Course Title: Critical Urban Issues: Resilience

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Critical Urban Issues: Resilience

Credit Points: 12.00

Terms

Course Code

Campus

Career

School

Learning Mode

Teaching Period(s)

HUSO2204

City Campus

Postgraduate

365H Global, Urban and Social Studies

Face-to-Face

 Sem 2 2018

Course Coordinator: Dr Lauren Rickards

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 3970

Course Coordinator Email: lauren.rickards@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Availability: On request


Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

None


Course Description

Resilience is an increasingly influential concept in numerous policy spheres, including ‘the urban’. Yet, what it means is contested. This course will provide a comprehensive and thoughtful overview of the origins, meanings and uses of the term.

Beginning with the emergence of the idea of resilience in engineering, ecology and psychology, the course will use the different disciplinary meanings of resilience to prompt students to consider the value of, and relations between, various framings of the concept. It will use this to underline the need to attend to disciplinary differences in many complex issues. It will then delve into the expanding use of resilience in policy and practice. Here the focus on urban resilience will include a broad understanding of urban and will be complemented by exploration of other resilience targets, including nations, infrastructure, communities and individuals. It will also explore the idea that, like complexity thinking, resilience is not a topic in policy and practice as much as a new lens through which to re-think them.

Enriched by contributions from various scholars and practitioners and innovative participatory methods, the course will delve into the use of resilience in various fields, from disaster management and business management, to education and planning.


Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

This course delivers the following program learning outcomes:

  • Critically analyse, synthesize and reflect on complex theories and recent developments in urban planning, policy and management, both local and international, to extend and challenge knowledge and your scholarly and professional practice
  • Critically analyse and reflect on the interplay of economic, political, social, cultural and ecological factors in urban planning and apply to your scholarly and professional practice


Upon successful completion of this course you will be able to:

 

Course learning outcomes [CLO]:

 

CLO1. Develop a critical understanding of the main meanings, potential, limitations and uses of the idea of resilience

CLO2. Critically assess the main assumptions about resilience at work in different applications of the concept and their implications.

CLO3. Develop the capacity to clearly and insightfully communicate in various modes.

This course delivers the following program learning outcomes:

  • Critically analyse, synthesize and reflect on complex theories and recent developments in urban planning, policy and management, both local and international, to extend and challenge knowledge and your scholarly and professional practice
  • Critically analyse and reflect on the interplay of economic, political, social, cultural and ecological factors in urban planning and apply to your scholarly and professional practice

Effectively argue and advocate for a preferred set of policy outcomes to help address urban and environmental planning, policy and management challenges


Overview of Learning Activities

Overall, the learning activities aim to develop students’ understanding of, skills in and reflexivity about the sorts of modes of communication that are used in different professional settings, including academia.

Learning activities may therefore not only include standard lectures/seminars, but a range of other activities such as student panels/conference/debates, vox pop interviews around campus, role plays, and excursions, plus online resources such as videos and podcasts.


Overview of Learning Resources

Learning resources will be presented as a “living compendium” that students will be required to regularly contribute to and annotate with useful commentary (rather than receive passively). This will include a range of academic resilience literature, grey literature and online resources. 

You will be able to access to a wide range of online learning tools and content for your course from the student portal, myRMIT, and RMIT Library resources. These resources will include book chapters, journal articles, media articles, lecture notes, bibliographies for supplementary reading, video, and links to external websites.


Overview of Assessment

You will be assessed on the above learning outcomes and graduate capabilities. Assessment will cover both theoretical and practical aspects of your learning. Feedback will be given on all assessment tasks.

There are four main items of assessment: 1) Participation in class activities including readings and discussion (10%) [CLO3]; 2) An annotated bibliography focused on the contemporary resilience literature (30%) [CLO1]; An oralpresentation highlighting the case study context of resilience-in-action selected for the final essay (20%) {CLO 2,3]; and a final critical essay of 3000 words which applies resilience theory to a community-based case study example (40%) [CO 1,2,3].

If you have a long term medical condition and/or disability it may be possible to negotiate to vary aspects of the learning or assessment methods. You can contact the program coordinator or the Disability Liaison Unit if you would like to find out more.

 

A student charter http://www.rmit.edu.au/about/studentcharter summarises your responsibilities as an RMIT student as well as those of your teachers.

 

Your course assessment conforms to RMIT assessment principles, regulations, policies, procedures and instructions which are available for review online: http://www1.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=c15i3ciaq8ca