Exploring General Capabilities: Ethical Understanding

Course summary

In this course, you’ll learn how to integrate ethical understanding into your teaching practice, helping students navigate complex ethical issues and develop critical thinking skills. Discover what ethics look like in the classroom and why teaching ethical understanding is essential for 21st-century learners.

Explore how ethical understanding fits within the Australian Curriculum and learn strategies for applying ethical principles, developing value-based criteria, and reflecting on ethical decision-making. This course will equip you with the tools to foster a classroom environment where students can engage with ethical challenges in a meaningful way.

https://vimeo.com/290605392/8b340dbb0c

You will learn:

• What ethics and ethical issues could look like in a classroom context.
• Why ethical understanding is important for 21st-century teaching and learning.
• Where ethical understanding fits within the Australian Curriculum.
• Approaches to teaching ethical understanding, including applying ethical principles, developing and applying values criteria, and reflecting on ethical understanding.

Course time:

This course will take you 2 hours to complete. Enjoy it in one session or spread it out over a few weeks. You will have ongoing access via your personal dashboard.

Accreditation:

This course is mapped to the Professional Standards for Teachers. It is accredited for teacher professional development hours:

Proficient Teacher:

• 2.1 Apply knowledge of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area to develop engaging teaching activities.
• 2.2 Organise content into coherent, well-sequenced learning and teaching programs.
• 3.2 Plan and implement well-structured learning and teaching programs or lesson sequences that engage students and promote learning.
• 3.3 Select and use relevant teaching strategies to develop knowledge, skills, problem solving and critical and creative thinking.

This course is accredited by TQI for 2 hours of professional development for teachers in the ACT for 2025.

Enrol now

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Course Content

Getting Started

01.

Introduction

02.

Background to ethics

03.

Set some learning goals

Ethical Understanding in the Australian Curriculum

04.

What is ethics?

05.

A world without ethics

06.

What is an ethical issue?

07.

General Capability: Ethical Understanding

Approaches to Teaching Ethical Understanding

08.

Teaching ethical principles

09.

Applying ethical principles

10.

Values criteria and ethical understanding

11.

Applying values criteria

12.

Ethical understanding as a three-part process

13.

Guiding questions of the three-part process

14.

Try it yourself

15.

Teaching tips

16.

Reflection

Ethical Understanding in Action

17.

Cool lesson plans

Reflection

18.

Taxonomy of learning

19.

Congratulations

Course instructors

Gabrielle Munro has worked in the education sector for over 12 years as a classroom teacher and tertiary educator of pre-service teachers. Gabrielle loves working with teachers to develop practical teaching skills while challenging them to think creatively about how best to teach their students.

Sam Charlotte is a secondary English and Humanities teacher with over 4 years of classroom and student management experience. Sam left the classroom in 2014 to have a wider impact on Australian students. She joined The Foundation for Young Australians then Cool.org where she excelled in pedagogical application and curriculum design. She currently works in special needs education. Sam is passionate about the creation of innovative and practical resources for teachers to engage and inspire students.

Frequently Asked Questions