1. Designing assessment in indigenous education
Alison Quin
Learning Designer - QUT

2. Acknowledgement of country
I acknowledge the Kulin nation who are the custodians of this land. I pay respect to elders past, present and future and extend my respect to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people present.

3. Image of river

4. Yarra river – always flows
We will use an Indigenous perspective to open up spaces to think about teaching and assessment.
We will travel a river today.
The main river is the foundational Indigenous philosophy of connectedness.
We will explore creeks that flow into this river:
People
Place
Indigenous education
We will look at a unit of work and design assessment for it.

5. Image of connections

6. Connectedness Draw something in front of you that represents you.
Find something in common with every person at your table eg
same age
support same sport team
same number of children
love cooking Thai food
Draw a line from your symbol to the other person’s symbol.
Do this for every person at your table.
Move around if you need to.

7. Exploring connectedness
Drawing something to represent you
What did this do for you?
There is a rich Indigenous tradition of abstract, conceptual, metaphorical visual representation.
How much drawing happens in the classroom? What types of drawing? Under what circumstances?
Finding things in common
What does having that thing in common do for you?
How much real connection do we generate in classrooms, between students, students and the content, the school and community?
Webs of connectedness
What does it feel like to be part of a complex, connected web?
Moving around
What does movement facilitate and enable?

8. place people connectedness http://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/map/
Connection to place is a mindset, a way of being in relation with the world
people
Kinship (incorporates people, place and things)
Traditional owners
History has caused complications in connection relationships

9. Indigenous education Students – who you teach Content – what you teach
Teaching all students, not just Indigenous students
Content – what you teach
Careful melding of teaching about and teaching through Indigenous perspectives
Teaching – how you teach
Inclusive pedagogies
Eight ways of Aboriginal Learning (Yunkaporta)
Holistic Planning and Teaching Framework (Uncle Ernie Grant)

10. Eight Ways

11. Holistic framework Land Language Culture Time Place Relation-ships
Pre-Contact
Contact
Post-contact
Contemp-orary

12. UNIT of WORK Localise Share stories Use local learning metaphor
Analysis of unit of work for ways CONNECTEDNESS can be enhanced
Possible improvements:
Localise
Make connections with local community, find out appropriate local stories and places
Co-development of unit with community is ideal
Share stories
Students give their understandings and connections, teachers and community members as well
Use local learning metaphor
Derived from land feature eg river, mountain, animal
Even better if this is connected to local knowledge story and Indigenous perspective that unit is built around

13. Unit of work Improvements
Incorporate non-verbal and ‘non-conventional’ expressions of knowledge
art, image, symbolism, dance, acting, yarning, ceremony, action, behaviour

14. Assessment what? how? who? whose? Things to think about task
knowledge/skills/capabilities/understandings
criteria
how?
incorporate connectedness
assess connectedness itself
who?
decides
assesses
whose?
knowledge
education paradigm

15. Assessment Task What is most appropriate? Connectedness
What captures connectedness, Indigenous perspectives, local learning and curriculum content?
Artwork, enactment, action, behaviour, story telling, creation
Connectedness
Group-based task
How facilitate? Collaboration. Jigsaw. CoP.
What kind of ‘mark’ or ‘grade’ for group vs individual? What evidence for it?
Who comprises the ‘group’? – students, community members, family…

16. ASSESSMENT Marking instrument
co-development to ensure Indigenous knowledge and perspectives, as well as curriculum requirements, met
What do different levels of knowledge/capability look like?
Are there differentiations of levels of knowledge/capability, or more carefully calibrated levels of access, ownership and implementation?
Are there limitations such as women’s/men’s/clan knowledge? How build this in?
Who teaches and who assesses?
Who has training and authority?
Who gets paid?
Who has subject matter expertise?

17. Thank you
Alison Quin Thank you for your time and attention.
Thank you