In addition to frequently updated Indigenous Graduate Attribute Sharepoint resources and monthly online workshops, the Indigenous Teaching and Learning Team facilitate face-to-face professional development, which runs 4 times per year (February, May, August, December). These workshops provide academics with strategies to develop culturally safe Indigenous teaching and learning practices.
8 strategies for a culturally safe classroom
The workshop focuses on eight different strategies that can be incorporated into curriculum design, development and delivery to create safer classroom environments when teaching Indigenous content.
- Communicating positively including appropriate terminology
- Use of ‘Disclaimers’ to identify sensitive content
- Classroom practice including establishing classroom expectations
- Indigenous teaching and learning resources (written and visual)
- Recognising the diversity of Indigenous peoples and culture
- Deficit discourse
- Protection of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP)
- The role of critical reflexivity in the classroom and assessment
Find out more by booking in for the afternoon session Developing Culturally Safe Indigenous Teaching and Learning Practices Professional Development. You can also register for the morning’s Indigenous Cultural Capability session.
Workshop feedback
It was a great learning experience that enhanced my knowledge and gave me more confidence in working towards developing and embedding the IGA into our subjects and courses.
Janelle Craig, Lecturer, Health Services Management
The workshops were collaborative, informative and interesting. The excellent facilitators encouraged and provided opportunities to ask questions in a safe space and to discuss practical strategies to support students to work with and for Indigenous Australians.
Deborah Debono, Deputy Head of School Teaching and Learning, School of Public Health
Meet the facilitators
Danielle Manton
Danielle is a proud Barunggam Women. She leads IGA course support for the Faculty of Health and IGA professional development.
Danielle has been working in Indigenous curriculum design and implementation within the UTS Faculty of Health for the past five years and currently sits on the Australian Physiotherapy Councils Accreditation Committee. She is actively involved in Indigenous health, specifically Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations regarding Indigenous-led solutions for recovery from addiction, and is a Director on the Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Residential Rehabilitation Board. She draws on her strong community networks to ensure Indigenous voices, faces and actions are visible within healthcare education to influence change in workforce practices and culture.
Fiona Murray
Fiona is a proud Wiradjuri/Ngemmba woman currently living on Worimi land. She leads IGA professional development.
Fiona has 19 years’ experience in Aboriginal Education across primary, secondary and higher education environments, and specialises in the teaching and learning of Indigenous perspectives in curriculum. Her background in social justice education is informed through her extensive experience in developing and maintaining collaborative community partnerships to enhance educational outcomes and influence student success.
Fiona’s comprehensive knowledge and experience of Indigenous curriculum development and implementing Indigenous pedagogies is founded from her work as an academic, psychotherapist and Indigenous educational designer. Fiona has been integral in facilitating Indigenous cultural competency curriculum design, modelling cultural safety and developing strategies to enhance cultural safety in educational environments.