Abstract:
This paper explores teaching strategies for communicating
complex issues and ideas to a diverse group of students,
with different educational and vocational interests, that
encourage them to develop critical thinking, and explores
pedagogies appropriate to the multidisciplinary field of
Aboriginal studies. These issues will be investigated
through discussion of a successful simulation case study,
including the setting up, resourcing, conducting and
debriefing. The simulated case study was an assessed
component of the new elective subject, Reconciliation
Studies,offered at the University of Technology Sydney. In
2003 students participated in a role-play based on events
in relation to the development of the Hindmarsh Island
Bridge.Students were assigned roles as stakeholders where
they researched and then role-played, through their
assigned characters, the multilayered and complex
dimensions of this recent dispute. Students were required
to reflect critically on the cultural, economic, legal and
political issues that were pertinent to their stakeholder
and explore the underlying racial, ethical and moral
grounds for their particular standpoint. I argue that
teaching strategies such as these can contribute to locating
Indigenous Australian perspectives and experiences as
critical within the professional profiles and practice skills
of Australian university graduates.
