1.+Rationale

=**MIGRATION - A BRAVE JOURNEY!**= An Integrated Inquiry Unit Examining Personal/National Identity



 //**'Migration- A Brave Journey'**// is an integrated inquiry unit for grade five and six students (VELS level 4) and could easily stand alone as a unit of study in its own right; this is how I shall treat it for the purposes of this assignment. However, in my vision, //**'Migration- A Brave Journey'**// would be embedded in a larger cross curriculum unit (one that could be adapted for a whole terms focus) entitled: //**'We Call Australia Home!'**//, This unit would take a look at the people who make up Australia and what it means to be an Australian today. The unit would include investigation into Aboriginal stories, knowledge, art and dance, then move onto the early settlers and then waves of migration that happened since World War I. The unit would include teaching and learning in English, History, Geography, Economics, ICT, PE (Dance), Music,Maths, Civics and Citizenship. It and could (should!) include a trip to 'The Immigration Museum' on Flinders Street in Melbourne CBD. All of this enquiry is intended to illuminate the difficult question of what it means to be an Australian today.

//**'Migration- A Brave Journey'**// is a mini unit within this larger context of study. I have chosen to focus on this for two reasons; firstly, trying to complete an assignment based off the larger unit of **'We Call Australia Home!'** would be too 'big' for the purposes of this assignment. My second (and more important reason) is that the school/class in which I will do my first teaching practice is extremely multicultural. In order to engage the children, I would like to teach and learn with them something which has direct relevance to themselves - their own personal or family history, or that of a classmate/friend.

According to Stella Vosniadou in //'How Children Learn'// (written for the International Academy of Education and taken from the UNESCO website), children learn best when: - Learning requires the active constructive involvement of the learner. - Learning is primarily a social activity and participation in the social life of the school (family) is central for learning to occur. - People learn best when they participate in activities that are perceived to be useful in real life and are culturally relevant. - New knowledge is constructed on the basis of what is already understood and believed. - Learning is better when material is organized around general principles and explanations, rather than when it is based on the memorization of isolated facts and procedures. - Learning becomes more meaningful when the lessons are applied to real-life situations. - Children learn best when their individual differences are taken into consideration.

I have designed //**'Migration- A Brave Journey'**// with these considerations in mind, so as to best support the children's learning accross the curiculum, as well as have them learn something about themselves and the 'world' they live. By the end of the study, they should know more about themselves, their classmates, their country and what it means to be an Australian today.


 * Vosinadou, S** //'How Children Learn'// []