Amazingly resilient Indigenous people! Using transformative learning to facilitate positive student engagement with sensitive material

Abstract

If health professionals are to effectively contribute to improving the health of Indigenous people, understanding of the historical, political, and social disadvantage that has lead to health disparity is essential. This paper describes a teaching and learning experience in which four Australian Indigenous academics in collaboration with a non-Indigenous colleague delivered an intensive workshop for masters level post-graduate students. Drawing upon the paedagogy of Transformative Learning, the objectives of the day included facilitating students to explore their existing understandings of Indigenous people, the impact of ongoing colonisation, the diversity of Australia's Indigenous people, and developing respect for alternative worldviews. Drawing on a range of resources including personal stories, autobiography, film and interactive sessions, students were challenged intellectually and emotionally by the content. Students experienced the workshop as a significant educational event, and described feeling transformed by the content, better informed, more appreciative of other worldviews and Indigenous resilience and better equipped to contribute in a more meaningful way to improving the quality of health care for Indigenous people. Where this workshop differs from other Indigenous classes was in the involvement of an Indigenous teaching team. Rather than a lone academic who can often feel vulnerable teaching a large cohort of non-Indigenous students, an Indigenous teaching team reinforced Indigenous authority and created an emotionally and culturally safe space within which students were allowed to confront and explore difficult truths. Findings support the value of multiple teaching strategies underpinned by the theory of transformational learning, and the potential benefits of facilitating emotional as well as intellectual student engagement when presenting sensitive material.

Implementation and impact of indigenous health curricula: a systematic review

“…Studies evaluated curricula in four countries (Australia [ n = 15], Aotearoa, New Zealand [ n = 3], Canada [ n = 3], the USA [ n = 1]) and one was multinational (Australia, New Zealand and the USA]). Leadership of indigenous health curricula most frequently involved university faculty staff, where the indigenous status of staff was stated (seven studies), or indigenous health units (six studies) …”

“…The learners were mostly medical students or practitioners (undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate programmes) (17 studies) . Six studies reported from allied health and interprofessional settings . Five studies evaluated indigenous health education combined with rural health content .…”

“…Five studies evaluated indigenous health education combined with rural health content . Fourteen studies reported indigenous health as a compulsory core curriculum . In two studies, the learners were medical educators engaged in a professional development course on indigenous health curricula …”

Transformative Learning: A Precursor to Preparing Health Science Students to Work in Indigenous Health Settings?

“…Brock, 2010;Brock, 2015) and qualitative (e.g. Jackson et al, 2013;Thackrah & Thompson, 2013). While the majority of transformative learning literature is qualitative in nature, the relatively scarce quantitative data available does appear to support critical reflections preeminence as the key in individual transformation of perspective.…”

A reflexive exercise to promote cultural humility among doctoral nursing students

“…[8] 1.1.1 Teaching/Learning methods and outcomes Various teaching/learning methods were used to promote cultural-related outcomes. Creative approaches included forums and workshops, [9,10] service learning, [11] role playing, [12] simulation, [13,14] theater, [15] reflexive photography [16] and clinical experiences. [8,17,18] Outcomes included the impact of international education experiences, [11] perceptions or definitions of cultural competence, [12,13,17] cultural sensitivity, [10] knowledge, behavior change, [15] global perspective, [18] and cultural humility.…”