My final post for ETC 521 is about Community Based Learning.

A few months ago, I caught up with on of my former school leaders, her name is Louise Marzinotto. I worked with her at Villa Maria School in Montreal years ago. I would compare her to an elder in my community because since the day I met her, she has supported me and offered wisdom and guidance.

She found my name on LinkedIn and sent me a note to give her a call sometime. When we chatted, I learned all about the work she had done, with a team of others, with the English sector of the Quebec Ministry of Education. Like francophones across English speaking Canada, anglophones are a minority in Quebec.

On a recent trip to Montreal, i went out for supper with Louise and heard about Community Based Learning. We discussed how  the concept could be applied, and is already being developed within Indigenous communities.  The English sector started to develop community based learning centres in order to promote the English language and culture in isolate and urban  areas in Quebec. The focus is to figure out what makes up the individual culture of your specific area (place) and promote a learning community around the authentic experiences, people, support networks in that community. For example, a community close to the Gaspe had a pile of old crab traps. They created a community project around crab traps and learned about the history of fishermen in the area. Alternatively, a community closer to Quebec city chose Maple Syrup and created projects around “La Cabane a Sucre”. The key aspect that differentiated the projects from “school projects” was the involvement from a wide variety of stakeholders from the community, not “just” students and educators. The “school” is the community.

The leaders within the community learning centres connected through  video conferencing and networks to connect and collaborate. Instead of working in isolation, they worked together..

The different centers were able to promote their similarities and differences while still supporting one another. More information about Community Based Learning and Community Learning Centres in Quebec can be found at: http://www.learnquebec.ca/en/content/clc

Thank you for a great course!

Verena 🙂

In my limited work with FNMI youth, I have found a strength that I believe needs to be promoted – and that is their digital literacy.

However, we as educators often question our own digital literacy. As educators, we could use this rubric created by George Couros in which to evaluate our digital literacy and technology integration

Alternatively we could use the ISTE Nets Standards 

However, the recent Mozilla’s Competency Based Web Literacy Standard could also be examined.

When thinking about “indigenous knowledge” where does the digital literacy piece fit in? I’m thinking that it is just as important as provincial learning outcomes and cross- cultural standards.

Based on the Ginsberg reading and Tim Michael video this week – it is apparent that there are pros and cons to integrating digital opportunities. If we examine some of the models on this page – could digital literacy be as important? What competencies or framework would be focused upon and why?

Verena 🙂

After summarizing my latest research with Sean Lessard yesterday, I was surprised to see the following article in the Calgary Herald today (July 23, 2013)

The Article, Past abuse haunt education debate – Bands want to take control of schools is about a  the the Assembly of First Nation’s unanimous motion to oppose a framework for a First Nation Education Act. The assembly opposes the framework based on:

• Steven Harper’s 2008 residential school apology.

•  Denial of first nations languages and cultures

• Failure of: First Nation control over Education/ Applying successful lessons learned by First Nations/ address funding issues

However – the part that really resonated with me from the article is:

When Nippissing Univeristy President Michael DeGagne spoke to the Whitehorse assembly, he described misunderstandings between non-native and native leaders.

“Aboriginal people are not saying, ‘Give us control of our education,’ because they want control,” he said in an interview later.

“They are asking for control so they can have better outcomes.”

DeGagne stressed repeatedly that doing so did not mean lowering standards, something he said is feared by non-native policy-makers.

“It just means educating in a different way,” he said in the interview. “The way aboriginal people look at the world is not second-rate, and we have to give ourselves credit for that.”

He said consultation really needs to come from openness from both parties.

“We have to consult from a place that is almost a blank piece of paper,” he said.

“It’s different from saying, ‘Look, this is my framework I’d appreciate if you’d sign it.'”

Retrieved from: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Shadow+past+abuses+lingers+over+First+Nations+education+debate/8688351/story.html

As I described yesterday in my post, elders and leaders directly from the reserves are asking Sean “how” to integrate indigenous knowledge and provincial curriculum. I’m hoping what we are developing can lead to future support for our indigenous learners.

I was looking for curriculum in BC and Alberta that I could use to easily integrate aboriginal culture – or curriculum that has already been focused around aboriginal culture. Sean Lessard and I are working on an integration of a program between place based learning and constructivism and we wanted to ensure that we are solidly covering curriculum.

One of the biggest questions Sean keeps getting asked is, what is curriculum – how can we cover it – and how can we integrate indigenous culture into the curriculum, and still ensure indigenous students are meeting curriculum expectations.

I am working on the assessment strategies – part of that is ensuring that outcomes are clearly laid out ahead of time, and integrating indigenous cultural competencies as well.

Today I spent some time looking for BC High School courses that Sean Lessard could use for his alternative education project. In Alberta, to be more creative, educators often use CTS (Computer and Technology Skills) Courses in order to offer a wider variety of curriculum to their students. In particular, I will thinking of using CTS Mentorship and Leadership courses for students in alternative programs – in Alberta.

In BC, there are BAA courses which are similar but different. BAA courses stand for: Board or Authority Authorized Courses. They are courses that are created by educators within a school board for alternative education options, then they are approved through the board to be offered to students. Once the school board approves the course, any school district can sue the course.

However – the BC Ministry no longer keeps an updated list of all the BAA courses. I found this data extract, somehow, through a google search – only to realize that I think it was last updated in 2011.

However – to find any details on specific courses, you need to:
You have to go to a specific school district website-
Search for  BAA Courses
Scan through courses like http://www.mpsd.ca/schools/baacourses.aspx

My biggest surprise of the day -> not all districts post their BAA courses and there is no actual place to find an accurate and updated list of all the courses.

This problem is BC needs to be addressed to ensure everyone knows what the curriculum “could” be.

Verena 🙂