Category Archives: MODULE 3

Pulling Together: A Guide for Indigenization of Post-Secondary Institutions was developed by BCcampus and the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training. A steering committee of Indigenous education leaders led the project.

I’m focusing on the version of the guide for Curriculum Developers, but there are other versions for teachers, administrators, student services, researchers, etc. The two chapters I found most helpful were Section 2: Meaningful Integration of Indigenous Epistemologies and Pedagogies, and Section 4: Incorporating Diverse Sources of Indigenous Knowledge.

I have been searching for curriculum validation tools or guides from an Indigenous lens suitable to the type of knowledge incorporated, so I was very happy to find this guide. Though light on content from my perspective, the guide provides direction and examples on evaluating whether your education content or activities cross the line into cultural appropriation. You can also evaluate your approach based on whether you looked for opportunities to incorporate local land, knowledge, or language into your curriculum.

This book, “Born into my Grandmother’s Hands: Honouring First Nations’ Birth Knowledge and Practice in North Yukon” by Rachel Olson, Charlotte Moores and Kathleen Cranfield delves into the Yukon First Nations’ experiences of birth. It dives into the history of birth, including aspects related to birthing in their land, the role of Indigenous midwives in the birth experience, and understanding birth practices, rituals and histories. It also includes many stories from the community members of the Yukon First Nations and provides opportunity for the First Nations of today and non-Indigenous health care providers to reflect, understand and bring forward these stories in ways that can enlighten the health care delivery in the birth setting for the future of these communities.

This e-book can be accessed here: https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A45905026-783b-41c3-b517-61b26ecf6e59

https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/aswt/kinship/#observing-practice

This digital resource was put forth by the Alberta Education system. It provides authentic information on 12 topic areas. These areas are kinship, aboriginal and treaty rights, healing historical trauma, worldviews, oral traditions, elders, symbolism and traditions, connection to land, Indigenous pedagogy, culture and language, well-being, and traditional environmental knowledge. Each section usually contains 3 or 4 subsections with information that can assist one in understanding Indigenous perspectives towards education. There are many videos from elders and others of high standing throughout the sections. I found that there are similarities between the sections, which help paint an overall view of where Indigenous perspective may be coming from. A lot of information on a very easy to navigate website.

Though my research question focuses on instructional design processes, I find that as an Indigenous instructional designer I am curious about the instructional designers themselves who must choose to use those processes, and are entrenched and trained in a non-Indigenous system.

The article, “Agency of the instructional designer: Moral coherence and transformative social practice,” by Katy Campbell, Richard A. Schwier, and Richard F. Kenny, looks at instructional designers as more than purveyors of education and instructional frameworks. Instead, they view them as purposeful educators who have ethical, social, and political views and have moral obligations.

“We maintain that instructional design is a moral practice that embodies the “relationship between self concept and cultural norms, between what we value and what others value, between how we are told to act and how we feel about ourselves when we do or do not do act that way” (Anderson & Jack, 1991,p. 18). Instructional design involves the ethical knowledge of the designer acting in moral relationship with others in a dialogue among curriculum, the sources and forms of knowledge and power, and the social world. As ethical actors in that world we use the language of design in collaborative conversation with our colleagues, our clients, and our institutions to create an alternate social world of access, equity, inclusion, personal agency and critical action.”

The references reveal the influence of feminist theory which serves as a critical lens on this research. Though only one of the instructional design examples notes a designer working with first nations, the authors in both examples challenge the expertise an instructional designer brings to their work as it is entrenched in just one knowledge system. They call for instructional designers to be aware of their cultural biases, values, sense of morality, and the political implications of their choices.

They quote an excellent line from Kugelmass (2000, p. 179) – “Who am I, why am I practising this way, and what effect does this have on others?”

Campbell, K., Schwier, R. A., & Kenny, R. F. (2005). Agency of the instructional designer: Moral coherence and transformative social practice. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 21(2). https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.1337

https://nationaltrustcanada.ca/online-stories/indigenous-architecture-in-canada-a-step-towards-reconciliation

The National Trust is a Canadian Charity that has a goal of saving of preserving national historic sites and buildings. By working with partners, donors and finders, the National Trust offers various tools so to assist maintaining heritage sites and buildings.

The group feels as if Canada’s call to action was a missed opportunity to address how architecture could play a role in reconciliation. The website mentions some interesting points. One being the how Indigenous communities are willing to showcase their culture through modern building designs, and there lies a great opportunity with the booming construction industry. Many designs can come with a learning center, such as a museum. One sentence I connected with was “how a cultural group depicts itself architecturally is a manifestation of that culture’s desire to persist.” The opportunity of modern architecture incorporating Indigenous structural buildings elements as a means to assist in reconciliation was not something I initially thought of, but this website brought up some valid points.

In collaboration with communities and other organizations, The Gordon Foundation has developed an online resource website called https://understandingtreaties.ca/ to support learning about Treaty negotiation through simulations. This interactive learning exercise reminds me of model UN clubs, and seems like a great exercise for students to practice self-determination whether offline or online. It is designed with actual negotiators from band offices and grounded in the histories of treaty negotiation in Canada.

The program uses plenty of mixed media, including these illustrated texts: https://understandingtreaties.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Series-1.pdf 

I discovered this initiative through a YouTube video recording of Nisga’a Nation youth participating in the treaty simulation.

In the pressbook e-publication, “Toward a Critical Instructional Design”, authors Johanna Sam, Jan Hare, Cynthia Nicol, and Leanne Petherick write a chapter called “Indigenizing Design for Online Learning in Indigenous Teacher Education“.

They explore these two questions in the context of an Indigenous Teacher Education Program:

• How do you bring Indigenous knowledges into learning management systems (LMS)?
• How do you weave Indigenous perspectives in the course design while using a LMS that can be seen as dominant/Eurocentric?

To conduct online instruction and learning environments for the teachers, the team created four pedagogical principles for Indigenizing design:

1. Indigenous knowledge frameworks
2. Localization
3. Multimodalities
4. Design for relationship

A lovely day in Steveston, Richmond, BC.

I particularly enjoyed this paragraph near the end of the chapter as it spoke to an exploration, not a replication, of relationships that can be cultivated online:

“Space, voice, and agency are given to Indigenous people when their knowledges are upheld in digital forms. While the digital space is not a replacement for the experiential pedagogies that occur in physical and material worlds, we suggest alongside Morford and Ansloos (2021) that new relationships can be formed with land through online experiences. Digital environments serve to repatriate land, languages, and traditions (Wemigwans, 2018).”

https://www.internetsociety.org/

I was researching Indigenizing the internet and came across the article Indigenous communities must have internet access on their own terms written by Mark Buell. Mark Buell was the Regional Vice President of the Internet Society. Mr. Buell is of the opinion that the internet is essential to Indigenous communities, which was made apparent during the covid-19 pandemic. The article links to Indigenous Connectivity Summit and its policy recommendations. I believe these articles will help me develop an understanding of how we can best move forward in introducing the internet to isolated Indigenous communities.

Madsen D. Indigenizing the internet. (2020). The cambridge history of native american literature (pp. 481-500) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108699419.027

This essay provides a take on how Indigenous people are using the internet to tell tier stories and articulate native self-determination. The author, Professor Madison, is not Indigenous; however, she has written many works on settler-colonialism and Indigeneity. I plan to learn about the efforts to decolonize the internet and apply this new knowledge to my final project. By effectively decolonizing the internet, I believe Indigenous groups can strengthen not just their communities but all communities.

Hudson, H. E., (February 2020). The Impact of Internet Access in Indigenous Communities in Canada and the United States: An Overview of Findings and Guidelines for Research. The Internet Society 

As you begin to read this essay, you come across a quote from Lucassie Arragutainaq, manager of the Sanikiluaq Hunters and Trappers Association, Nunavut. “We’re copying what our parents used to do, but in modern ways.”. It is encouraging to see the author acknowledging those Indigenous members that collaborated with and aided her in the development of her work, using and displaying their knowledge to the world. I can’t find any information on whether Dr. Heather E. Hudson is Indigenous, so I believe she is a non-Indigenous scholar. The essay examines the impact of the internet on Indigenous communities in the U.S. and Canada. The report goes on to study how online software and games are being developed to safeguard and promote Indigenous languages and to share Indigenous knowledge and culture. I’m hoping to learn more about how western technology is being used to strengthen Indigenous communities and their connections to their land.