Learning What Schooling Left Out: Making an Indigenous Case for Critical Service-Learning and Reconciliatory Pedagogy within Teacher Education

As teacher educators, we argue that the colonial history of First Peoples, coupled with alarming educational disparities, warrants a specialized approach to Indigenous service-learning within teacher training that requires a critical examination of positionality by service-learners. Our study examines the service-learning experiences of non-Indigenous pre-service teachers working in Indigenous classrooms over a three-month period through reflections and focus groups. The results underscore the risk that a lack of critical reflection by service-learners could play in widening existing educational gaps, and concludes that a reversal of perspective on the education gap could enact the possibility of reconciliatory pedagogy

Applying Indigenizing Principles of Decolonizing Methodologies in University Classrooms

This case study examines ongoing work to Indigenize education programs at one Canadian university. The history of the academy in Canada has been dominated by Western epistemologies, which have devalued Indigenous ways of knowing and set the grounds for continued marginalization of Indigenous students, communities, cultures, and histories. We argue that institutions of higher learning need to move away from the myopic lens used to view education and implement Indigenizing strategies in order to counteract the systemic monopolization of knowledge and communication. Faculties of education are taking a leading role in Canadian universities by hiring Indigenous scholars and incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing into teacher education courses. Inspired by the 25 Indigenous principles outlined by Maōri scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012), four Indigenous faculty members from Western Canada document effective decolonizing practices for classroom experience, interaction, and learning that reflect Indigenous values and orientations within their teaching practices

Pathfinders: Realizing Reconciliation Through Lessons Learned

In 2016, a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars came together to imagine a better world through a bold approach to education at the Werklund School of Education. This imagining took the form of a newly designed graduate pathway program which focused on meaningfully and actively responding to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) (2015) 94 Calls to Action. Central to the design of our program is the inclusion of a capstone service-learning project that asks graduate students to bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups in designing and delivering projects of mutual benefit. In sharing insights from their respective learning journeys, our students reveal the complexities and challenges of reconciliatory work but also its many rewards. Further, in sharing these courageous acts, we hope to inspire others to take action

Meaningful media: an ethnography of a digital strategy within a Metis community

Bibliography: p. 243-267Includes copies of ethics approval. Original copies with original Partial Copyright Licence.This study is an ethnographic exploration of a collaborative and community centred research project involving the researcher and the community of Fishing Lake Metis settlement situated in north-eastern Alberta. This study represents a digital strategy that sought decolonizing goals through Metis-specific research activities, community partnering and the culturally appropriate and meaningful appropriation of digital media. The project met several identified community needs, including the restoration of intergenerational connections and the revitalization of storytelling traditions, through a creative process realized through a collaboratively-led digital-storytelling workshop and related media activities. Fittingly, the work continues on in Fishing Lake

Audio-walks: Moving digital learning off-screen and into balance

As an Indigenous scholar who teaches undergraduate and graduate-level Indigenous education courses, I often challenge myself to bring Indigenous pedagogy and practices, both theoretical and praxis-based, into my classes (see Louie et al., 2017; Poitras Pratt, 2020). In the context of what has been life-altering physical, emotional, and psychological challenges over the past several years, I have placed an increased focus on the collective wellbeing of students as a requisite priority. With public health restrictions as a factor in how and where we teach, educators and students alike have had to face not only hours of screentime but also any lingering anxieties they might have had in using digital technologies. In this vignette, I share my own attempt at bringing a greater sense of wellbeing and balance into my online teaching and learning spaces by introducing you to my emerging practice of audio-walks. My hope is that you will see how Indigenizing principles can support the use of digital technologies to achieve a more balanced learning environment

All my online relations: Aboriginal community participation in planning for Alberta SuperNet broadband technology

Bibliography: p. 259-273This thesis examines the community involvement of three Aboriginal communities in their participatory research activities around the topic of the Alberta Super Net. The researcher worked alongside three groups representing the Blackfoot, Cree, and Metis people of Alberta as part of a research partnership where the goal of the project was community empowerment through active involvement in planning activities for the introduction of the Alberta Super Net broadband technology. While development support communication provided the theoretical foundation for this study, an ethnography of the research process across the three communities formed the final methodology. Findings from this study implied that awareness and recognition of a need for directed social change within communities remain critical first stages to genuine participation within participatory research activities. This study also revealed that emerging efforts in developing culturally appropriate forms of Aboriginal research must be supported and prioritized for the immediate and social good of Aboriginal people

Ensemble mentorship as a decolonising and relational practice in Canada

Inspired by collaborating on a shared vision of reconciliation, three authors explore ethical relationality and the practical ways in which their heterarchical ensemble mentorship serves to decolonise and advance a shared vision of reconciliation for university teaching and learning. As Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, we are buoyed by those developing decolonising and Indigenising strategies in formerly colonised regions. Seen as a promising interruption to a neoliberal approach to education, the authors embrace the possibilities of imagining and creating an ethical space in universities where relationality is prioritised in service of social justice. While the complex nature of reconciliation within a Canadian context begets tension and highlights what are often conflicting value systems within academe, we maintain that innovations in teaching and learning are possible in what is now a globally disrupted terrain as students, faculty, administrators, and university leadership contend with the unknown, encounter collectivist Indigenous traditions, and tentatively explore decolonisation as an ethical avenue towards inclusive and empowering education. In imagining what is possible, we build upon Indigenous knowledge traditions and the work of leadership studies scholars to propose \u27ensemble mentorship\u27 between students and faculty as a collaborative and decolonising teaching and learning practice

Designing and Sharing Relational Space Through Decolonizing Media

As Indigenous educators who share a passion for innovative approaches using instructional media, we are inspired to explore the ways in which technology can support teaching and learning from Indigenous perspectives. Several scholars advocate the use of technology in reclamation of First Peoples’ voices, stories and other ways of knowing (Ginsburg, 2000; Iseke-Barnes, 2002; Dyson, Hendriks & Grant, 2007). Reflecting social constructionism, we believe media can be designed to build educator capacity within these special interest areas. By highlighting work that is currently underway within Indigenous education, we invite readers to imagine their own possibilities for transformative and decolonizing pedagogy.Ye

Moving Toward Critical Service Learning as a Signature Pedagogy in Aboriginal Communities: Why Good Intentions are not Enough.

This study examines the experiences of student teachers that participated in a service-learning program working in Indigenous communities throughout Alberta. The intent of this study is to share what student teachers experienced as they combined formal theoretical knowledge and course content with community-based praxis. Initial results point to a synergistic relationship between the length of service learning and the depth of critical reflection. Those education students who were able to shift their understanding of the educational gap from a deficit perspective to recognition of their own gaps in knowledge are often those who think, act and perform with integrity.YesWerklund School of Education, Galileo Educational Networ

Metis Remembrances of Education: Bridging History with Memory

The authors invite a deep listening of memories of Métis people in Alberta that represent an unofficial yet significant account of history. Engaging with a critical pedagogy of decolonization means revisiting history written from the colonizer’s perspective (Smith, 1999). These memories are explored for points of connection with official history and mainstream interpretations. We aim for hopeful remembrance by opening up the present to its insufficiencies with history (Simon, 2000). We ask: What Indigenous memories are missing from the official history of your community? What would it mean for you as an educator to really hear those memories?N