Mana Ako 4: Primary Practice Exploration

General Requirements
This Ako: BTchLn qualification is designed to prepare you for entry into the teaching profession. Attendance enables you to demonstrate key aspects from ‘Our Code, Our Standards’ (Education Council, New Zealand, 2017); specifically, your commitment to the teaching profession and your commitment to learners.  The UC General Conditions for Credit Regulations (general-regs-general-conditions-for-credit-regulations.pdf (canterbury.ac.nz) section 3 a) states “A student seeking course credit must engage satisfactorily in all required course-related activity, work and assessment specified in the course outlines.”  Subsequently for all students (campus or distance), attendance at all scheduled course sessions, and independent engagement with associated course content (online), is a course requirement.  

Attendance
All students are required to attend and participate in course activities / learning and engage with materials sufficiently to meet the course learning outcome and the UC General Conditions for Credit Regulations. Students must also demonstrate regular and sustained engagement with all of the compulsory online course content to be eligible to seek course credit and receive a passing grade for this course.  

Absences
Students must notify all parties of any absence during mana ako | professional practice experience, copying in the kaiako taituarā | associate teacher, pūkenga taituarā | professional practice lecturer, and Professional Practice Office for each day of absence with an explanation.

Extended absences must be accompanied by a medical certificate or similar. Significant periods of absence will impact on student’s ability to meet the course requirements and learning outcomes, as well as cumulate towards the final number of days completed in an educational setting.

Assessment Submission
All assignments must be submitted on or before the due date. Students are responsible for contacting the course coordinator in the event they are not able to submit by the due date.

Students will submit their assessments via the online assessment system in the Learn course on or before the due date. Upon submission, assignments are automatically sent through Turnitin to check for plagiarism and AI use.
It is the responsibility of the students to check their Internet access and ability to submit their work via the online system. Any technical difficulties should be notified well in advance of the due date so that assistance can be provided, or alternative arrangements negotiated.

For ICT help call our free call number 0508 UC IT HELP (0508 824 843) or on 03 369 5000. Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm (excluding public and university holidays).

It is strongly recommended that students retain a back-up copy of all submitted work via UC Office 365 cloud storage.

Late Work
Work is considered late if it is handed in after an assignment due date, without an extension having been applied for and granted. Late work will be accepted for marking up to 24 hours late, however the assignment grade will be restricted to a minimum passing grade (C- or 52.5%). Work submitted more than 24hr late will normally not be marked unless there are exceptional circumstances. Late work is also automatically excluded from a resubmission opportunity unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Extensions
Extensions are reserved for exceptional circumstances only and are not granted automatically. Extensions will not be granted because of pressure of university study, e.g. several pieces of work being due around the same time.
The course lecturer responsible for the assessment must be contacted by email a minimum of two working days before the due date, and the application must be supported by relevant evidence (e.g. medical certificate, letter from counsellor). The student’s course lecturer will then make a recommendation to the course coordinator who will make a final decision.
If an extension is granted, there will normally be no resubmit given for that assignment. An extension will normally be for no more than two weeks and the date of the extension must be provided to the student in writing.

Academic and professional integrity
Honesty and integrity are important qualities for teachers. Students need to become familiar with Our Code, our Standards – the ethical code for teachers. Also, students need to be familiar with the risks of plagiarism and how to avoid these. Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty.

The purpose of your professional practice documentation is for you to demonstrate the ability to apply pedagogical practices and demonstrate your content knowledge for classroom teaching, as well as classroom management. As your experiences form the content of your course work, it is inappropriate for any AI generation tool to be used when writing your justification and ideas for how theory translates into practice.

Generative AI Tools Are Permitted for Certain Parts of This Assessment
In this assessment, you are permitted to use generative artificial intelligence (AI) solely for the purpose of spelling and grammar checking. No other use of generative AI is permitted to generate your final evidence document or other documents pertaining to placement.

To assist with maintaining academic integrity, you must appropriately acknowledge any use of generative AI in your work. This would include the use of Grammarly (or similar tool, which often is interpreted as AI in Turnitin) include a statement of acknowledgement with your work, clearly indicating which AI tools were used and how they contributed to your assessment. You will need to complete the linked template and add this to the end of your evidence document.

The UC Library has useful information on plagiarism and how to avoid it – UC Academic Skills. Academic integrity involves acting honestly, ethically, fairly and respecting others in teaching, learning, research and administration. Academic integrity means producing honest and ethical work and is one of the key foundations to being a good student and is a key principle at UC.  

It is also important to retain evidence of your document history and revisions as you might be asked to evidence how you developed your assignment.   It is also important to use OneDrive as your repository for UC work as this cloud storage system will save version histories of your documents.  Please refer to the post in Tūpono | The Insider’s Guide to UC and the Misconduct Procedures - Guide for Students for more information.  

All forms of cheating and dishonest practice are taken seriously, and penalties will result. Students should refer to Regulation J of the General Course and Examination Regulations and the College of Education Assessment Guidelines for Students.

Assessed work in Te Reo Māori
Recognising that Māori is an official language of New Zealand, the University provides for students who may wish to use the Māori language in assessment. See Assessment in Te Reo Māori Policy. Please note that if you want to submit work that is written in te reo, you need to advise the course coordinator no later than 10 working days after the start of the course.  This is to allow the University sufficient time to make arrangements for translation and marking. Course coordinators will notify the registry of the need for support for assessment of course work in Māori, and the Office of the AVC Māori works with students to support them with the process and ensure fair and appropriate assessment procedures are in place.
Resubmissions: The decision to grant a resubmission will be made by the course coordinator and will be subject to the student concerned having demonstrated a regular and sustained level of course engagement. Normally a resubmit will only be considered for assignments which meet most of the pass criteria and the tertiary literacy standards, and which are within the ‘D’ range (40.00 – 49.99%).  Assignments which have been resubmitted are restricted to a minimum passing grade (C- or 52.5%) for that assessment. Students may only be granted one resubmission per course.    The timeframe for students resubmitting work will normally be no more than two weeks and the date of the resubmission must be provided to the student in writing.  

Special Considerations
Special Consideration for assessment is for students who have covered the work of a course but have been prevented from demonstrating their knowledge or skills at the time of the assessment (worth 10% or more) due to unforeseen circumstances, such as illness, bereavement or other critical circumstances outside of their control at the time of the assessment. Students may apply for special consideration if their performance in an assessment is affected by extenuating circumstances beyond their control, where:
(a)
they have suffered an acute illness, injury, or other reasonably unforeseeable circumstances:
i.    which has prevented them from completing any major item(s) of work for assessment in a course; or
ii.   which has impaired their performance (including by interruption of pre-assessment revision) to the extent that the result(s) are likely to underestimate their true and evidenced level of mastery of the material in the course; or
(b)  
i.    they have been selected to perform, compete, adjudicate, or officiate as a national sporting representative at national or international competitions; or
ii.   they are members of a national cultural group on tour nationally or internationally.

Further details are available at Special Consideration | University of Canterbury. Please note that applications must be supported by evidence and must be submitted no later than five working days after the assessment due date.  

Special consideration for late discontinuation
Students prevented by extenuating circumstances from completing the course after the final date for withdrawing, may apply for special consideration for late discontinuation of the course.
Further details are available at Special Consideration | University of Canterbury