Sustainable Teaching Strategies to Teach Indigenous Students: Their Relations to Students’ Engaged Learning and Teachers’ Self-Concept

Abstract

To help Indigenous Australian students engage with academic work, educators and teachers alike need to understand what teaching strategies are beneficial for Indigenous students’ learning. This study examines the predictions of the three types of Indigenous teaching strategies, namely, integrative teaching (integrating Indigenous perspectives in teaching), community linking (utilising Indigenous community input), and culture sharing (encouraging Indigenous students to share cultural values), to Indigenous students’ engaged learning and teachers’ self-concept in teaching. With 208 teachers surveyed from 52 Australian urban and rural primary schools, we found that culture sharing had positive contributions to Indigenous students’ engaged learning, whereas integrative teaching and community linking positively predicted teachers’ self-concept in Indigenous teaching. These differential patterns suggest useful strategies for enhancing student- or teacher-focused outcomes, respectively. How to successfully integrate these Indigenous teaching strategies is a key to successful teaching practice, as these strategies cannot only improve Indigenous students’ engaged learning but, at the same time, may foster teachers’ confidence in teaching Indigenous students.