Abstract:
Before the AITSL standards required teachers to “know students and how they learn”, many teachers frequently spoke with considerable knowledge about their students. This knowledge often indicated keen insight into the interests of individual students, an understanding of their strengths, and identification of areas where they needed assistance. Teachers also modified their practices to take account of different students’ needs. Much of this knowledge of students and how they learnt was gleaned through observations and assessments that were open-ended, and lacked performance criteria.Contemporary practices aim to be more rigorous and accountable. They aim to make performance requirements explicit to students, and require teacher assessments to be justifiable and justified. While there are strengths with recent approaches, many teachers report having more idea about what their students can do, say, write or make than they have about the students and how they learn. This shift in teacher/teaching knowledge has emerged through a renewed emphasis on the product of learning (evidence) rather than the process. This paper presents findings from a multi-sited ethnographic study of the Indigenous Academic Enrichment Program (IAEP) which aimed to grow aspirations, enhance academic performance and develop the social cultural navigational capacities of a group of Indigenous students through engagement with their teachers and schools. The paper focuses on a series of student workshops delivered by the Gene Technology Access Centre (GTAC) and a series of professional learning workshops delivered as part of the IAEP. Student workshops drew on educational theories about how Indigenous students best learn (Harrison 2015), including the use of models in understanding complex scientific and mathematical ideas. Teacher workshops drew on Timperley’s (2008) insights about professional learning and utilized a modified version of Instructional Rounds (City et al 2009) that made students’ learning the focus of observational notes and subsequent discussions. Student and teacher participants completed questionnaires at the end of workshops, and teacher participants were interviewed to establish the impact of the professional learning component. Findings indicate a significant growth in teachers’ knowledge about individual students and how they learn. Findings also indicate this knowledge is translated into practices that support the educational outcomes of all students and particularly Indigenous students.While this study focused on Indigenous students the findings have implications more broadly. What do we mean by knowing students and how they learn? What counts as evidence of this knowledge? What does it mean to approach teaching with two eyes? Is it possible to focus on both the processes and the products of learning or will we endlessly shift between privileging one and subordinating the other? What are the implications for Indigenous students when a teacher’s eye is focused only on the product as evidence of learning?