How much do you know about the diversity of Aboriginal culture in Australia?

Dr Tracy Woodroffe is a Warumungu Luritja woman with years of experience in the field of education - Early Childhood, Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. The majority of that time has been spent in the classroom teaching and in associated leadership roles. She is a lecturer at Charles Darwin University who coordinates, develops and delivers teacher education units about teaching Indigenous learners and the importance of Indigenous knowledge in education. MANY MAINSTREAM CLASSROOMS IN AUSTRALIA ARE PERCEIVED AS MONOCULTURAL AND MONOLINGUAL, THIS PERCEPTION COULD ALSO BE EXTENDED TO THE COMPOSITION OF THE TEACHING WORKFORCE. UNFORTUNATELY, CONSIDERING THIS, THE TEACHING AND LEARNING TAKING PLACE COULD BE QUITE LIMITING AND EXCLUDE AUSTRALIA’S RICH HISTORY AND FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE.

E3.3 per cent of Australians (798,400 people) identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander in the 2016 census (ABS, 2018). Colonial attitudes and bias would have you think that Indigenous Australians mostly live in the remote areas of Australia. The reality is that “79 per cent of Aboriginal Australians live in urban areas, and the vast majority of Aboriginal children (83.9 per cent) receive their education in government schools” (Morrison et al., 2019, p. 2). Not all teachers feel prepared and confident to teach in Aboriginal contexts – Aboriginal content, with Aboriginal students, and in remote communities (Ure et al., 2018). The geographic location or spread of Aboriginal peoples across Australia highlights a diversity and a complexity that is seldom considered when thinking about cultural aspects of classroom learning. The ABS website shows an interactive map of distribution https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australiaswelfare/profile-of-indigenous-australians . If you overlay or compare the distribution map with the AIATSIS language group map, you can develop a better understanding of the diversity of Aboriginal people represented. See https://aiatsis.gov.au/ explore/map-indigenous-australia Teachers wanting to enact cultural competence and demonstrate expected Australian professional standards for teachers may feel overwhelmed with the job at hand. The complication is that Aboriginal people may not necessarily be living on their own ancestral lands. There are several reasons why this may be the case such as employment availability or study options, it could also have something to do with the fact that during the processes of colonisation many Aboriginal people were dispossessed of their land, displaced, and moved to missions or homes, and stolen as a matter of government policy.

Teachers can join reconciliation efforts to work together on a shared history moving forward by at least knowing the traditional owners of the land that you are on and learning how and when to say an acknowledgement of country. Make a point of teaching this to your own class. Websites and online resources such as the Gambay map of Australia’s first languages and Reading Australia have teaching notes to assist teachers to build inclusive learning programs that teach about Australian Aboriginal people. What is required is an approach that highlights the strength of Aboriginal culture and the many Aboriginal knowledges represented across Australia. A place to start looking for this is the CSIRO website with Indigenous science. Answer the following questions – Do you and your class know about David Unaipon and why he is seen on the $50 note? Do you and your class know about Charles Perkins and what he has done

Woodroffe belives not all teachers feel prepared and confident to teach in Aboriginal contexts.

for the civil rights of Aboriginal people? Do you and your class know about Indigenous astronomy?

Whether you are working on being culturally responsive, reflexive, or competent, the Australian teaching workforce is expected to know about Aboriginal Australia. This involves knowing and respecting Aboriginal culture and diversity to ensure that content is taught appropriately, knowing how Aboriginal students learn best to ensure that Aboriginal students have the best chance of academic success, and having knowledge of responsive teaching strategies and how cultural considerations impact on learning for all students in your class. These expectations are expressed as Australian professional standards for teachers 1.4, 2.4 and 1.3.

My top five reads to help teachers be more informed about Aboriginal culture and considerations for the classroom are: • Malin, M. (1994). What is a good teacher? Anglo and Aboriginal Australian views. Peabody Journal of Education, 69(2), 94-114. • Price, K., & Rogers, J. (Eds.). (2019). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. Cambridge

University Press. • Harrison, N., & Sellwood, J. (2016). Learning and teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. Oxford University Press. • Beresford, Q., Partington, G., & Gower, G. (2012).

Reform and Resistance in Aboriginal Education. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/

informit.9781742583891 • Woodroffe, T. (2020). Improving Indigenous student outcomes through improved teacher education: the views of Indigenous educators.

AlterNative: An International Journal of

Indigenous Peoples, 16(2), 146-152.

David Unaipon was known for being a spokesperson for improving the conditions and rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

This list is not exhaustive, but it is a good place to start improving professional knowledge about the cultural aspects of Australian education and for teachers to understand about implications for the classroom and supporting student success. EM

ABS (2018). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, 2016. Retrieved from http:// www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/ by%20Subject/2071.0~2016~Main%20 Features~Aboriginal%20and%20Torres%20 Strait%20islander%20Population%20Article~12# Morrison, A., Rigney, L. I., Hattam, R., & Diplock, A. (2019). Toward an Australian culturally responsive pedagogy: A narrative review of the literature. Adelaide, South Australia: University of South Australia. Santoro, N. (2007). ‘Outsiders’ and ‘others’: ‘different’ teachers teaching in culturally diverse classrooms, Teachers and Teaching, 13:1, 81-97, DOI: 10.1080/13540600601106104 Ure, C., Hay, I., Ledger, S., Morrison, C., Sweeney, T. A., & Szandura, A. (2017). Professional experience in initial teacher education: A review of current practices in Australian ITE.

ST Maths starts by teaching the foundational concepts visually, then connects the ideas to the symbols and language.

Award-winning, web-based visual maths program that builds a deep conceptual understanding of maths through rigorous learning.

Can a game change how you feel about Maths?

ST MATHS IS AN AWARD-WINNING, WEB-BASED VISUAL PROGRAM THAT BUILDS A DEEP CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF MATHS THROUGH RIGOROUS LEARNING AND CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING, AVAILABLE IN AUSTRALIA EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH MODERN TEACHING AIDS (MTA).

EST Maths has been developed by MIND Research Institute – a nonprofit social impact organisation specialising in neuroscience and education in California. For over two decades MIND has worked towards redefining maths education and developed a successful program steeped in the belief that every student has the potential to deeply understand, and truly love maths. Education Matters spoke to MTA’s General Manager of Education Resources, Michelle Kelly, to learn more about ST Maths’ unique and innovative approach that leverages the brain’s innate spatial temporal reasoning ability to solve mathematical problems. Kelly says the ST in ST Maths stands for spatial temporal, which describes the brain’s ability to manipulate objects in space and time to solve problems. “The program starts by teaching the foundational concepts visually, then connects the ideas to the symbols, language and robust maths conversation,” she says. “This approach works so well because, with visual learning, students are better equipped to tackle challenging problems, tackle non-routine problem solving and get informative feedback.”

One of the key benefits of this approach, Kelly notes, is that when you remove language barriers, maths problems become accessible to all students, regardless of their skill level or language background.

“Experience teaches us that students grasp different concepts at different times in their learning journey, so a one-size-fits-all model that requires all students to move at the same pace will inevitably leave some students lagging behind,” she says.

Kelly believes that maths instruction in particular benefits from individualised, scaffolded teaching methods and regular skills practice in a variety of contexts.

“A web-based program such as ST Maths that provides scaffolded support to students and accommodates non-linear learning journeys allows students to move at their own pace, repeat problem types they struggle with and apply mathematical thinking strategies to a diverse range of problems, which is beneficial to all students,” she says.

“The more individualised the program can be,

ST Maths’ unique and innovative approach that leverages the brain’s innate spatial temporal reasoning ability to solve mathematical problems.

the more beneficial it is to a large mixed-ability class where one-on-one teacher time is at a premium.”

Kelly explains how ST Maths’ student interface is designed to maximise productive time on task, by eliminating the distracting and counter-productive elements of gamification often employed by other platforms.“There are a great many online maths learning programs that gamify student activity using points, rewards, flashy arcade-game-style animations and/or rely on speed. The trouble with these particular types of gamification is that they create a system that can actually be demotivating for some students or result in shallow learning,” she says.

Kelly says that, instead, ST Maths utilises carefully selected elements of gamification – such as appealing characters and interesting problems – that engage and encourage students to persist while developing the deeper conceptual understanding or mathematical thinking skills needed for longterm success.

In place of arbitrary points or rewards, ST Maths’ student-facing activity tracking and feedback methods focus on supporting the development of students’ confidence, as well as their ability to self-evaluate and self-correct.

“Animated, informative feedback offers an intrinsically motivating learning experience that shows students the mathematical consequences of each answer. Students don’t just guess at multiple choices, or worse, get a question wrong and wonder why,” says Kelly.

“This helps students understand the idea of productive struggle: the idea that they are learning when they make mistakes and how powerful it is when they figure something out for themselves.”

As a flexible instructional tool that can fit easily into many different learning environments, the program has features that both motivate students and allow teachers to track the individual progress of students at a granular level, such as teacher reports that illustrate the maths outcomes each student has covered, as well as the amount of time spent using the platform and puzzle completion.

According to Kelly, not only does ST Maths increase productivity and concentration levels, but there are more than 100 efficacy studies that show how time on task is a key factor correlating ST Maths use with increased state test scores. Schools see proven, repeatable results.

Kelly says that with the ST Maths program, although students are initially set at a grade level based on their class, there is no limit to where they can be placed in the maths skills continuum.

“For example, a student who is confident with Number but lagging in Algebra can be set lowerlevel Algebra problems to support their development whilst moving ahead in Number,” she says.

“Best of all, in the class view a teacher is given a visual alert symbol that shows when a student has had multiple incorrect attempts at a task or problem. This allows the teacher to quickly view the whole class, identify those students currently in need of support and instantly see the problem type or content area that they need additional help with.”

ST Maths includes more than 35,000 puzzles with interactive representations of maths topics that align to Australian curriculum, with learning objectives that target key grade level concepts and skills.

And with over 100 efficacy studies it’s proven to work. Large scale studies have shown that schools using ST Maths consistently outgrew similar schools in statewide ranking by an average of 14 per cent.

“It really is the cornerstone of an equity strategy—providing equitable access to learning tools proven to help all students,” Kelly says.

“Using diagnostic tools to identify gaps in student understanding and then assigning topics that can support students to engage and develop that conceptual understanding will go a long way in bringing all students up to grade level. ST Maths is uniquely qualified to support teachers with this goal.”

To find out more about ST Maths and to enjoy a free trial of the ST Maths platform, visit MTA’s website at https://www.teaching.com.au/page/ mta-au-st-maths. EM

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ST Maths utilises carefully selected elements of gamification – such as appealing characters and interesting problems.