyped or
generalized remarks regarding children’s behaviours; avoiding applying negative labels to children’s
behaviours and parental or teacher practices.
? Implications for your own future professional development including links to future goals for
professional experience or your role as a new teacher.
Remember, this is a reflective report and your discussion needs to be critical and evaluative and
should not be descriptive. It is not enough to simply say what approach you chose or how you
implemented it, rather the focus should be on analysing the effectiveness of your chosen
approach/strategy, along with the benefits of this exercise for your personal and professional
development. Ensure you regularly document your daily reflections and evaluations of guidance
approach/strategies. They are very valuable in this assignment.
Make relevant links to theory and research in your discussion. You should consult recent research
(from the last 5 years) and peer-reviewed research articles and scholarly text books. In the
assessment folder on vUWS you will find information about how to find peer-reviewed research
articles and how to reference using the APA 6th edition referencing style.
You should include an introduction and conclusion in your report. You may use subheadings but
avoid using bullet points please. You are able to use first person (e.g. I feel that …) but make sure
you use formal academic language.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
An exemplary report will be determined by your ability to:
1. Demonstrate an in-depth analysis of the setting’s current approaches to guiding children’s
behaviour;
2. Communicate and justify your own approach, supported by relevant and recent research and
theoretical perspectives; and provide appendix items that support your discussion; 1 0 1 1 0 5 P R O
S O C I A L L E A R N I N G E N V I R O N M E N T S 1 H / A U T U M N 2 0 1 5
1 0 1 1 0 5 P R O S O C I A L L E A R N I N G E N V I R O N M E N T S 1 H 2 0 1 5
3. Critically evaluate the implementation of your approach, and support this evaluation with recent
research and relevant theoretical perspectives;
4. Adopt ethical and professional practices in your work;
5. Provide an insightful reflection on the implications for your future professional development and
role as a teacher;
6. Present work professionally, using appropriate and clear academic writing and APA referencing
style within the word limit.
EXAMPLES OF ASSIGNMENT 2
Past exemplars are provided on the Prosocial Learning Environments’ vUWS site.
ASSESSMENT STANDARDS
The Assessment Standards outline the standards expected for each of these criteria in order to pass
this assignment, and to gain higher grades of credit, distinction and high distinction. All markers use
these standards when assessing your work and you are strongly advised to use them to self-assess
prior to submitting your assignment.