Focus Areas:
1.3 Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds
1.4 Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students
The evidence provided to demonstrate the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs) Standard 1 within Professional Knowledge, is an assignment piece (Artefact 1) including a small unit plan and justification of chosen pedagogical approaches. The Humanities and Social Science (HaSS) unit was designed to effectively embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in assisting students to create an authentic NAIDOC week artefact to represent their learning. The class comprised of thirty Year 4 students from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds (1.3). Further emphasis was placed on providing appropriate pedagogy and multiple pathways to success for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (1.4).
In developing this HaSS unit plan and rationale, I recognised that understanding and implementing the 8 Ways Pedagogy (2020) was the most culturally appropriate and authentic strategy to teach the four Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in the class (1.4). The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration states that in empowering indigenous students to fulfil their potential, they must have opportunities to engage with their people, culture and community in safe environments (Education Council, 2019). Utilising the 8 Ways, this was achieved in all three lessons with local elders and rangers sharing stories and drawing on land and community links to inform the students to best complete their timeline task. As well as this, the task ensured authentic engagement as it was student-centred and open-ended whereby each diverse group of students could self direct their timeline research and document what they deemed appropriate for both local and Indigenous histories (1.4) (Churchill et al., 2019; Turner & Morgan, 2019). By implementing this pedagogy, I allowed the four students, and whole class, to interact with deeply enriching resources for their NAIDOC week artefact and learn “through culture, not just about culture” (Yunkaporta, 2009, p. 8).
In addition to this, I customised teaching strategies to accommodate one student with English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D), one student with impaired hearing, two gifted and talented students, three students with autism, and a student who is frequently absent (1.3). I intentionally integrated aspects of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to offer a tailored approach in teaching the diverse learners to ensure they experienced a sense of achievement in the task (Abawi, 2015). An example of how I demonstrated APST (1.3) in this lesson sequence was in lessons one and two, where I offer the students with EAL/D kinaesthetic pathways to learning, large printed transcripts of the local elders and rangers discussions and videos, and extra verbal support from an aide. By offering these diverse learners with multiple means of engagement, representation, action and expression through the UDL framework, I effectively demonstrated the various strategies implemented to support their completion of the timeline task (CAST, 2018). In evaluating this assessment, I feel my results of 46/50 indicate that I effectively managed to develop and justify the lesson sequence and pedagogy to best support the diverse group of students in demonstrating APSTs (1.3) and (1.4). However, I hope to implement this unit one day and reflect upon whether it can be successfully and practically implemented into a Year 4 classroom. In identifying lack of authentic representation as a weakness of mine, I endeavour to incorporate more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives through the Cross Curriculum Priorities during my final placement and continuing on as a beginning teacher.
References
Abawi, L.A. (2015). Inclusion ‘from the gate in’: Wrapping students with personalised learning support. International journal of pedagogies and learning, 10(1), 47–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/22040552.2015.1084676
Churchill, R., Godhino, S., Johnson, N., Keddie, A., Letts, W., Lowe, K., Mackay, J., McGill, M., Moss, J., Nagel, M., Shaw, K., & Rogers, J. (2019). Teaching: Making a Difference (4th ed.). John Wiley & Sons Australia.
CAST. (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines. Retrieved September 30, 2021 from https://udlguidelines.cast.org
Education Council. (2019). Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration. https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/final_-_alice_springs_declaration_-_17_february_2020_security_removed.pdf
8 Ways. (2020). 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning. NSW Department of Education. Retrieved September 30, 2021 from https://www.8ways.online/
Turner, M., & Morgan, A. (2019). Opening eyes onto inclusion and diversity in early childhood education. In S. Carter., L. A. Abawi., J. Lawrence., C. Brownlow., R. Desmarchelier., M. Fanshawe., K. Gilbey., M. Turner., & J. Guy (Eds.), Opening Eyes onto Inclusion and Diversity. University of Southern Queensland. https://usq.pressbooks.pub/openingeyes/
Yunkaporta, T. (2009). Aboriginal pedagogies at the cultural interface. [PhD, James Cook University]. http://eprints.jcu.edu.au/10974
