On-country visits where students interact with Aboriginal Elders as experiential learning¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

A specific teaching practice at Woolyungah takes students "out of the university domain and into Indigenous domains": on-country visits where students interact with Aboriginal Elders. The paper describes these as "powerful learning experiences" that acknowledge Elders' expertise, teach what cannot be taught in classrooms, and bring together theory and practice through direct interaction with members of another culture.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Access to local Indigenous sites and willing Elders; respect for knowledge shared and acknowledgement of Elders' empirical knowledge of their lands

Constraints¶

• Visits depend on logistics of guest speakers and access to local knowledge holders, as the paper notes when considering practical entrenchment of Indigenous knowledge

Target Learners¶

• Undergraduate Indigenous Studies students

Target Learning Goals¶

• Experiential understanding of Indigenous knowledge and connections to Country

Affordances¶

• Foucauldian Episteme Indigenous Knowledges Framework

Related Strategies¶

• Use direct-experience formats — simulation games, extracurricular activities, action learning, peer teaching — to pursue relational-domain objectives
• Invite local Elders into classrooms as co-teachers of Indigenous Knowledge

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• McGloin, C., Marshall, A. & Adams, M. (2009). Leading the Way: Indigenous knowledge and collaboration at the Woolyungah Indigenous Centre. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 6(2), 38–53. https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/ doi:10.53761/1.6.2.4