1. Introducing Ethical Capability Focus on 7-10
Welcome everyone to this session.
My name is Monica Bini and I am one of two Curriculum Managers for Humanities and Social Sciences here at the VCAA.

2. Objectives an overview of the Ethical Capability curriculum
introduction of an ethical issue planning tool
In today’s session I will introduce you to the main features of the Ethical capability curriculum.
We will also undertake a short web-tour to find features of the curriculum.
I will also introduce a planning tool you can use to help you teach ethical issues across the curriculum. We will look at an example issue to see how to work with this tool.

3. Aims
The Ethical Capability curriculum aims to develop knowledge, understandings and skills to enable students to:
Analyse and evaluate ethical issues, recognising areas of contestability
Identify the bases of ethical principles and ethical reasoning
Engage with the challenges of managing ethical decision making and action for individuals and groups
Cultivate open-mindedness and reasonableness
The other aims really serve the first aim.
This capability is at its heart intended to support students in doing better.
Students already engage with ethical issues and have done so for years but as we shall see this curriculum can support them to do it better.
If an ethical issue is worth paying attention to, then it is worth doing well.

4. Structure Understanding Concepts Decision Making and Actions
Strands - 2 strands
Understanding Concepts
Decision Making and Actions
Achievement standards
The first achievement standard at Foundation to Level 2 and then at Levels 4, 6, 8 and 10
Ethical capability will be reported against at levels 4, 6, 8 and 10
The two strands are related. Our understanding of concepts informs how we make decisions and this will become clearer when we look at the example later in the session.

5. Key messages This is a new curriculum
The content descriptions covering ethical concepts and decision making need to be explicitly taught and assessed to progress student learning
Learn the terminology in the curriculum. It provides teachers and students with the vocabulary to ask questions and describe learning. A glossary can be downloaded from the Ethical Capability ‘Introduction’ page.
There is a distinction between explicitly teaching and covering something.
Merely asking students to read a media article and identify the ethical issues is not explicit teaching – it is just checking that they can do this, and covering a step needed to then go on and talk about the issue. Pausing to teach them how to identify the issue would be explicit teaching as the students are learning something new and can then have a go at finding the issue in the article.
Becoming familiar with the ideas of ethics will improve student engagement with issues. Part of this involves learning the language of ethics, just like any other discipline. This will help students to come to grips with the ideas and also to frame their own thinking as they argue for or against some of these ideas or come up with their own.

6. Key messages
There is strong connection between the Ethical Capability and Critical and Creative Thinking curriculums.
As this is a new curriculum, older students may need to begin their learning at lower levels. This will provide the necessary scaffolding and ultimately support progression of learning
Whole-school planning is essential for schools to determine how and when the curriculum is taught
The key to working with the capabilities is planning. Thinking carefully about where that first introduction to how to identify an ethical issue will be taught which can then be practised going forward as a necessary step for the study of any ethical issue.
The curriculum continuum can be used to create scaffolding that an be built into teaching and learning activities that are designed to bring students up to a particular achievement standard.
I will say more on this later
Thoughtful engagement with ethical issues requires careful planning across several elements: (next slide)

7. Ethical issues
An ability to analyse and evaluate an ethical issue requires knowledge, skills drawn from:
Ethical capability
Critical and creative thinking
Other capabilities and learning areas as appropriate
All of these elements are needed – ethical capability, critical and creative thinking and other areas of the curriculum. They are all needed in order to engage with ethical issues.
The next slide will show an example of what I mean.

8. Example knowledge and skills
Is sharing resources equally the fairest and best thing to do?
What do we mean by equal/fair/best/?
Should we care about inequality? Where do our obligations lie and why?
People should be treated as ends not means
(Ethical Capability)
What is a resource?
What is the data on living standards around the world?
Why are the barriers and enablers to resolving inequalities?
(Humanities)
Is this view on sharing resources well reasoned?
(Critical and creative thinking)
Here it can be seen how all three of these elements will contribute to the analysis and evaluation of an ethical issue.
This picks up on an issue that goes across a number of curriculum areas. For example in the Economics and Business and also the Geography curricula at 9-10 which both look at the issue of unequal distribution of income and wealth and the standard of living as it is termed in Economics and Business and wellbeing as it is termed in Geography. Geography also considers food security and both curriculums consider distribution of income across supply chains.
Compare the quality of a response that merely asserts that having poorly paid Bangladeshi sweatshop workers in unsafe working conditions is wrong with one that using the idea from ethics that people should not be treated as means but only as ends to then help to justify their view and further understands the distinction between ethical and legal when discussing that the company may not be breaking any laws. This is more than just critical thinking.
We will zero in on Ethical capability and keep following this issue through to illustrate the curriculum in action.
When we come to introducing the planning tool, we will shift to another issue.
For now, let’s look at the two strands of the ethical capability curriculum in more detail.

9. The Understanding Concepts strand
Students progressively learn to analyse:
key concepts and ideas important to identifying ethical problems
concepts that have ethical significance such as good, wrong, tolerance, greed, freedom and courage
the nature and justifications of ethical principles
Remember the aims of the curriculum and link to ethical issues.
How concepts are understood and valued will influence how and issue is analysed and evaluated.
Ethical principles are statements about what is thought to be desirable or good and are designed to help in determining the rightness or wrongness of actions. They often contain concepts that are valued. An example of a principle is ‘always act to maximise happiness and minimise pain’. Or ‘never tell lies’.
To make sense of these, it helps to know what is meant by the concepts of happiness, pain or lying. Is refusing to say something lying?
It can readily be seen that these principles can be used to help select and justify a response to an issue, or evaluate a response.
Should I tell on my friend? The response to this will be influenced by how you consider the principle ‘never tell lies’.
Each of the three elements here progresses in a continuum across F-10: (next slide)

10. Understanding Concepts strand
Example progression
Understanding Concepts strand
F-2
Explore the meaning of… concepts concerned with the outcomes of acts
3-4
Explore the contested meaning of concepts…and how they can seem to differ in different situations
5-6
Examine the contested meaning of concepts… and the extent to which these concepts are and should be valued
9-10
Investigate the connections and distinctions between and the relative value of concepts…
7-8
Explore the contested meaning of concepts… and the extent they are and should be valued by different individuals and groups
Teaching and learning activities can reflect this continuum, together with the achievement standards.
This is shown in the next slide

11. “Is sharing resources equally the fairest and best thing to do?”
For example:
“Is sharing resources equally the fairest and best thing to do?”
Level
Example focus
F-2: Explore the meaning of… concepts concerned with the outcomes of acts
‘Is wanting to do ‘the best thing’ concerned with achieving a particular goal?’
3-4: Explore the contested meaning of concepts…and how they can seem to differ in different situations
‘When sharing something fairly does it always mean sharing the same way in any situation?’ What are some examples? How are these examples similar or different to each other?’
5-6: … and the extent to which these concepts are and should be valued
‘How important is: fairness, equality, achieving ‘the best’?’ How important should each be in this case?’
7-8: …by different individuals and groups
‘Would/should individuals, business leaders and charity groups have different views on how resources should be shared and with whom? Why?’
9-10: Investigate the connections and distinctions between and the relative value of concepts…
‘Are fairness and equality the same thing? If not, is one more important than the other (in this case)? Why?’
This shows how teaching and learning activities can be scaffolded using the ethical capability continuum. These questions could be part of one unit.
In planning you should consider carefully whether students need explicit teaching all the way. Look at the question at This combines together fairness and equality but it might be necessary for your students to first consider them individually and the content description at 5-6 can help you to do this. Students in Year 9 or 10 could begin their teaching and learning here and then progress to consider both concepts together.
We will now look at the second strand in the Ethical capability curriculum, and follow this example through.

12. Decision-making and action strand
Students progressively learn to analyse and evaluate:
ways to respond to ethical problems
factors that influence ethical decision making and action
Note the tight connection once again to ethical issues.
We have already spoken briefly about principles and how they can help to analyse and evaluate ethical issues.
Often underpinning these principles are ethical ideas. If these are considered important by someone they may become a principle for action.
So the idea that happiness and pain are important is an idea from the field of ethics, and in fact the philosopher John Stuart Mill is famous for bringing this to prominence and introducing the principle that happiness should be maximized and pain minimised and a justification for this view. The reasons for this view again compromise certain ideas, which you may or may not agree with. Note that this is more than mere critical thinking. It requires critical thinking but ideas are also needed.
We will now see an example of progression for this strand.

13. Decision-making and action strand
Example progression:
Decision-making and action strand
F-2
Explore the type of acts often considered right and those often considered wrong and the reasons why they are considered so
3-4
Explore how apparently wrong actions can sometimes lead to good outcomes and the reverse
5-6
Explore the significance of ‘means versus ends’ by considering two ways to act when presented with a problem: one that privileges means and one ends
9-10
Discuss issues raised by thinking about consequences and duties, in approaches to decision-making and action, and arguments for and against these approaches
7-8
Explore the extent of ethical obligation and the implications for thinking about consequences and duties in decision-making and action
This strand concentrates on two main ideas in the field of ethics – that consequences matter, and also that there are certain kinds of important duties.
The foundation for this is laid in F-6 through an approach that considers means and ends. It then progresses to consider consequentialism and duty-based approaches to decision-making more fully and the issues associated with these.
The third important idea in ethics concerns what sort of person one should be and that this makes a difference to ethical decision-making. It is more than mere reasoning. This is found in this strand too when considering factors that influence decision-making and action.
We will now see this strand in action against the resources example we considered earlier.

14. “Is sharing resources equally the fairest and best thing to do?”
For example:
“Is sharing resources equally the fairest and best thing to do?”
Level
Example focus:
F-2: Explore the type of acts often considered right and those often considered wrong and the reasons why they are considered so
‘Why is sharing equally often considered the right thing to do?’
3-4: Explore how apparently wrong actions can sometimes lead to good outcomes and the reverse
‘What are examples where sharing food, for example, might lead to a bad outcome?’ Why?
5-6: Explore the significance of ‘means versus ends’ by considering two ways to act when presented with a problem: one that privileges means and one ends
‘What would happen if food were shared equally, as a particular rule, regardless of the consequences?’ ‘How important is sticking to the rule?’
7-8:Explore the extent of ethical obligation and the implications for thinking about consequences and duties in decision-making and action
‘Do people have a responsibility to share resources such as food? Why? What does this mean for Australia’s response to global population movements or world hunger?’
9-10: Discuss issues raised by thinking about consequences and duties, in approaches to decision-making and action, and arguments for and against these approaches
‘Does a duty (or right) to maximise individual health and well-being conflict with a duty to share with others? Why?’
Here we are unpacking resource to mean specifically food, as a concrete way to unpack this strand and follow through our resource example.
Once again, teaching and learning activities can be scaffolded using the ethical capability continuum. Taking students through these steps will help them to select and justify a more thoughtful response to the issue. Where you start will depend on the prior learning of your students. You will need to determine the explicit teaching necessary to help students understand the ethical ideas at play.
We will now consider assessment.

15. Assessment
Different students will be working towards achievement standards at different levels
Teaching and learning activities and assessment tasks can be differentiated to suit learning needs, including complexity of issues or contexts
Assessment can be modified to suit the needs of students and the achievement standards can be used for both formative and summative assessment.
As a general principle, become familiar with the achievement standards either side of your target levels and work back from there to help design the cognitive demand of teaching and learning activities. All students should be given the opportunity to achieve at the highest standard you think they are capable of.
The content descriptions use words like ‘explore’ or ‘investigate’ and the achievement standards tell you the expected cognitive demand.
Remember that the ethical capability curriculum goes hand in hand with critical and creative thinking. You should look across to this curriculum and make sure that this learning is in place so that students can deploy those skills as they work with the knowledge gained from the ethical capability curriculum.

16. Contact and resources
Curriculum Planning, Assessment and Reporting resources
Contact
Monica Bini
VCAA Curriculum Manager, Humanities and Social Sciences
Phone:
The Victorian curriculum demands careful planning and there are resources available to you to assist with this.
This link will take you to three key resources:
Victorian Curriculum F-10: Revised curriculum planning and reporting guidelines
Curriculum Planning resource website link to a range of resources to support planning and documentation of the curriculum across or between year levels.
Curriculum mapping templates which drill down to the unit level, with templates to support learning here.
We will now turn to the web and then the planning tool and a specific issue in action but in the meantime, here are my details.
If you have questions please continue to type them in and I will do my best to answer them as we go.