A vibrant research collaboration between QUT and the Hymba Yumba Community Hub is merging traditional cultural activities with new technology to improve literacy and verbal skills of Indigenous primary school children.
The three-year project at the independent Aboriginal school at Springfield, south of Brisbane, involves supporting Aboriginal and non-Indigenous teachers to enhance children's speaking and writing through digital platforms, using culturally embedded learning experiences such as storytelling and art.
Research leader Dr Kathy Mills, from QUT's Faculty of Education, has been backed by the Australian Research Council with a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award three-year grant.
Dr Mills is developing a model of "multimodal literacy" at the school site that will have implications for the broader community of Aboriginal independent schools across Australia.
"Multimodality is the meeting of two or more modes, such as words, images, music, gestures, and spatial displays," she said.
"It has always been a vital part of Australian Indigenous forms of communication, through song, dance, storytelling, and art forms.
"Mainstream educational practices are often based on beliefs about knowing and being that marginalise the literacy learning of our Indigenous students.
"This project is offering an alternate approach by focusing on Indigenous ways of knowing and being.
"For example, the children have created digital stories about their kinship totems, retold Dreaming stories using written words and photographed Indigenous artworks, and penned original narrative poetry which they audio-recorded using avatars with the iPad application, Tellagami."
Dr Mills, who is a Fellow of the Australian Research Council and a senior lecturer in QUT's Faculty of Education, is working closely with Hymba Yumba teachers and principal John Davis.
The research also involves local Indigenous elders of Yuggera-speaking lands.
Mr Davis said the school's children and teachers had already embraced the project.
"It's about providing alternative approaches to curriculum and pedagogy - for Indigenous students and their communities - that are founded on the values, practices, and beliefs of Australia's Indigenous people," he said.
"In a time of increased freedoms and recognitions, it is important to emphasise educational practices that are based on conversation and fluidity."
The research is aligned with the Australian Curriculum English (ACARA, 2014), which identifies multimodal text creation as an important literacy outcome from Preparatory to Year 10.
Media contacts:
- Dr Kathy Mills, QUT researcher, 0412 284 545 or ka.mills@qut.edu.au
- Mechelle McMahon, QUT media officer, media@qut.edu.au
