Full title: Being culturally competent or culturally indulgent: what is an effective pedagogical framework for working with Indigenous learners?
Abstract:
This article presents a discussion of ideas about whiteness behaviours that are present in curriculum delivery. While culturally appropriate curriculum purports to address both content and delivery considerations relevant to Indigenous learners, there are planes of engagement that encapsulate white subjectivities which are both visible and invisible, and represent just one chronology of whiteness.
The resource guides teachers on practical ways of coping with children who have particular difficulties in learning. The Guide can be used as a study book on its own or as a guide
for groups of teachers studying together. It should help teachers who already have children with ‘special needs’ in their classes. It will also assist teachers who have limited experience of such children but who want to learn more.
The biggest equity issue in Australian education today isn’t computers, new buildings or equipment, according to ACER’s Professor Stephen Dinham. He told education graduands at the University of Southern Queensland last month that the biggest issue is each student having quality teachers and quality teaching in schools supported by effective leadership and professional learning.
This paper documents teaching practices that have been identified, by the teaching team, as improving student success rates in a first year tertiary level compulsory subject. Constructivism, scaffolding, social presence and reflective practice are the key concepts which have proved to be successful in transitioning students in this subject to university study. Outcomes have consisted of goal achievement by individual students, increased student retention and success rates.
This paper argues that the transition to first year in a diverse, multi-campus, multimodal university provides significant difficulty and disorientation for school leavers and mature age and international students. Consequently, curriculum design for first year students requires an awareness of the need to provide commencing students with a framework for meeting the requirements of the academic environment.
Equity in face-to-face course or classroom environments has been addressed extensively over the past 30 years. However, on-line professional development is a newly burgeoning phenomenon; equity within this context remains only vaguely defined. This document is an attempt to determine the components of on-line professional development that have equity implications. The components identified stem from literature on equity, the literature on e-learning, and the experience of expert practitioners in both fields.
Teachers will need to learn how to teach Aboriginal children as part of their training before they can register to work in public and private schools under national plans to lift the standard of indigenous education.
