TEACHERS PAGE

 You, Me & Us- Culture and Diversity I-QUEST

Authors: Syeda Hussain & Mintaze Efe

Level: Grade 5-6 students working towards VELS level 4

Length of unit: It is expected that the set tasks should take one full term or approximately 10 weeks to complete.

As students work towards the achievement of Level 4 standards in the Arts, they investigate a range of traditional and contemporary arts forms, styles, media, materials, equipment and technologies in the arts disciplines of Dance, Drama, Media, Music and Visual Arts. They learn about ways to design, improvise, represent, interpret, make and present arts works that communicate feelings and their interests and understanding of themselves, their relationships and other people. Through the completion of task 4 & 5 (creating a piece of culture & expo), students will have achieved this standard.

Students will achieve this by completing all tasks, as they are required to do extensive research on the cultures that they are learning about. They will then need to complete the tasks using the information they have drawn from texts.

Writing

At Level 4, students produce, in print and electronic forms, a variety of texts for different purposes using structures and features of language appropriate to the purpose, audience and context of the writing. They begin to use simple figurative language and visual images. They employ a variety of strategies for writing, including note-making, using models, planning, editing and proofreading.

Students will achieve this through completing tasks 1,2, and 3 as they are required to note take using a mind-mapping program, create a book using Microsoft Word and print it out and to create a quiz. All these tasks also require students to plan, edit and proof read their work as it they will be marked on it.

Speaking and Listening

At Level 4, students plan, rehearse and make presentations for different purposes. They sustain a point of view and provide succinct accounts of personal experiences or events. They adjust their speaking to take account of context, purpose and audience, and vary tone, volume and pace of speech to create or emphasise meaning. When listening to spoken texts, they identify the main idea and supporting details and summarize them for others. They identify opinions offered by others, propose other relevant viewpoints and extend ideas in a constructive manner. 

Through the completion of task 2 (Creating a Book) students will achieve this standard, as they will be required to present their book, their findings, opinions and knowledge to the class. Students will then need to draw the main points of the presentation, as the next task (Quiz) will be related to the information delivered in presentations.

Students demonstrate an understanding of key aspects of an Asian country or countries within the Australian region. They explain significant events and people in the history of that country or countries. They describe aspects of governance, customs, religious traditions and daily life. They explain the values important to other societies and their own and links between other countries and Australia.

They compare and contrast the values and beliefs of Australians and people of other cultures. They compare aspects of different cultures and countries, in both the past and present, and ask questions about their own society. They sequence events and describe their significance in bringing about particular developments.

This I-Quest aims to cover this standard through the completion of all tasks. Students will research about the different New Year celebrations around the World and compare and contrast it to the Australian culture. They also discover how these traditions have contributed to our culture and society today.

Through the completion of task 2 (presenting their book) and task 5 (expo), students will have had the opportunity to present to the class and to the rest of the school. Once all tasks have been completed, students will then have the opportunity to evaluate their own work and the I-Quest as a whole.

ICT Domain

At level 4 under the ICT- creating dimension, students are expected to 'safely and independently use a range of skills, procedures, equipment and functions to process different data types and produce accurate and suitably formatted products to suit different purposes and audiences'. In creating their book on Microsoft Word, students are required to use their ICT skills. In the ICT - communicating dimension, students are expected to 'refine their search strategies to locate information quickly' and 'evaluate the integrity of the located information based on its accuracy and the reliability of the web host'. Students are required to complete a large amount of Internet research for this task, although we have provided the students with sites containing all the information they need, if they wish to do further research, they are expected to use sources appropriately and be critical of the information that they are reading.

As a part of the 'Building social relationships' dimension, students are expected to 'demonstrate, through their interactions in social situations, respect for a diverse range of people and groups'.In completing their research and engagement with different cultural beliefs, customs and traditions, students are expected to be courteous and respectful.

Under the ‘Working in teams’ dimension, student’s work effectively in different teams of varying length and complexity, students work cooperatively to allocate tasks and students accept responsibility for their roles and tasks.As the students will all be allocated a group, they will learn how to work with others and grasp the term ‘teamwork’. They will also have their independent roles within these groups; therefore, students should be learning about being responsible and should take responsibility of their own work.