Rimah Ahmad student no:17831853

Master of teaching course no: 1714

Western Sydney university

The foundations of teaching practice and their impact upon Indigenous students’
school performance
The foundation concepts of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment are vital to successful
education but their imbalance towards Aboriginal education has resulted in poor academic
achievement for indigenous students. The focus of this paper is to evaluate the interrelationship
between key teaching & learning concepts. The main concepts to be discussed are curriculum,
assessment, pedagogy, and teacher professionalism. The first part will talk about the
comprehension of foundation concepts, which aims to discuss each of the above concepts
generally and their importance to the work of Australian teacher. The second part will deal
with the integration and application of foundation concepts, which aims to evaluate the
interrelationship between curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment in addressing the learning
needs of Australian indigenous students. The essay will aim to support the idea that foundation
concepts play a critical role in Australian tertiary education but, their lack has caused stagnation
among Aboriginal students.

COMPREHENSION OF FOUNDATION CONCEPTS

The curriculum is the first foundation concept to be discussed along with its importance to
Australian education. The curriculum of any course of study are all the subjects it’s comprised
of. It refers to the lessons, academic content and experiences taught within a given course to
achieve identified educational outcomes. It is developed and reviewed by the Australian
Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), an independent statutory body
("Australian Professional Standards for Teachers", 2017) The Curriculum is important in
giving Australian students equal education opportunity regardless of their residence, belief, and
cultural background. This gives students access to a similar content structure which can be used
to judge their achievements against a set of standards (Gerrard & Farrell ,2014). Teachers have
a responsibility to keep in accordance with set learning standards and implement them in ways
that best meet their students’ needs. It gives teachers a guideline into what should be included
in the lessons taught throughout each year group. Therefore, a standardized curriculum is
important to maintain a balanced education level and expectation among students to increase
overall participation, creativity, and success. (Gerrard & Farrell ,2014)

Assessment is the second topic of discussion coupled with how vital it is to education. There
are varied assessment forms educators use to grade their students (including) such as quizzes,
assignments, examinations etc. Teachers will then use the results to evaluate learning progress,
academic readiness and to establish student educational needs so that changes may be
implemented to improve the education system for the future generation. The National
Assessment Program – Literacy & Numeracy (NAPLAN) test is a key assessment carried out
by year 3, 5, 7 & 9 students annually. NAPLAN was introduced in 2008 and administered by
the Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and the Test
Administration Authorities (TAAs) in each Australian state/territory. It’s a standardized test
that aims to assess students reading, writing, language (spelling, grammar & punctuation) and
numeracy skills. However, there are many teachers, parents, and administrators who believe
the NAPLAN has a negative influence on students’ performance. With only 40 questions per
Rimah Ahmad student no:17831853
Master of teaching course no: 1714
Western Sydney university

test, it is only a fragment of student curriculum, not a reflection of their entire literacy and
numeracy skills (Wu & Hornsby, 2014). The tests require millions in government spending
that can be better spent and require much practice time which can be spent on more important
learning lessons Thus, assessments are a significant means to measure student’s progress but
some such as the NAPLAN seem to miss the mark (Wu & Hornsby, 2014).

The final topic to be discussed and its importance is a combination of pedagogy and Australian
Professional Standards for Teachers (APST). Pedagogy put simply is the art, science, or
profession of teaching, it is the discipline that deals with the method and practice of education.
Lingard, 2007 explains the term of ‘productive pedagogies’. The four areas of productive
pedagogy are supportiveness, intellectual needs, connection, engaging with and respecting the
difference (Lingard,2007). Authors explained that pedagogy is the process that allows children
to share information with others through the conversation and cooperation, and to participate
in the production and analysis of knowledge. The quality teaching that provides an
understanding of the significance of teachers in employing their skills and knowledge to control
their work and to produce an effective teaching responding to the needs of all students
(Henderson & Jarvis, 2016).

Australian Professional Standards for Teachers was developed by the Ministerial Council for
Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA) in 2009 and the
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) assumed responsibility for
validating and finalising the Standards in 2010.The APST present an analysis and guideline of
effective teacher practices to provide the foundation, structure, and knowledge for the teaching
profession. Teachers can also use the standard for personal evaluation and improving teaching
practices which can be done by students’/parents feedback or the assessment data ("Australian
Professional Standards for Teachers", 2017). The importance of teacher quality is directly
related to educational outcome. Furthermore, high-quality teachers led by an effective standard
has the potential to establish confident and creative individuals who can succeed in life. In
contrast with this, John Hattie’s (2009) investigation based upon his synthesis of more than
800 meta-analyses identified the impact of a long list of variables on educational achievement.
He concluded that teachers and their teaching as a major source of variance in students’
achievement (Lewthwaite et al, 2015).
Rimah Ahmad student no:17831853
Master of teaching course no: 1714
Western Sydney university

INTEGRATION AND APPLICATION OF FOUNDATION CONCEPTS

This second part of the paper will focus on evaluating the interrelationship between curriculum,
pedagogy, and assessment in addressing the learning needs of indigenous students. Australia
is a country built upon a diverse multicultural blend of people from varied cultures, ethnicities
& traditions that steam from all over the globe. This was not always the case because in the
beginning Australia was inhabited by the Aboriginal people who are the indigenous inhabitants
of this vast country we all now call home. But in terms of education, the Aboriginal population
has constantly suffered poor academic performance. Klenowski (2009) states that there is a
strong relation between the perpetuating inequity in school and outcome especially considering
Indigenous students’ achievements. According to statistics, indigenous proformas in schools
are well below the educational standard of non-Indigenous students. In relation to education,
the International Student Assessment (PISA) indicated that the education system in Australia
is categorized as a high quality low-equity education provider. Furthermore, in 2009 the
Council of Australian Governments (COAG) reported that a high percentage of indigenous
people hold poor literacy and numeracy skills. In fact, many of those students were not
regularly attending school (Klenowski, 2009). To combat this, there has been a nationwide
government initiative considering indigenous student’s education issues. This includes creating
a more equitable environment and to value student diversity in regards to the curriculum to
promote student performance. Most Importantly the priority of education policies should be
aimed to engage contextually with knowledge and experiences towards creating more
meaningful and relevant learning encounters for marginalised students (Perry, 2016).

Although, it is normal in nature that educational outcome differs between individuals, whereas
significant differences in educational outcome for certain groups is a cause for concern. In fact,
there are ongoing concerns about inequity in education performance among Indigenous
students. Song, Perry, & McConney (2014) states that there is a strong relation between the
perpetuating inequity in school and education outcome. The gap in education achievement
between the indigenous and non-indigenous are substantially larger, especially considering that
in many cases the gap is associated with policies, socioeconomic status, and educational forces.
Moreover, the education structure is systematically given privilege to certain groups over
others (Song, Perry, & McConney, 2014). This pattern of educational disadvantage resulted in
an expansion towards research addressing some of the key factors within the education system.
This includes educational resources as Warren, & Miller (2013) explain the distribution of the
education learning resources. Indigenous students living in rural areas attend school with very
minimal learning resources which result in reduced equity of access to learning (Warren, &
Miller, 2013). In contrast, the way that the Australian national testing program produces
assessments for these areas is incompatible with the level of education and skills students
receive. Especially giving that the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous students
according to the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is
significant in literacy and numeracy (Warren, & Miller, 2013). In 2009 Geoff Masters reported
Rimah Ahmad student no:17831853
Master of teaching course no: 1714
Western Sydney university

that results of literacy and numeracy tests indicated that by grade 9 the gap in achievement
shows that indigenous students fall 3 years behind. Underlining the complexity of indigenous
issue the socioeconomic status and the education curriculum and pedagogy are shown to be the
key factors. A research project conducted by Lewthwaite et al (2015) focused on the developing
Catholic Education teacher in the North of Queensland through understanding of culturally
responsive classroom pedagogy. The study elicits the characteristic of effective teaching
practice and how teacher quality emphasises a better learning outcome through the using the
voice of indigenous students and their community. The qualitative methodology applied in this
study was run by collecting recorded voices and the expressions of 70 participants and their
reflection upon random questions associated with the engagement of students with their teacher
and education. The study found that applying culturally related pedagogy or “pedagogy of
different” significantly promotes student engagement. Furthermore, the teacher has the
potential to address inequities by building trust and demonstrating their care for students by
verbal and non-verbal interaction. “Teachers explicit” attitude in the class and understanding
of Aboriginal cultural identity and beliefs are vital for facilitating meaningful learning as part
of accommodating student diversity (Lewthwaite et al, 2015). Furthermore, connecting
learning to students via a curriculum that involves an authentic integration of indigenous
perspective and content as alternative learning increases self-esteem, which in turn transform
learning opportunities for indigenous students (Klenowski, 2009).

In conclusion, the foundation concepts within the Australian education system and teacher
practices play an important role. They ensure that Australian students attain the highest possible
quality of education. This gives students a vast number of opportunities to pursue and
experience an improved quality of life. However, even with such a remarkable system, there
are still groups that struggle due to an imbalance within the education foundations. Indigenous
students are a key group that suffers poor numeracy and literacy skills due to a variety of factors
including equity of access to learning, socioeconomic disadvantage, and cultural difficulties.
Yet there is much ongoing research aimed at improving these foundation concepts to better
meet the needs of these students for a better future.
Rimah Ahmad student no:17831853
Master of teaching course no: 1714
Western Sydney university

References

Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. (2017). aitsl. Retrieved 23 March 2017,
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Klenowski,V. (2009). Australian Indigenous students: addressing equity issues in assessment.

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Perry, L. (2015). Educational disadvantage is a huge problem in Australia – we can’t just
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Song, S., Perry, L., & McConney, A. (2014). Explaining the achievement gap between
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Rimah Ahmad student no:17831853
Master of teaching course no: 1714
Western Sydney university
Rimah Ahmad student no:17831853
Master of teaching course no: 1714
Western Sydney university