Lost in the crowd

Gay Tierney shares her experience of establishing a rapport with Aboriginal students to attain a senior secondary graduation certificate, and in the process look towards employment within the community.

Distance education is a challenge for most students, but even more so for Aboriginal students living in the small Kandiwal Community in one of the remotest areas of Western Australia—the Mitchell Plateau. The community is serviced by a weekly mail plane and a monthly clinic plane, with food arriving by plane or road depending on the conditions. During the wet season, the area is subject to cyclones and flooding so often the community needs to be evacuated. The dry season heralds the arrival of tourists to see the spectacular Mitchell Falls and the striking Kimberley region of WA.

Primary students living in the community receive their education from the Kimberley School of the Air, located in Derby, and secondary students through the Schools of Isolated and Distance Education (SIDE), located in Perth. In 2005, I began teaching two of the secondary students living at Kandiwal.

Initial challenges—2005

Successful distance education relies on developing sustained two-way interactions by using the available technology to create a supportive, learning-focused environment. One of the major challenges I faced was interacting and establishing rapport with the students via the decontextualised means of the telephone. Even given the students' unfamiliarity with Standard Australian English and their shyness, our phone conversations were laborious and tedious, usually consisting of a spate of conversation from the teacher followed by one word responses from the students.

The telephone interactions did, however, help establish expectations and routines and paved the way for regular online delivery sessions. It became immediately apparent that if progress was to be made, regular online lessons needed to be part of the education program. The online environment, with its high quality voice communication and interactive lessons using a whiteboard, provided the means by which to establish a structured two-way dialogue and provide the timely and specific feedback essential to learning.

While telephone and email have their place in distance education, the online environment provides a superior means of interacting and advancing educational outcomes. To ensure that the online sessions always took place I enlisted the help of a colleague, an experienced secondary distance education teacher, to take lessons if for any reason I was unable to deliver a lesson. This strategy also provided the students with another teacher with whom they could interact and develop a student—teacher relationship.

Once online sessions became part of the school week, the other pressing concern was the instructional needs of the students and delivering relevant teaching and learning programs. As secondary students, they needed age appropriate resources but at an appropriate literacy level. I sought assistance from colleagues and the students themselves. The students were initially reluctant to provide input regarding their learning, but were motivated to do so due to my willingness to act on their suggestions. In most cases the programs were based on their interests and needs.

Literacy skills were taught functionally, in the context of a topic of study, rather than as separate activities. This contributed to an understanding of the meaning and purpose of the learning. The students were provided with a copy of the program so they were aware of the learning experiences and could follow the learning pathway.

During 2005, the students also began working with volunteers who phoned them once a week to work through aspects of the learning program. In this first year rapport was established, standards were set, interactions established and a regular cycle of work submission and feedback was implemented.

Building a teaching and learning relationship—2006

A number of factors contributed towards a more rigorous, demanding focus on teaching and learning in 2006, including improved confidence on the part of the students in their own abilities; trust in me; and an established pattern of interactions. The most significant aspect of 2006, however, was the students' attendance at a SIDE Camp in Perth early in Term 2.

This was our first opportunity to meet face-to-face and was the most important milestone in terms of establishing learning practices and future educational directions. We all had an opportunity to get to know each other formally and informally, and many of the issues that had been so convoluted over the phone came some way to being resolved. For example, the students were more vocal in person about the attachment they felt for their country, the Mitchell Plateau, and what they wanted to learn.

It was at this time that our discussions about tourists visiting the Plateau during the dry season, and their informal role in showing some of the tourists the Aboriginal rock paintings, that led me to believe that there was an opportunity for a dedicated tourism program to be developed. Fortuitously, I attended a professional development session around the same time, where the legislative requirement for all students to be engaged in some form of education, employment or training until they are 17 years of age and the implications for educational programs were discussed.

Armed with some knowledge of the WA Curriculum Council's requirements for endorsed programs, an understanding of my student's literacy and numeracy needs, interests and context, I set about developing the 'Tourist Guiding Program—Mitchell Plateau'. I examined existing resources with a view to adapting them to the program, and sought feedback from a community elder and colleagues.

Having to write up the program for consideration by the Curriculum Council was valuable in helping to scope the program and determine the desired outcomes. The outcomes for the program included the students using Standard Australian English appropriately, communicating clearly, improving their knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Mitchell Plateau, and guiding tourists effectively. Some of the tasks students complete include recording, analysing and graphing information about tourists; first aid activities; observing and recording information about local flora and fauna; and developing a map and pamphlet for the area. Students compile a portfolio of activities for assessment purposes.

In late 2006, the Tourist Guiding Program?Mitchell Plateau was endorsed by the WA Curriculum Council and this resulted in a concerted effort to develop the written teaching and learning resources. Where possible, these resources have also been developed to enable students to achieve some of the outcomes required for the Certificate of General Education for Adults. In this way Kandiwal secondary students work towards completing the Tourist Guiding Program for their senior secondary graduation certificate and the Certificate of General Education for Adults with the two programs complementing each other in a relevant context.

Cementing the teaching and learning relationship—2007 and beyond

Midway through the first term of 2007, students continue to actively engage in the online sessions, have completed some elements of the program and started to compile their portfolios, which will provide evidence of their learning. The Tourist Guiding Program has demonstrated that it gives students a realistic and relevant context for developing literacy and numeracy skills that will be transferable to other career paths and thus increasing their employment opportunities in the future. Importantly, this program has been endorsed by the WA Curriculum Council and will therefore count towards their senior secondary graduation certificate—the Western Australian Certificate of Education.

Gay Tierney is learning support teacher in the secondary school at Schools of Isolated and Distance Education in Western Australia.

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