Prior to undertaking the unit Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies I did not consider

how crucial it is to implement and successfully engage with and enhance Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander students within their learning experience. It is to say that I am extremely proud
and grateful that this unit is a part of the Master of Teaching (Secondary) program and being
one of the students to have undertaken this unit I can proudly say that I have taken various
aspects within my learning to implement across my future teaching. As a person who I
considered myself as an open minded individual, I was disappointed in myself with the little
understanding and knowledge I had in Aboriginal pedagogies as this was due to me playing a
part in the deficit discourse. This unit has equipped me with crucial knowledge regarding how to
implement and create a positive and inclusive environment that provides Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander students identity and knowledge to be implemented within the teaching and
learning strategies. Engaging throughout each week has provided me the opportunity to
implement a variety of different ways that allow me to implement Aboriginal pedagogical
perspectives within my teaching strategies. This reflection will also illustrate the valuable content
and lessons I have learnt that involves understanding various challenges and rewarding
outcomes throughout each weekly module that I need to consider throughout my future
teaching. Furthermore, this reflection will also outline the importance of the standards,
resources, and tools I believe will further my contribution to making an inclusive and supportive
environment for all students especially indigenous students.

Engaging with each weekly module throughout this unit made me come to the realization of the
difference between the two concepts of Aboriginal pedagogies and western pedagogies that are
found within today's education system. As mentioned earlier, coming into this unit I accepted the
deficit discourse in terms of the simplistic understanding and knowledge on Aboriginal content
and pedagogies. As I still required to fully understand the standards 1.2 and 2.4 throughout this
unit, this unit made it very clear that there are various other current issues that are evident
within today's education system other than the difficulties of teaching indigenous students or
that low expectations found to be norm within our culture and society, although it is found that
those non-indigenous educators are difficult to learn from if their knowledge is not culturally
competent. As various literature has argued that content found teaching strategies and
assessments found in classrooms perpetuate inequality for indigenous students by favouring
western knowledge over other kinds of cultural knowledge. Research also found that teachers
who understood and adopted culturally responsive pedagogy that is in recognition of indigenous
students found it to result in quality teaching and learning across the learning environment. To
counter this issue, teachers need to implement various knowledge from using elderly and
indigenous communities to provide consistent and relevant information. Furthermore,
throughout both previous assessment tasks, I came to the realization on how important culture
and indigenous communities are for indigenous peoples as various content integrated some
form of social and physical aspects to their learning and understanding of their land.

As I progressed throughout the course, this ultimately led me now to confidently understand
how to incorporate both standards 1.4 and 2.4 which combines the three domains of
Progressional Knowledge, Practice and Engagement (AITSL, 2015). Contributing the 1.4
standard of “Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' ' (AITSL,
2015) encouraged ways to which we can culturally reference and implement aboriginal
perspectives within our teaching. Looking at both ‘Quality teaching and the ‘Eight ways of
Pedagogy’ (NSWDET, 2003, Yunkaporta, 2009) was the first stage as to where I believe I grew
confidence in understanding how to tackle the issues of incorporating and thinking about
strategies that implement aboriginal content and culture within the classroom. I found that
working through the assessment tasks and modules that I was able to consistently develop an
understanding of how to apply this knowledge of creating lessons that implements both western
and aboriginal content and perspectives into one. The attempt of using these two strategies I
believe looks at tacking two issues found in today's system, including promoting reconciliation of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through acknowledging and promoting their culture,
history, and people and developing strategies that focus on developing Indigenous students'
connection to the content being taught. As earlier discussed, my view of both AITSL Standards
1.4 and 2.4 has changed throughout this course as standards not to be just followed but to
appreciate as a critical tool that is required throughout my teaching career.

Now that I have developed various aspects of my cultural competence in terms of aboriginal
knowledge on their culture, language, and people, I can consider this as an area where this has
changed my view on various aspects of my teaching and learning. Towards the end of this
semester, I can consider myself to be more aware of how my teaching and learning strategies
influence various students and their cultures, specifically on our first peoples. Having completed
this unit, I am now able to implement aboriginal content through the development of the
standards of 1.4 and 2.4 (AITSL, 2015) and the cross-curriculum priority of history and cultures .
Throughout assessment 2, this has heavily influenced my future practice as an educator as it
focused on using various methods when creating units and learning activities that involve
creating a space where non-indigenous students can develop Indigenous cultures and respect
through the integration of indigenous communities, cultures, and elderly perspectives. As a
future educator, I now know that I should always be aware of my surroundings within the
classroom to not only look at students as one way of learning, however, to look at each student
considering their perspectives and cultures within my teaching content.

Indeed, the role that educators have within student development and involvement plays a huge
role when considering improving educational outcomes for students. However, when
considering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students we simply cannot ignore the issues
found in today's education system. Through this unit, obtaining various resources and
understanding of Indigenous content has come to my understanding that it is crucial for not only
myself but for all teachers to fully integrate Indigenous content within their teaching strategies.
As a pre-service teacher, I will look forward to implementing strategies that continuously
develop and enhance my understanding that focus on using AITSL standards and the cross-
curriculum priorities to not only improve outcomes of indigenous students but to provide a more
inclusive, supportive, and accepting learning environment to thrive in.