12 Conscious course design and embedding Indigenous perspectives in the curriculum

School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry

Introduction

This chapter is based on the findings of a project we conducted through the Student–Staff Partnerships (SSP) program at The University of Queensland (UQ) in June 2024. The project, titled “The Impact of Course Structure and Design on Marginalised Perspectives and Content” (ICSDMP), was concerned with “a perceived trend in HASS [Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences] courses where topics on marginalised perspectives are confined to singular weeks, often in the final few weeks of a course” and aimed to look at “the impact that course structure has on student engagement with marginalised perspectives” (Berkhout et al., 2024:4).^[1] We used three methods to investigate these concerns: a student survey of 50 undergraduate students, a course review of 152 HASS courses, and interviews with several staff members. For the purposes of the project, we identified seven key marginalised perspectives – gender, sexuality, race, Indigeneity, disability, non-Western languages and cultures, and class – to form a basic representation of key marginalised groups in academia. It is important to note that this project was intended to be a scoping review; it was not an exhaustive study of marginalised perspectives in course content. Rather, we intended to present tentative findings and highlight where further investigation is needed.

For the purposes of this chapter, we narrow our focus from the project’s broader scope of “marginalised perspectives” to our findings on Indigenous perspectives specifically. Our course review of the 152 HASS courses looked at the publicly available information on the electronic course profiles (ECPs). Of the reviewed courses, 59 included mentions of Indigenous perspectives/knowledges. ECPs are used by prospective undergraduate students in selecting which courses to undertake at UQ. They are, thus, important measures by which the HASS Faculty advertises available courses and the content covered within. It is difficult to determine whether the fact that 59 courses do include Indigenous perspectives is reflective of changes in Indigenising the curriculum across UQ. For instance, we might assume that this is an improvement from the past, given the increased emphasis on Indigenising the curriculum over the past few years (although, to our knowledge, there isn’t evidence to confirm this numerically). However, given the significance and relevance of Indigenous knowledges across HASS disciplines, the fact that less than half of the courses include them may suggest that there is significant room for improvement.

Moreover, while this figure might reflect a growth in HASS-wide efforts to Indigenise the curriculum, the figure does not capture how much time is dedicated to Indigenous perspectives within those 59 courses (Berkhout et al., 2024:10). One of the key findings of our project was that, across the board, very little time is dedicated to marginalised perspectives. Within the HASS courses we reviewed, more than 50% of the courses spent less than three weeks on marginalised perspectives, out of a 12- or 13-week semester (Berkhout et al., 2024:21). Throughout the project, we noted that, in addition to the general lack of inclusion, the way in which marginalised perspectives tend to be included in courses may be problematic for both student engagement with, and the framing of, Indigenous and other marginalised perspectives. Thus, we want to discuss our observations to hopefully help people to Indigenise their curriculum through conscious course design.

This chapter begins with an overview of the authors’ positionality in relation to the project, before moving into a discussion of the project we undertook, and its implications for Indigenising the curriculum.

Authors’ positionality

The impetus for this project emerged from discussions between the authors, Kirsten, an undergraduate student in HASS, and Paige, an early career lecturer, around the ways that different HASS courses approached the inclusion of marginalised perspectives into course content. We were interested in reflecting on the ways that Indigenous knowledge is, or is not, included in course content, and how such knowledge is included. We are not First Nations people ourselves and do not intend to speak on behalf of, or for, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We are white settler women committed to intersectional feminism, and to foregrounding Indigenous knowledges in teaching and learning. We believe that decolonising the curriculum is everyone’s responsibility, not just that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues and knowledge holders.

For Paige, a non-Indigenous person who grew up and was educated on the lands of the Turrbal and Yuggera peoples, the lack of discussion of First Nations histories in primary, secondary and tertiary education has driven a desire to think deeply about centring Indigenous knowledge in her research and teaching work as a historian. For Kirsten, a non-Indigenous person who grew up on the lands of the Bindal and Wulgurukaba peoples in Townsville and the Muwinina people in Lutruwita/Tasmania, Indigenous storytelling was an important part of her childhood. She continues to find great joy and wisdom in those stories, which contributes to her passion for centring Indigenous storytelling, knowledges and perspectives in all aspects of teaching and learning.

Course structure and student engagement

Course design is an important variable in determining student engagement (Levinsson et al., 2024). Facilitating student engagement with Indigenous knowledges and perspectives is a key part of Indigenising the curriculum. In our project, we were curious about the relationship between patterns in course structure, assessment and student engagement. One particular area of interest for us was the “end-of-semester drop-off”, which refers to the decline in student attendance in the final weeks of the semester. To our knowledge, this drop-off is not formally documented, though it is generally noted in the literature that it “can be difficult to encourage [student engagement] throughout the entirety of a course” (Wang & Bohn, 2018: 93). UQ’s Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation also acknowledges that issues of absenteeism and student disengagement across the semester are difficult challenges for educators (Rutherford & McGrath, 2022).

Responses given by staff and students involved in our project corroborated our suspicion that there is a recognisable decline in student attendance towards the end of semester. In interviews, staff said that they were familiar with this pattern; one even suggested that since the COVID-19 pandemic they noticed a “more pronounced weariness” in students towards the end of semester (Berkhout et al., 2024: 29). In our survey of 50 undergraduate HASS students, 34.7% of participants reported regularly missing the final lectures of the course (Berkhout et al., 2024: 15). Students cited various factors including mental health, burnout, impending assessment deadlines and “coursework [being] no longer relevant to assessment” as factors in their decision not to attend the final weeks (Berkhout et al., 2024: 15). To the question of what would motivate them to attend these final weeks, students’ responses were “more spread out assessment periods”, “doing more material related to the exam/assignment” and “more engaging lectures” (Berkhout et al., 2024: 15).

The students’ responses regarding the end-of-semester drop-off suggest that assessment is a key factor in their engagement with courses. This comes as a surprise to no-one; teachers are all too familiar with the question “do we need to know this for the assessment?” (Hanesworth et al., 2019: 99). Although assessments are not the only determining factor, it makes sense for students to take a pragmatic approach to their learning given the pressures and incentives built into the university system; students prioritise outcomes in a system that values outcomes. Whether or not that ought to be the case is not the question here. When it comes to the relationship between assessments and student engagement it seems that (a) students prioritising their assessments contributes to the end-of-semester drop-off in lecture attendance, and (b) students are more likely to engage with content that is assessable. Most educators will not find this suggestion groundbreaking.

We will return to assessments shortly, but another key question that guided our project was a concern that,what we termed, “MP weeks” (the weeks dedicated to/ including marginalised perspectives) typically aligned with the end-of-semester drop-off. With limited resources, it was difficult to collect clear data on this. We did find that 15 of the 152 reviewed courses covered marginalised perspectives only in the final weeks of the course and noted that many other courses had at least one MP week in the final weeks of the course (Berkhout et al., 2024: 21). Marginalised perspectives, as mentioned above, already receive limited attention in courses, and if they are being confined to the final weeks of courses, then engagement with those perspectives is further reduced. In terms of Indigenous perspectives specifically, our data suggests that, of the 59 courses that included Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content, at least 25 of them dedicated only one week to discussing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content, and for some of those, that one week fell in the final weeks of the course.

Returning to the topic of assessment, another observation we made about the relationship between course structure and assessment was that there is a typical assessment design used across HASS courses. Many courses have a major essay or research project due in, or just after, the final weeks of the course, for which students choose a question or topic from a list of content covered in the course. This design has both benefits and downsides; it allows students to delve deeply into a specific part of the course, rather than requiring that they have surface-level knowledge of all topics in the course, which a different assessment type such as an exam might. On the other hand, this might mean that certain topics are not engaged with deeply, or at all. As highlighted earlier, it appears that if a topic is not assessable, there is a lack of incentive for students to engage.

We were curious about the factors that influence how students choose the topic for this typical kind of final assessment. In our student survey, we presented a hypothetical situation to participants: if they had to select a topic covered in any week of the course, for an assessment due in the final week, would they be more likely to select one from the beginning, middle or end of the course? The majority of students (60%) responded that they were more likely to select a topic that was covered in the middle of the course (Berkhout et al., 2024: 16). We then asked students whether they perceived the position of the topic in the course (beginning, middle, end), their familiarity with a given topic, or their level of interest in a topic would be more likely to influence their choice of topic: 70% selected interest, 28% selected familiarity and 2% selected position (Berkhout et al., 2024: 17). In hindsight, these questions were poorly framed, for a number of reasons. However, reflecting upon the rationale behind the questions, as well as the students’ responses to the questions, prompts some interesting discussions.

Firstly, our aim with these questions was to understand what influences students’ choices when it comes to final assessments. We hypothesised that pressure to do well in their assessments might mean students have an incentive to choose a topic covered early in the course which gives them more time to understand the topic or develop their essay, or to select a topic they are more familiar with, perhaps from other courses, to relieve some of the pressure of working with new material. Do students take a kind of strategic approach to their assessment choices and, if they do, does this negatively impact their engagement with marginalised perspectives? But, again in hindsight, having been students ourselves, we recognise that all these factors probably contribute to the process of choosing a topic, and we would be unlikely to pinpoint the strategic factors as being the ultimate deciders. As the 70% of students in our survey did, we would probably decide based on interest. Students simply choose topics they are interested in, and  students in our survey expressed interest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and other marginalised perspectives.

Upon reflection, we realised that “interest” isn’t always a simple thing. Firstly, a key limitation of our project was that students who are already interested in marginalised perspectives were more likely to take this survey. The survey is, thus, not wholly representative of the broader student population, but primarily of students who have a specific interest in these topic areas (Berkhout et al., 2024: 23). In addition, the distinction we made in our question between interest and familiarity is not a clear divide. The mere exposure effect, as it is described in psychology, suggests that a person’s positive attitude towards, or preference for, something can be enhanced simply from exposure to that thing (Zajonc & Markus, 1982: 125). A relationship exists between familiarity with a topic and developing an interest in that topic. Given the limited time dedicated to Indigenous perspectives, we recognised the potential for a problematic cycle: limited time dedicated to  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content contributes to lack of exposure to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and perspectives, which perhaps leads to less interest in them, which may in turn reduce the likelihood of students choosing  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander topics for their assessments, compounding a lack of engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives.

From all of this, we arrived at a key consideration for Indigenising the curriculum through a conscious approach to course design: considering student experience in course structure and assessment. Student engagement is a core part of Indigenising the curriculum, and it seems that course structure influences student engagement. Our project only scratched the surface of patterns in student engagement; perhaps there are others: maybe mid-semester break also causes fluctuations in attendance in the week before or after, maybe weeks with public holidays or lectures that fall on Fridays see less engagement.

With this in mind, we offer some suggestions to facilitate student engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content through course design. First, given the findings of our report, we want to emphasise that courses should include more than one week of  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives to encourage depth in student engagement (for more on this, consult the Indigenising Curriculum standards in Bunda, 2022: 26). Second, we suggest that course coordinators avoid covering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives during the final weeks (alone) of the course, as students are less likely to attend lectures and engage with the content; or, conversely, as the students themselves suggested, find creative ways to encourage students to come to class (expect them to be demotivated and see what you can do to help). One way that course coordinators might address these issues is to position topics on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and knowledges in the first few weeks of class; not only can this can situate the learning within place and Country, by connecting teaching to the lands on which it is taking place, but it also ensures that Indigenous course content is delivered at a time when student engagement is likely at its highest (Rutherford & McGrath, 2022). One staff member we interviewed also suggested an approach that incorporated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and knowledge within each week’s course content, so as to embed such perspectives within the course overall.

When it comes to assessment, we suggest that course developers should reflect on whether assessments provide students with opportunities for genuine engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and knowledges. Staff members we interviewed detailed how they use assessment to facilitate student engagement. One common method was the use of a rolling weekly or fortnightly assessment, the hope being that it gently enforces student engagement with the different learning materials for each week or topic (Berkhout et al., 2024: 29). One staff member interviewed also designed a minor assessment in the middle of the semester that specifically encouraged students to engage with the readings on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content, asking them to briefly summarise and critically reflect on the materials.

We do not expect these design considerations to seem particularly groundbreaking to course coordinators and teachers. Rather, we want to emphasise the relevance of course design choices to Indigenising the curriculum and give examples of different ways we might critically analyse our own design choices.

Decolonising course structure

Here we move into the more theoretical part of the chapter: looking at the patterns in course structure through the lens of decolonial theory. As a whole, the HASS teaching and learning context is defined largely by “a dominant academic model based on a Eurocentric epistemic canon” (Mbembe, 2015: 9). The goal of Indigenising the curriculum goes hand in hand with decolonising it – both aiming to “create spaces for distinct canons of knowledge with the goal of decentring Western perspectives as the only framework or possibility for knowledge” (Lopez & Singh, 2024: 2). What is particularly difficult about this is that the Western epistemologies embedded in our institutions are positioned as objective and universal – existing outside and above culture and context, framing true knowledge as the “detachment of the known from the knower” (Lopez & Singh, 2024: 5; Mbembe, 2015: 9). Western knowledge asserts itself as the default, the neutral position from which the world can be observed; the fact that it is itself a perspective is obscured by its claim to universalism. Thus, the hierarchy that “privileges Western knowledge of local Indigenous knowledges” (Lopez & Singh, 2024: 5) often flies under the radar as the Western tradition is pinned up as the blank background against which all else is contrasted. Knowledge itself has become synonymous with Western knowledge; or rather, we should say, knowledge was made synonymous with Western epistemologies as “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges along with the people who held these knowledges were sought to be erased from the Australian nation” (Bunda, 2022: 15). It was hardly a passive process.

Throughout our project, we observed patterns in course structure that seem to perpetuate the narrative that positions Western knowledges as the default, and privileges them over Indigenous and other marginalised perspectives. Many of the courses we reviewed had three “ducks in a row”: one week for Women/Gender, one for Race, and one for Indigeneity, or other similar structures in which a few marginalised perspectives were included in individual weeks. This neat packing of diverse perspectives could be seen as making space for those perspectives, considering they have historically been excluded altogether. But taking a critical lens to this, we no longer see “three weeks for the marginalised” as a generous inclusion – what if we describe the other 10 weeks as the weeks of the white, European man? Through design choices, “educators are communicating, subconsciously, what is important – and more importantly, what is not – within their field” (Hanesworth et al., 2019: 99). The lack of time and space dedicated to these perspectives is glaringly obvious when you begin to question whose perspectives dominate the rest of our time.

Often accompanying this problematic course structure are two other interrelated patterns. The first is that these courses often framed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholarship, and the scholarship of other marginalised groups, primarily as reactions to dominant narratives. We think it might be common because it is easier to fit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into a course’s narrative structure if it is framed as a response to an existing component of the course. And, indeed, the critical side of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholarship is important and relevant in many contexts. However, if we focus on that alone, we fail to acknowledge that “Indigenous knowledges are the first knowledges of this Country” (Bunda, 2022:18) and they hold inherent value outside of colonial narratives. We reduce Indigenous knowledges and perspectives  to their relationship with Western ones, rather than as sovereign, or independent, in their own right.

The second pattern we noted, closely related to the first, was that courses with this structure often only engaged with “other” perspectives from within the safety of the default knowledge framework. Indigenous knowledge is confined to its respective weeks, which, in a sense, holds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives at arm’s length, allowing only for superficial engagement with Indigeneity as an object to be studied through the lens of our omniscient Western academic model. This not only continues to “other” Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge, but means that students are not authentically immersed in systems of knowledge outside of our own. The embeddedness of Western systems of knowledge production means the associated norms and values that impact our engagement with other perspectives go unanalysed, as we assume ourselves to be observing the world from a position of objectivity.

Conscious course design: Truth-telling and respect

Conscious course design is a key part of upholding the Indigenising Curriculum Design Principles (Bunda, 2022) of Truth and Respect. As outlined in the Indigenising Curriculum: Consultation Green Paper, truth and truth-telling entail “[centring] the Indigenous voice in curriculum” (Bunda, 2022: 18). In the first section of this chapter, we described patterns in course design that appear to, quite literally, push Indigenous knowledges and perspectives to the margins: lack of time dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in HASS courses, the positioning of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives at the end of semester when student engagement is at its lowest, and assessment design discouraging engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. Analysing and addressing these patterns, and perhaps identifying others, through conscious course design is essential to centring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and upholding truth-telling in the curriculum.

Decolonising course structure is also crucial for truth-telling. If we only engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges from inside the comfort of Western knowledge structures, we risk perpetuating the myths and stereotypes surrounding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that are established in and by Western knowledge systems. Truth-telling calls for us to “[challenge] misinformation and misrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lived realities” (Bunda, 2022: 18), which is best done by immersing ourselves in Indigenous knowledges and engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives without imposing the values and norms of Western knowledge systems.

Finally, dedicating time and attention to Indigenous knowledges through course design is necessary for building respect. As stated in Bunda (2022), “Respecting and valuing Indigenous knowledges, peoples and perspectives is foundational to an Indigenised curriculum and contributes to decolonisation” (p. 15). Further, Indigenous knowledges are “the oldest living knowledge systems in the world” (Bunda, 2022: 15) and our treatment of them in courses ought to reflect this significance. Treating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives as mere additions, “alternative” perspectives, or responses to or attacks on Western knowledge erases the long history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and their intrinsic value. Foregrounding Indigenous knowledges in course design – whether it be by positioning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in the first few weeks of a course or integrating Indigenous knowledges throughout the course – is essential for building respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures.

Conclusion

During our study, one of the surveyed students astutely noted that “shoehorning” Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in courses (including them as an afterthought) speaks volumes about the current, and historical, subordination of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. To work towards Indigenising and decolonising the curriculum, we must start the “process of decolonisation, both of knowledge and of the university as an institution” (Mbembe, 2015: 10). Educators can do so by starting to be critical about the small things, and the changeable things, within our reach. In this chapter, we have outlined some of the current issues in HASS course design around marginalised perspectives, including Indigenous perspectives and knowledges. Our findings from the ICSDMP project demonstrated that there is much more work to be done in terms of incorporating Indigenous knowledges within HASS courses. While many courses have begun to include Indigenous knowledges and perspectives, course structure and assessment design stand out as key areas for improvement when it comes to Indigenising the curriculum. As we have discussed, various patterns in course design choices might be contributing to a lack of engagement with marginalised perspectives; in particular, the phenomenon of end-of-semester drop-off – that both students and educators are aware of – must be a consideration in Indigenising the curriculum.

For educators, we recommend a practice of conscious course design when it comes to Indigenising the curriculum. By this, we mean consciously considering the placement of Indigenous perspectives and knowledges within the structure of courses, so as to foreground and centre such knowledge for maximum student engagement and understanding.