This document discusses several key points about teaching Australian history and Indigenous content:
1) It's important for teachers to know their students' cultural backgrounds and embed relevant cultural content to engage students.
2) When planning lessons, teachers should consider how the learning needs of students are related to their cultures, economies, societies, and prior schooling.
3) Teachers can approach incorporating Indigenous studies by either focusing on it as discrete content or normalizing it throughout other subject areas by including Indigenous perspectives.
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Hist Workshop
This document discusses several key points about teaching Australian history and Indigenous content:
1) It's important for teachers to know their students' cultural backgrounds and embed relevant cultural content to engage students.
2) When planning lessons, teachers should consider how the learning needs of students are related to their cultures, economies, societies, and prior schooling.
3) Teachers can approach incorporating Indigenous studies by either focusing on it as discrete content or normalizing it throughout other subject areas by including Indigenous perspectives.
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Alexandra Blake S00152997
HIST WORKSHOP
AUSVELS is being retired and the Australian Curriculum is replacing it so
that there is a national understanding of the content being taught in schools and how to assess this content. To know your students means to know their cultural background and how that can be embedded into the class content to make it relevant and engaging. The learning needs of students should not be isolated from their cultural, economic, social and schooling histories. As teachers we need to look at what we are going to teach and how it aligns to the curriculum and be aware of the misconceptions that could develop from the student and the educators. Two approaches to teaching Australian history: o Discrete content in class. Eg. Teaching about indigenous studies. o Normalise the content throughout all areas of the curriculum. Eg. If we were to explore how the world began we could explore the Aboriginal Peoples point of view on this idea as well. There is no right answer but instead various views on the topic from different cultures. For early childhood, you could incorporate an Indigenous language into the lesson keeping in mind the cultures in the classroom and the location of the centre (traditional land owners) Eg. Head shoulders knees and toes can be taught in an Aboriginal language therefore learning the names for each body part in that language. You could also incorporate other languages (Chinese, Italian, etc) depending on the group of children in the room. o This establishes for the children that there are many different local languages other than English. o Often used in reconciliation week as it allows students to engage with Aboriginal words and thus creating a local connection for future ideas to be extended. We need to be aware of our own cultural biases to avoid misinterpretations and disrespect. As a teacher you must ensure that you are continuously keeping up to date with all the present understandings of Indigenous education and culture. Create a go-to pack for Indigenous education/students so that you are always building on to your resources that are relevant to the students in your classroom and they are always accessible. There will be some parts of the content that you would not teach in the classroom but you need to be aware of why you would not teach the certain idea. It may not be appropriate for your group of children for many reasons. Use newspapers to find how local historical information is presented. In a sequence of lessons you could get the students to develop their own newspaper front page. (year 7 level) o Find an article and rewrite it from an Indigenous point of view. The tone could be changed and the perspective could be flipped.