This Unit is the worst course I have ever undertaken at Macquarie University. This unit ECHE1300 is a first year unit in early childhood. I will now go into detail about how I believe this unit was a 'JOKE'. 1. Lectures are all pre-recorded from 2020! First couple of lectures, specifically, ramble on for a good 20+ minutes about COVID and what's going to happen etc. Just for clarification purposes, it is 2024! I am paying money to take this course there is an expectation that the material would be current! 2. The layout and materials provided on ilearn are underdeveloped, with no real assistance for students who are actually doing this unit as their introduction to studying. 3. There seems to be no duty of care for the students taking this unit, questions in the discussion forum have all gone unanswered, understandably the convenor and tutors are not required to engage in those forums, HOWEVER you would think that the convenor or tutors would check to make sure the information we (Students) are providing each other is correct IF NOT just to ensure there is no bullying etc. 4. THE ASSIGNMENT, not only were the instructions for the first assignment lacking (in every sense of the word) but there was no help, no exemplar to at least get a sense for what we were required to do. This first assignment was due on the 5th of MAY, way past the census cut-off date, worth 50% (FOR A FIRST YEAR UNIT!!). The assignment also had a pass/fail component which relied on students' ability to use the Library-Multisearch function effectively, which, unsurprisingly at this point, we were never taught how to use. Now I understand that I am not a first year student, however, this is a first year unit and I can guarantee that there were students doing this as their introduction to studying at a tertiary level. I am beyond disappointed and disgusted in how this unit was conducted.

I have never seen a unit that was so incredibly disorganized and lacking proper tutors that you could go to for help. From the beginning, the weekly tiles on the iLearn page were messy and difficult to navigate. As the weeks went by, hundreds of questions piled up in the general discussion forum yet there was not a single tutor or unit conveyor to answer them. When using the general discussion wasn't an option anymore, many of us tried emailing our tutors or the unit conveyor, with tutors never giving us back a response and the unit conveyor only replying back after a week or two, which by then the assessment tasks would have already been submitted. For essays, I usually get high distinctions, but for the one in this unit, I got a D (when I had quite literally filled every single bit of the rubric and knew I targeted everything it asked me). I was confused and tried to pull up the marked rubric to see where I possibly went wrong, but there was not a single marked rubric provided. I then checked the comments given on my essay- NONE!! NOT A SINGLE COMMENT!! I thought it might've been a glitch so I emailed the person who marked my essay. One week went by, two weeks, and then a month. Not a single response!! The essay was worth 30% which is not a small amount, and as someone studying in a very heavily WAM-based course, I need every mark I can get! Essay aside, the echo360 platform was absolute garbage. Just like the iLearn page, the lectures were ALL mixed up!! It didn't help that all the lectures from weeks 1-13 were already released at once, I had to search through every one of those 20+ lectures just to find the lecture for that week! The titles of those videos did not match the topic we were meant to be studying for that week, absolute horror. The lecturers were absolutely awful, the old lady from the first few weeks sounded like she was on the verge of falling asleep and did not explain the slides well. Oh, and the final exam. I studied the hell out of every single past paper there was, ended up finding all the answers, spent weeks trying to memorise every bit of my lectures, and when the exam rolled around, I found to my luck that all the questions were repeated from the past years. I knew every answer because I practiced them for so many weeks and also had the textbook and a cheat sheet in front of me. Expecting to get a pretty decent mark, what did I get? 74!!! WHY?? FOR WHAT REASON?? ALL the questions were repeated, I made sure to memorise everything, I had all the materials in front of me INCLUDING the answers to the questions because of the past papers, and to not even get a DISTINCTION? Yet again, left with no answers. It is impossible to get a HD in this unit so don't even bother. Ruined my HD streak and left me to barely get a distinction.

Good unit

This unit was fun and very laid back, great as an elective unit.