Tag Archives: Indigenous

Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning

 

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is a leading organization advancing the development of academic, social and emotional competence for all students. Their mission is to help make evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) an integral part of education from preschool through high school. SEL programming is based on the understanding that the best learning emerges in the context of supportive relationships. This resource will be paramount in developing strategies for socio/emotional support in curriculum and providing practical examples of how supportive relationships shape academic outcomes.

 

http://www.casel.org/

 

Emotional Educational Gaming- Module 3 (Post 1)

The Indigenous believe of experience and emotion being keys cogs in the acquisition of wisdom/knowledge is possible when the necessary experiences are available to the educator, as was seen on the Fraser River journey. However, in classrooms or other more traditional learning environments, “gamification” makes simulating experiential learning a possibility. This webpage created through UBC provides in-depth information on gamification for emotional development, and also links to “The Things We Carry” which represents a step in game design that has the potential to give students immersive, accessible and place-based lessons in emotional intelligence.

 

http://ets.educ.ubc.ca/emotional-educational-gaming/

Module 3 – Post 5: Social Media Planning in a Comprehensive Community Planning Handbook

This is a handbook prepared by a community of Canadian First Nations groups that outlines some of the lessons they learned through their experiences community planning and offers information regarding “best practices” to strengthen future implementation. The handbook includes a section about social media’s role in fostering communication and networking amongst groups, and offers an interesting insight into the value that is inherent in a “from the ground-up” approach to ensure the success of community planning within indigenous communities.

Module 3 – Post 4: The Media, Aboriginal People, and Common Sense

The Media, Aboriginal People, and Common Sense by Robert Hardling

Although a little outdated, this is an interesting study published in the Canadian Journal of Native Studies back in 2005 that provides a bit of insight into how the Media can influence public perception. The study examines coverage of Aboriginal issues by the media and asserts that bias and stereotyping are a common underlying theme, particularly in print media. The study suggests that unsympathetic, unsupportive, and indifferent attitudes are cultivated and perpetuated by the media’s portrayal of indigenous matters, and that on the whole, public knowledge and support of indigenous peoples’ challenges are marginal.

Module 3 – Post 3: Paradoxes of First Nations Inclusion in the Canadian Context

Wotherspoon, Terry, and John Hansen. 2013. The ‘Idle No More’ movement: Paradoxes of First Nations inclusion in the Canadian context. Social In- clusion 1(1):21–36.

This paper examines how Idle No More, a recent movement initiated to draw attention to concerns by Indigenous people about changes in Canada’s environment and economic policies, has been framed by discourses of inclusion and exclusion. The paper asserts that discourses of inclusion and exclusion, by way of stigmatizing and distancing Indigenous people, stall the possibility of finding solutions to the problems that they are trying to fix. The paper closes with a brief examination of how Idle No More served to broaden conceptions of indigenous participation and success.

Module 3 – Post 2: Emergent Indigenous Identities and Social Media

Carlson, B. (2013). The ‘new frontier’: Emergent Indigenous identities and social media. In M. Harris, M. Nakata & B. Carlson (Eds.), The Politics of Identity: Emerging Indigeneity (pp. 147-168). Sydney: University of Technology Sydney E-Press

This article, while focusing on Indigenous populations in Australia, provides for some interesting insight as to how social media has given rise to significant cultural and social interaction among Aboriginal people and groups. By way of a content analysis, this article contends that popular social media sites, like Facebook, are becoming popular vehicles amongst Aboriginal people, to build, display, and perform Aboriginal identities. Likewise, Aboriginal users take advantages of Facebook as a site for self-representation and as a tool to communicate their Aboriginal identity to other social media users in online communities.

Module 3 – Post 1: The Media Gaze

Chapter 13 of The Media Gaze: Representations of Diversities in Canada, by Augie Fleras is entitled Unsilencing Aboriginal Voices: Toward an Indigenous 
Media Gaze and takes a critical look at how and why Canadian media frame Indigenous issues the way they do. The text draws on many compelling case studies to explore the negative societal implications of this hidden bias on Indigenous people and their attempts at rectifying past and present issues.

Module 3: Post 3- Learning through Culturally Responsive Education

Many of the discussions in Module 3 have focused on the importance for students to learn about and through Indigenous pedagogical beliefs. It is exciting to hear about the research being done and the collaborative planning between researchers, educators, elders and other community members. Culturally responsive education and allowing students different ways to share their learning needs to take place not just in the Elementary years but continue through high school and university through the First Nations values of  respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility. One example that I just read about in my nephew’s Queen’s Faculty of Education Convocation Program is the Aboriginal Blanket Ceremony, a tradition established of presenting Aboriginal graduates with The Creation Turtle Pendleton Blanket in recognition of the barriers and challenges faced at post secondary institutions and to acknowledge their potential in being role models for the Aboriginal youth of their communities.

Here are some resources as a starting point to use in elementary classrooms in the development of a culturally responsive curriculum through a transdisciplinary approach across subject areas.

Aboriginal Head Start Association of BC- http://www.ahsabc.com/index.php/resources/other-resources

This website- http://www.ahsabc.com/images/other_resources/aboriginal-childrens-books_janhare.pdf includes a link to is an extensive list of books for and about young Aboriginal children. This list was compiled by Dr. Jan Hare PhD, Associate Professor of Indigenous Education in the Department of Language and Literacy Education (UBC). Canadian First Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures are represented. Early literacy and numeracy titles are also listed.

Dr. Marker suggested the Alaska Native Knowledge Network as a valuable place to find educational resources. Here are some links from their website (http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/)

Guidelines for Respecting Cultural Knowledge http://ankn.uaf.edu/publications/knowledge.html

Culturally Responsive Units/Lessons http://ankn.uaf.edu/Curriculum/Units/

Online Resources- http://ankn.uaf.edu/curriculum/resources.html

Handbook for Culturally Responsive Science Curriculum http://ankn.uaf.edu/publications/handbook/index.html

First Nations of Canadahttp://ankn.uaf.edu/IEW/firstnat.html

Module 3.1 – Intercontinental Cry

Intercontinental Cry is a magazine/web journal that serves to “amplify the voices and strengthen the efforts of Indigenous Peoples around the world” due to the significant lack of representation of Indigenous people in news media.

What I was particularly interested in at this point was the fact that this website is very focused on using Indigenous writers to speak on their own experiences.  Much of the academic literature on Canadian First Nations, Aboriginal, Inuit, and Metis populations is written by white researchers, probably due to their familiarity with the publication cycle and their access to services that help them to gain publication.  Fortunately a resource like IC helps authors with potentially less access to traditional streams of publication to have their voices heard, amplified, and shared with the world via the internet.

I think this could be a useful resource particularly at the high school level, for students to read and reflect on the impact of Indigenous voices on the Web.

Module 2: Post 1

Technology Enhanced Social-Emotional Activities

 

This website has been designed to describe technology activities that facilitate social emotional learning. This resource serves as a practical toolkit for educators looking to enhance technology practices while maintaining and enhancing students’ emotional well-being. This resource is valuable in terms of my research topic, as I will be exploring methods in which technology can be used to interpret knowledge through emotional experiences, as apposed to traditional knowledge transfer.

 

http://seltechnology.weebly.com