@ USQ we have begun to gather our resources and explore approaches that can be used by staff to Indigenise the curriculum. This process is part of a much larger one to enhance the Indigenous cultural competence of staff and students with a view to producing graduates who work in the Indigenous domain in different, more culturally inclusive ways. For guidance in this, we have looked toward the Universities Australia National Best Practice Framework for Indigenous Cultural Competency which has provided us with a framework and starting points to work from.
One thing we have been very conscience of is that as we moved toward 'embedding Indigenous content and perspectives across our curriculm', we don't fall in to a trap of being tokenistic re the idea that the inclusion of content equates to the enhancement of cultural competence. Therefore, we have wanted to make sure that while providing directions around content, we are simultaneously giving staff opportunities to increase their understanding of the contexts and begin to think about not only 'content' but knowledge construction; unpack their own values and attitudes and ultimately begin to challenge the ethnocentrism of their discipline areas.
In this vein, this year we have offered staff the opportunity to engage in 8 ways Indigenous Pedagogy Training 8ways.wikispaces. As 8ways indicates in the training materials
‘The 8 ways of Aboriginal pedagogy framework demonstrates how to teach through culture, rather than about culture’
Staff have found it a really accessible way to begin thinking about how they could make changes to their content and what they do. I've included a quick snapshot of the training below to give an idea of our experiences.
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