3 Scenario Teaching Through Vignettes
Jayne Boase
The Blue Wren vignettes are introduced to first year engineering students in the Sustainable Engineering Practice course at the University of South Australia (UniSA) to provide a way for engineers to understand the importance of working with Aboriginal organisations and communities in a way that is culturally sensitive, productive and technically sound.
Since 2017 the Blue Wren vignettes have been delivered by Aboriginal tutors to thousands of students across civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering programs at UniSA. This material was published in Deanne Hanchant-Nichols, Andrea Duff, Elizabeth Smith, Jayne Boase (2022) Blue Wrens Take Flight in Engineering Education.
Approach to learning
The Aboriginal Content in Undergraduate Program (ACUP) is scaffolded across the four years of the engineering degree.
The Blue Wren vignettes are included in first year through a facilitated discussion in a workshop delivered by an Aboriginal tutor. The discussions are supported by an online culture forum where students reflect on the ways in which engineers’ work may intersect with Aboriginal peoples, and what culture means to the student (as the first step in developing their positionality). This learning then informs the design solution they develop later in the course for the Engineers Without Borders Challenge which is focused on a local or international Indigenous community.
The student’s engagement in the forum together with an individual report, accounts for 25% of the total course grade. Project deliverables for the EWB Challenge project make up 50% and the remaining 25% is allocated for students reflecting upon their learning in this course.
In the vignettes, the fictional Blue Wren sporting association engages an engineer to run a project to update their sporting facilities. The engineer makes a series of mistakes as he engages with the association members, and through these mistakes, several important learnings are highlighted, such as the significance of collaboration and community voice, understanding Aboriginality, inclusivity in decision-making, learning about sites of cultural significance, reconciliation, what constitutes a ‘Welcome to Country’ and an ‘Acknowledgement of Country,’ and the avoidance of stereotyping. These themes are integrated into engineering considerations in the vignettes, including general aspects of collaboration and inclusion, site assessment, safety, the tendering process, conduct during meetings, and the importance of avoiding or clearly explaining jargon and technical terms.
The structure of the learning and how the vignettes are included is shown by the content of the lessons being:
- Guided questions for students at start.
- Progression of the storyline with the actors on location.
- Piece to camera where Uncle George summarises key learnings
- Questions at end to help students reflect on their learnings and these can be discussed in class after each vignette has played.
As an example in Vignette 3, James is accompanied by his intern Paolo to a committee meeting to present to the members. Awkwardness becomes clumsiness as it becomes evident James does not know the difference between a Welcome to Country and an Acknowledgement of Country; he talks over committee members and uses alienating technical jargon. These are all clear issues for students to see in action and realise the need to develop a different approach.
There is then a ‘lesson’ provided by Uncle George for James and the students. Finally, there is a set of reflective questions for the tutors and students to discuss.
Under Resources Page see:
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For more information contact Jayne Boase at UniSA
References
Hanchant-Nichols, D., Duff, A., Smith, E., Boase, J.(2022) Blue Wrens Take Flight in Engineering Education. In Kutay, C., Leigh, E., Prpic, K., Ormond-Parker, L (Eds). Indigenous Engineering for an Enduring Culture. Cambridge Scholars Publishing https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-8759-5
