Aboriginal Worlds in the Western Academy

In recent years, the issue of how best to support Indigenous students enrolled in undergraduate academic programs has been increasingly directed by practices which promote a ‘success-oriented’ approach (Devlin, 2009; Devlin & McKay, 2017). This paper outlines a critical reflection of two lecturers involved in the delivery of a mainstream Charles Darwin University Academic literacy unit to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) students enrolled at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education. This is a preliminary examination of a later deeper reflective study. In this study we use Brookfield’s (1995, 2009) critical reflection process to examine the curriculum and pedagogical transformations to a standard academic discourse unit in order to make it more conducive to ATSI learning and academic success. Both lecturers have been teaching Indigenous students in the Northern Territory in a variety of contexts over the past three decades and co-teaching this unit provided an opportunity to examine our pedagogical practices that led to ATSI student achievements. This paper firstly presents the context by examining the teaching program. It then explores the student cohort and reflects on specific changes we made in our teaching and learning program to enhance student achievement.