General Assessment Information

Department Assessment Presentation & Submission Guidelines

Please follow these guidelines when you submit each assignment:

• Allow a left and right-hand margin of at least 2cm in all assignments.
• Please type all assignments using 12-point font and 1.5 spacing.
• All assessments must be submitted through turnitin in .doc or .pdf format for submission.
• Faculty assignment cover sheets are NOT required for this unit.

Draft Submissions & Turnitin Originality Reports

• Students may use Turnitin’s Originality Report as a learning tool to improve their academic writing if this option is made available in the unit.
• Students are strongly encouraged to upload a draft copy of each assessment to Turnitin at least one week prior to the due date to obtain an Originality Report.
• The Originality Report provides students with a similarity index that may indicate if plagiarism has occurred. Students will be able to make amendments to their drafts prior to their final submission on the due date.
• Generally, one Originality Report is generated every 24 hours up to the due date.

When preparing your assignments, it is essential that:

• Students must retain a copy of all assignments before submission, and retain the copy until your final grade for the subject has been received;
• Marks will be deducted if you submit your assessment late (refer to the ‘late assessments’ section below for more details);
• Unless there are exceptional circumstances, no assessment will be accepted after the date that the assessment has been returned to other students.
• If an assessment is considered to be below passing standard, another staff member on the unit will provide a second opinion. No failed assessment may be re-submitted.

Late Assessments:

A deduction of 5% of the total possible mark allocated for that assessment would be made for each day or part day that assessment is late, weekends counting as two days. For example, if an assessment is worth 20 marks and you submit it 2 days late, you will have 2 marks (2 x 5% of 20 marks) subtracted from your awarded mark.

Extensions:

In extenuating circumstances, students may apply to the unit coordinator for an extension to the assessment due date. Reasons for the extension need to be documented through the Disruption to Studies form accessible through ask.mq.edu.au under "Disruption" and supported (e.g., a Professional Authority Form must be used in the case of illness). Note that:

• Students MUST speak with the unit coordinator prior to submitting their request through https://ask.mq.edu.au
• Extensions will only be granted in receipt of the completed form submitted through ask.mq.edu.au plus documentation.
• Emails are not appropriate means of extension requests.
• It is essential that you plan ahead and organise your study time effectively. Poor time management is not grounds for an extension.
• In the case of computer malfunction, a draft of your assignment may be requested. Please ensure that you print out a draft regularly, so that it is available for submission on request.   
• Extensions are usually not granted on the due date.

IEC Academic Honesty Guidelines: 

All assignments should cite and provide full bibliographical details of all material that you have used to inform or support your ideas. At the Institute of Early Childhood, students are required to use the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing procedures. Full details about how to cite and reference correctly can be found  in the IEC Academic Honesty Handbook and the following sources.

Perrin, R. (2015). Pocket guide to APA style (5th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

http://libguides.mq.edu.au/Referencing

http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx

http://www.apastyle.org/learn/quick-guide-on-references.aspx

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/

Eligibility for a Passing Grade in the Unit

In order to receive a passing grade in this unit, you must meet the following criteria:

• All assessment tasks must be submitted.
• Receive an adequate total mark for the unit (i.e. your combined marks for the four pieces of assessment). In order to receive a grade of Pass, your total mark must be at least 50/100.

Note: If you miss one piece of work, you will fail the unit. If you have any missing items of assessment, it is your responsibility to make contact with the unit coordinator to determine whether it is possible to complete the unit in 2015.

Final Grades

The final grade a student receives signifies their overall performance in meeting the learning outcomes for the unit. The number assigned to a grade (Standard Numerical Grade or SNG) reflects the extent to which student attainment matches the grade descriptors.

Your raw mark for the unit (i.e., the total of your marks for each assessment item) may not be the same as the SNG which you receive. Results may be scaled to ensure there is a degree of comparability across the university, so that units with the same past performances of their students should achieve similar results. The process of scaling does not change the order of marks among students. A student who receives a higher raw score mark than another will also receive a higher final scaled mark.

Teaching and Learning Strategy

Lectures

Two separate one hour lectures will be presented each week. Please refer to lecture schedule for details. Recordings of lectures will be available on Echo360 for both internal and external students. Lecture slides will be made available the day before the lecture for students who are attending the live lecture to download and have available during the lecture. Attendance is optional. However, all lecture contents may be included in the subsequent quiz and exam.

Required Textbook

Custom Edition for Macquarie University by Pearson, Australia compiled from Peterson, C.C. (2015). Looking Forward through the Lifespan: Developmental Psychology (6th edition). Sydney, Australia: Pearson Education.

Supplementary readings

White, F., Hayes, B., & Livesey, D. (2010). Developmental psychology: From infancy to adulthood (3^rd ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education.

For some lectures supplementary readings will be available via E-Reserve. Readings listed in the lecture schedule are from the following journal articles.

Dunn, J. (2005). Commentary: Siblings in their families. Journal of Family Psychology, 19(4), 654-657.

McCall, R., & Green, B. (2004). Beyond the methodological gold standards of behavioral research: Considerations for practice and policy. Social Policy Report, 18(2), 2-12.

Twigg, D., & Pendergast, D. (2013). Social and emotional well-being. In D. Pendergast and S. Garvis (Eds), Teaching early years. Curriculum, pedagogy and assessment (pp.231-243). Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Tutorials

Tutorial attendance is optional. However, all tutorial content may be included in the subsequent quiz and exam.

Internal students will have weekly tutorials of one hour. Tutorials will commence in Week 1.

External students will cover the tutorial content during their two days of on-campus attendance (21st and 22nd April, 2016).

The tutorials and iLearn discussion forums are the most appropriate forums to raise questions and engage in group discussion to further your understanding of the material. Diverse views are welcome. It is important that you feel free to express your ideas openly (with the exception of views that may offend other students). The iLearn site is ideal for an exchange of ideas with all students, internal and external.

Workbook

This unit has a workbook available as a PDF file on the unit website. The workbook is to be used to record notes from tutorials, lectures and your readings. You should bring your workbook with you to all classes. Internal students will work through the tasks at their weekly tutorials. External students will complete the tasks at the On Campus days. 

Engagement with Unit Content

• To gain the most benefit from tutorials, students are required to access relevant lectures before attending the associated tutorial.  For students attending Thursday tutorials, this is only possible by attending the live lectures. It is assumed that students have acquired the required background information before engaging in tutorial tasks.  When some students are unprepared, it is frustrating for students who have attended lectures and it limits the depth of tutorial discussion.
• Students attending the Wednesday tutorials are also expected to complete the associated lectures before attending the tutorial.  If it is not possible to attend the live lecture, you must listen to the Echo360.

Lecturer

SW = Shirley Wyver, HL = Helen Little, CN = Carol Newall, RA = Rebecca Andrews