Natalia: I have been using the 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning (8 ways) (Yunkaporta, 2009) to teach my students anatomy and physiology for the last 4 years. The students are first year undergraduates and the institution is a regional university. The student cohort that I teach is unique. Many students are mature age, come from low socio-economic backgrounds, study online as distance students and vary significantly in their education prior to engaging in university studies. Unfortunately, these characteristics are associated with high attrition rates. Such cohorts require scaffolding, practise, feedback, engaging learning activities and interactivity to overcome the possibility of attrition and to ensure educational success (Australian Government, 2017). Using the 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning (Yunkaporta, 2009) in my teaching practice has allowed me to override the predisposition to attrition that is inherent in my cohort.

My colleague John who is a fellow researcher also interested in creativity in teaching, suggested I make contact with Tyson and this collaboration is the result of our interactions. We present, here, the next level in Indigenous pedagogy and discuss how it aligns with the neuroscience of learning. This work is designed to foster complex meaning-making that is grounded in neuroscience and materiality, through a process of cultural inclusivity.

John: I suggested to Natalia that we contact Tyson because it seemed much better to engage with him in meaningful dialogue than it would be to refer to his work indirectly, as if removing him from the conversation. I think that this yarn is evidence of the value of sharing in conversation.

Somewhat familiar with Tyson’s 8 ways (Yunkaporta, 2009) and having engaged with some of his other related manuscripts, I look forward to sharing how that aligns with some of the work that I have been doing lately concerning materiality, whereby non-human things are accounted for as active elements in social practices (Maller, 2015) and have agency (Rae, 2016).

On my desk is a copy of Tyson’s paper Winangay Bagay Gaay: Knowing the river’s story I have highlighted in vivid pink some important points about yarning protocol, including the importance of ‘building upon what previous speakers have said’ … to create ‘a single shared message’ (Lowe, Backhaus, Yunkaporta, Brown & Loynes, 2014), which is something I now look forward to.

Tyson: Over a decade ago, as a Pama from Queensland (Apalech clan) with southern ancestry and affiliations but mostly working off-country in Koori and Mardi communities, I undertook doctoral research that gave rise to an Aboriginal pedagogy framework known as 8ways (Yunkaporta, 2009). It was not about theoretical learning styles, but lived pedagogies—traditions of Indigenous knowledge transmission that endure, usually unnoticed, in our communities today.

Although 8ways was specifically designed for the First Peoples of Western NSW, it has been taken up by many institutions and educators across Australia and even overseas. As it really should only be used in its communities of origin as a simple introduction for novices, I am now offering this more general framework—(unnamed)—that carry more common orientations I have found in First Peoples’ cultures all over the continent (Yunkaporta, 2019). It is also something of a masterclass, responding to a groundswell of people who have worked deeply with 8ways, created some amazing innovations with communities and are now looking for extension. It is a ‘next level’ understanding of Aboriginal pedagogy.

For those who are unfamiliar with the 8ways model, here is a brief overview of the framework before we look at the new, general framework:

  1. 1.

    The first way is Story Sharing. This is about teaching and learning through narrative.

  2. 2.

    The second way is Learning Maps. This is about making learning pathways and processes explicit visually.

  3. 3.

    The third way is Non-verbal Learning. This is about hands-on learning, critical reflection and least-intrusive management strategies. Ancestral/spiritual knowledge also comes through this way of learning.

  4. 4.

    The fourth way is Symbols and Images. This is about exploring content through imagery and using visual cues and signals.

  5. 5.

    The fifth way is Land Links. This is about place-based pedagogy, linking content to local land and environment.

  6. 6.

    The sixth way is Non-linear. This is about indirect management strategies, lateral thinking, comparing and synthesising diverse cultural viewpoints, innovating, adapting, working with cycles and working with holistic knowledge.

  7. 7.

    The seventh way is Deconstruct/Reconstruct. This is about modelling and scaffolding, balancing teacher instruction with independent learning and working from wholes to parts.

  8. 8.

    The eighth way is Community Links. This is about grounding learning content and values in community knowledge, working on community projects and using or displaying knowledge products publicly for local benefit.

It should be noted that the ‘8ways’ framework is not a collection of arbitrary learning styles to be assigned to students like astrology signs. The diagram in Fig. 8.1 is based on a kinship system, to emphasise the interrelatedness of the pedagogies. For example, Story Sharing is the husband of Non-linear, the son of Learning Maps and Land Links, the in-law of Deconstruct/Reconstruct, and the maternal grandfather of Community Links. The four elements to the far left and right in the diagram are female, while the four at the top and bottom are male. The outer lines show mother–child pairs, while the internal diagonals show husband–wife pairs. The synergies within these pairs give the pedagogies power and life—so when the connections between them are explored, a person can find deep Aboriginal knowledge that can only be accessed through reflective or practical processes rather than the exchange of verbal information. For example, making a learning map of a Dreaming story helps a person to understand the cultural significance of land links in the act of story sharing.

Fig. 8.1
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The 8 ways model

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While many have used this framework in the last decade, few have explored the connections between the elements, the kinship pairs that carry the deeper meanings and knowledge. In particular, the diagonal lines at the centre representing Protocols, Processes, Systems and Values are usually ignored, although they are made quite explicit in the framework materials. Altogether, these interconnected elements and the meaningful spaces between them carry a greater message, a core concept that many have found difficult to grasp and even more difficult to apply.

The core concept, the game changer of all my research into Aboriginal pedagogies, is the idea of learning through culture rather than about culture. This has been expressed in many memes, including a basic reversal of using Aboriginal perspectives to view mainstream content, rather than mainstream perspectives to view Aboriginal content. I’ve popularised some very quotable utterances that describe this big idea, such as: Culture is not what your hands touch; it’s what moves your hands. Or: Perspectives are not in the content, but the process. But many still struggle with the idea.

The earliest expression of these five pedagogies came about after a decade of teaching in primary and secondary schools, during a period of long service leave in preparation for doctoral studies. They were refined in that research, although the local 8ways model that emerged from it was the focus of the thesis. In work with many communities all over Australia in the decade following that project, understanding of each pedagogy was refined and enhanced as local models were developed specific to unique cultural groups (Frazer & Yunkaporta, 2019) Although this work was not part of a formal research project, these pedagogies were eventually reported in the book ‘Sand Talk’ (Yunkaporta, 2019) as Indigenous ways of thinking that may contribute to the creation of transitional cultures and economies of sustainability.

Below are some basic descriptions and symbols representing a more general Aboriginal pedagogical framework common across many cultures on mainland Australia. These are five ways, rather than 8ways (Yunkaporta, 2019).

Figure 8.2 is the image for kinship mind, which is about relationships and connectedness. In Aboriginal worldviews, nothing exists outside of a relationship to something else. There are no isolated variables—every element must be considered in relation to the other elements in the context. Areas of knowledge are integrated, not separated. The relationship between the learner and other learners, places and knowledge keepers is paramount to quality knowledge transmission.

Fig. 8.2
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Kinship mind

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Figure 8.3 is the image for story mind, which is about the role of narrative in memory and knowledge transmission. It is the most powerful tool for memorisation, particularly when connected meaningfully to place. This is how song lines have worked in Australia for millennia to store terabytes of knowledge in stories mapped in the land and reflected in the night sky. It includes yarning as a method of knowledge production and transmission. Today it is also about challenging grand narratives and histories.

Fig. 8.3
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Story mind

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Figure 8.4 is the image for dreaming mind, which is all about using metaphors to work with knowledge. The circle on the left represents abstract knowledge, and the circle on the right represents tangible knowledge. The lines above and below represent communication between these physical and non-physical worlds, which occurs through metaphors. These are images, dance, song, language, culture, objects, ritual, gestures and more. Feedback loops between worlds must be completed with practical action.

Fig. 8.4
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Dreaming mind

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The image in Fig. 8.5 is for ancestor mind, which is all about deep engagement, connecting with a timeless state of mind or ‘alpha wave state’, which is an optimal neural state for learning. We can reach this state through most Aboriginal cultural activities. It is characterised by complete concentration, engagement and losing track of time. Ancestor mind can involve immersive visualisation and extra-cognitive learning such as revealed knowledge in dreams and inherited knowledge in cellular memory.

Fig. 8.5
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Ancestor mind

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Figure 8.6 is the symbol for pattern mind, which is about seeing entire systems and the trends and patterns within them, and using these to make accurate predictions and find solutions to problems within those systems. There are three lines with three sections. Each section represents the line from the kinship mind symbol, which is two elements linked by a relationship. You can see at each point a new pair begins, linked by a new relationship. This way is about truly holistic, contextual reasoning.

Fig. 8.6
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Pattern mind

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Pattern mind links back to the beginning, to the first symbol of kinship mind, to the assertion that all elements, people and variables are interconnected. Mastery of Indigenous epistemology (ways of knowing) demands being able to see beyond the object of study and even the learner and teacher, to seek a viewpoint incorporating the complex, dynamic systems that make up all creation and all knowledge. With this in mind, a reader might now try drawing all of these symbols carefully, either on the ground or on paper or a screen if you cannot access dirt or sand to draw on. Then, in order to visualise all of these pedagogies as part of one system of knowledge, all of the symbols may be drawn together as one symbol.

This is shown in Fig. 8.7.

Fig. 8.7
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Combined pedagogies

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The act of drawing these kinds of symbols representing knowledge and ideas is an activity that can help produce the ancestor mind state mentioned previously. Viewing this large symbol combining smaller ones in this state of mind can produce insights about the knowledge system, and drawing it while naming each of the pedagogies will help with remembering the structure of the framework, setting schema in place with these visual metaphors to hook new knowledge onto.

Natalia: When I read about Tyson’s (unnamed) pedagogies, I was instantly reminded of the neuroscience-based learning theory “The Leaning Cycle”. I looked forward to investigating whether there were any similarities or differences between these two very different approaches to learning. More specifically, I asked, does the learning cycle have anything in common with the (unnamed)? What I discovered was surprising, to say the least.

The learning cycle proposed by Zull (2002) builds on Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory. The cycle proposes that learning originates in concrete experience but the experience is not the whole thing. It is the start of the cycle. Learning depends on experience but also requires reflection, the development of abstractions and the active testing of those abstractions.

Figure 8.8 illustrates that concrete experiences come through the sensory cortex, reflective observation involves the integrative cortex, the creation of new abstract concepts occurs in the frontal integrative cortex and the active testing of those new abstract concepts involves the motor part of the brain. Zull (2002) proposed that the learning cycle arose naturally from the structure of the brain and is based on what we currently know about the neuroscience of learning.

Fig. 8.8
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The learning cycle (Zull, 2002, p. 18)

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The learning cycle begins with finding out what students already know with the view to then build on those existing neural networks. Even if a student knows nothing about the subject, the educator must continue to work backwards until a common concrete example is found (Zull, 2002). The educator then must make sure that what the student does during that learning experience, serves to elicit the activity (or firing of action potentials) in the correct neurons and synapses. This repeated firing of neurons allows new branches to stem from the existing network to another network (Gros, Veyrac, & Laroche, 2015). Learning, in its purest biological form, is the development of synaptic connections between cells. This notion of connectedness is reflected in the kindship mind. When thinking about how the brain ‘learns’, you must understand that no neural network exists outside of its connections with another.

Neurons need to be considered in relation to other neurons as this is how long-term memory is established.

Students need time to reflect on the stimuli that their brain has been exposed to. Reflection is the process where images of what you experience go around and around in the integrative cortex. As educators, we can foster reflective observation by encouraging our students to create visual representations of content, as deep learning emerges when students are required to convey to others the images that are going around and around in their brain (Biggs, 2011). This process is similar to that of the ancestor mind, as reflection requires concentration, losing track of time and immersive visualisation.

After the period of reflection has finished, the student then engages their frontal integrative cortex to develop ideas and make predictions about the content (Zull, 2002). In this part of the cycle, the brain organises and manipulates items which, according to Zull, is the process of thinking. Thinking, or the manipulation of information, is what creates new relationships in the learner’s mind. The way that learners manipulate information is dependent on their past experiences and that is driven by their existing neural networks (Purves et al., 2017). As educators, we need to give students time to do this, as thinking is a natural process that cannot be rushed. The process of thinking is analogous to the pattern mind. As students manipulate information in their frontal integrative cortex they begin to see glimpses of patterns within the content. Given enough time, the patterns will emerge as a consequence of the manipulation of information in the learner’s brain. After patterns are perceived, the student is then able to make predictions that are based on those patterns.

According to the learning cycle, for transformative learning to occur, we need to make sure that the student’s entire brain is engaged in the teaching and learning process. This means that as educators we need to divide our lessons into two parts. In one part, the students spend time receiving knowledge and in the other part, students should spend time using and applying that knowledge (Zull, 2002). The interplay just described is reflected perfectly in the dreaming mind. For effective learning to occur, you need communication between the world of receiving knowledge and the world of using that knowledge, just as Tyson has described previously.

Active learning involving motor actions and choice is pleasurable for the learner because it results in the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine (Sharot, Shiner, Brown, Fan, & Dolan, 2009). Actions and choice have also been found to aid in the development of concepts and applications in anatomy and physiology (Bilton et al., 2018). Furthermore, testing our thoughts through actions closes one cycle and provides the stimuli for the next cycle. This is represented again by the dreaming mind, where according to Tyson, practical action is required to close the loop between the world of abstract and the world of tangible knowledge.

According to Zull (2002) life is the story of us and there is a story about everything in our lives. This is most pertinent in the study of anatomy and physiology where students actually learn about their own bodies and thus their own life processes. The learning cycle proposes that stories engage all parts of the brain because it packages events and knowledge across multiple neural networks all at once. This is beneficial for learning because any part of this neural network can be triggered by any of the others (Zull, 2002). The importance of stories in knowledge transmission is also a cornerstone of the (unnamed) pedagogies. According to Tyson, narrative is the most powerful tool in knowledge transmission, particularly when it is connected meaningfully to place. This further aligns with Zull’s observation that the brain recalls stories more easily if the story is important, has a moral message or if it has meaning.

The outcome of the above analysis is displayed in Fig. 8.9. In this diagram, direct alignment can be seen between Tyson’s (unnamed) pedagogies and the neuroscience-based learning cycle by Zull.

Fig. 8.9
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Combined pedagogies integrated into the learning cycle

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John: The (unnamed) pedagogies can be connected with the work of Zull (2002) and also Kolb (Zull, 2002), as Natalia has noted. Another connection, and another aspect of the learning process to be illuminated, relates to the actual materials present in and elemental to the learning process. I refer here to what Carter (2004) calls ‘material thinking’ and related to this, the ‘new materialism’ to discuss the agential qualities of these learning materials. I do not want to privilege any one learning process perspective but rather seek to build a full and rich portrayal of learning by drawing in both the (unnamed) pedagogies (Yunkaporta, 2019) and the neurological elements of learning. To illustrate this, I refer to Fig. 8.9 that combines Indigenous and neurological knowledges. Rather than read it in a linear and purely textual way, I will read it as, say, an artist might, as an assemblage of various material elements. Like Natalia, I want to explore similarities, differences and synergies between the different approaches to learning.

Drawing on ancestor mind, I imagine, as Tyson suggested, the creation of symbols in sand particles under fingertips responding and applying resistance to the fingertips. I imagine an artist thinking deeply—not with but through those materials at (and in) hand—responding bodily, moving here, there, ever so slightly, mostly automatically. The marks in the sand are connected with the artist and all that the artist is connected with—sand, ground, what lies within eyesight, and all that is felt, such as pleasure. As McGregor puts it, ‘things and spaces can be imagined as having their own affective capacities that generate certain regimes of attraction operating beyond human intentionality’ (McGregor, 2014). Amidst this complex of intentionality and unintentionality, material elements and affect, I imagine the artist standing back and examining the composition of the model her eye cannot help but to be drawn to the spaces—the interrelationships between elements—which demand the artist’s attention as much as the shapes themselves, which is similar to Tyson’s comment about the interrelatedness of the pedagogies. Each mark cannot be understood without seeing and thinking about these spaces and other marks and all that they are connected to.

This imagery offers an experience, which is a link back to Zull (2002), which is how Dewey (1934) described art. That is, the experience extends beyond linear knowledge and text to where thinking and knowing is felt (Dewey, 1934). The thinker—the artist—knowledge holder—learner—inhabit this space and place and wait for new knowledges to emerge and she understands when this knowing is ‘right’, and intelligible. This is when she exhales, slowly, ready to hand over her work, as we have done here.

We have highlighted, among other things, the importance of relationship between learners, teachers and place—the kinship mind one might say—and how all elements, people, variables and materials are interconnected. Just as neurons need to be considered in relation to other neurons, so too should educators consider a broad range of epistemologies and learning processes and profit from their interconnectedness.

Figure 8.9 represents the similarities between the (unnamed) pedagogies (Yunkaporta, 2019) and the learning cycle (Zull, 2002). In this adaptation, the brain was flipped around so the model can be read from left to right. Each mind symbol is aligned with its corresponding phase of the learning cycle.

Tyson: In the science community we understand that every theory or model is wrong, but useful in appropriate contexts (Box, 1976). We know this in Indigenous communities as well, as our bodies of knowledge are localised, subjective and particular to specific and changing landscapes and circumstances. These knowledge systems are shared across groups, while within groups all stories and points of view are included and honoured, with useful models of reality being produced in the aggregate rather than in singular viewpoints. As such, it is undesirable in both western and Indigenous knowledge systems to promote a single unified theory or framework to encompass all knowledge production, transmission and storage.

As such, the five-part framework presented in this chapter is intended as open-source knowledge that may be used to innovate unique pedagogies specific to particular educational and cultural contexts. The hybridised model produced here is a good example of a dialogical approach seeking common ground between a brain-based theoretical model and an Indigenous knowledge model, developed for a particular academic context and group of students. It is hoped that this may continue to spark diverse applications and innovations across many disciplines and communities, creating uniquely local solutions and cognitive technologies that may be shared widely to illuminate complex understandings in the aggregate.