A Reflective Account of Team Tutoring Involving an Indigenous and a Non-indigenous Tutor Delivering a First Year Cultural Competency Course

Conference: The Asian Conference on Education (ACE2022)
Title: A Reflective Account of Team Tutoring Involving an Indigenous and a Non-indigenous Tutor Delivering a First Year Cultural Competency Course
Stream: Education / Pedagogy
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Authors:
Andrea Dodo-Balu, Curtin University, Australia
Barbara Bynder, Curtin University, Australia

Abstract:

In 2017, Australia’s peak higher education body directed universities to “ensure all students will encounter and engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural content as integral parts of their course of study…” (Universities Australia, 2017). This presentation focuses on a core first year undergraduate subject which forms part of the strategy to implement this directive at a large public university in Australia. This subject is the designated one within the Humanities faculty tasked with developing students’ intercultural competency to meet the university’s related graduate attribute. A key feature of the subject is the co-tutoring arrangement consisting of one Indigenous and one non-Indigenous academic staff member. In this presentation, we reflect on our experiences and observations as sessional (contingent) academics co-tutoring this pivotal subject with a particular focus on the online learning space. We utilize Southern theory (Connell, 2017) and decolonization theories (Nakata, 2018) which centre around knowledge generated in the colonial encounter and the post-colonial experience, and prioritize rethinking knowledge from the standpoints of those excluded from existing dominant structures, particularly Indigenous peoples. We offer a critical reflection on the extent to which the subject is successful in encouraging a repositioning of students’ thinking in line with these theories, as well as institutional change. In particular, we problematize the effectiveness of transforming understandings of marginalized histories and knowledges within a university system in which commercialized and corporatized management practices work to reduce optimal conditions for student learning, and to marginalize Indigenous knowledges and the teaching team through exclusionary processes.

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