§ 7: Network Impacts – Aboriginal Inquiry: Lifting All Learners

7.4 Cases that illustrate adoption of promising practices

Pink Sheep Media — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 23:28:44 +0000

To further trace the impact of the Network, we looked to our data again to find ways that AESN members described their projects within the Network, how they worked with learners and community members, and what strategies, approaches or ways of thinking they used that could be used to provide evidence of their ongoing application of these promising practices.

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7.8 Size and geographic location

sabrina — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:56:49 +0000

As we near the end of our analysis, we want to discuss one additional matter that does not emerge directly from the data we’ve collected for this study, but instead represents an observation about the impact and scope of the AESN in effecting change in the BC educational landscape. We looked carefully at our participant list to see if we could determine the extent to which our study represented...

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7.7.2 Aboriginal teacher leadership

sabrina — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:56:17 +0000

We also saw evidence during our study that the process of decolonizing the thinking of non-Aboriginal educators is being sparked by many of the Aboriginal educators who are involved in the Network. Earlier in this report we discussed how Aboriginal teachers have found the Network to be particularly helpful because it gave legitimacy to the work they were doing as educators working with Aboriginal...

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7.7.1 Sharing is the gift of the Network

sabrina — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:55:16 +0000

We were struck again by the idea of sharing as a gift when we reviewed the transcripts of our discussions with teachers in the Nanaimo focus group. On this occasion, one AESN and district leader, herself an Aboriginal educator said: “In Aboriginal cultures across Canada we get together for celebrations, and part of the protocol is sharing and cultural gift giving. I was sitting next to an Elder...

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7.7 Emergent patterns of teacher learning?

sabrina — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:54:36 +0000

While it is not possible for us to know with absolute certainty on the basis of our interviews and the cases we’ve reviewed in this and other sections of the report, there appears to be sufficient evidence to support a claim that the AESN inquiry method develops, for many teachers, an evolution towards deeper, more culturally inclusive teaching practice. We think this is enabled in a number of...

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7.6.1 Tracing student learning outcomes: From academic performance to pride and acceptance

sabrina — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:53:37 +0000

Early AESN inquiry questions were structured in ways that carefully mimicked the earlier NOII process. In NOII inquiries, performance standards in academic subject areas were the primary focus. So one of the effects this had was that performance standards for Aboriginal students in literacy and numeracy were often selected as starting points to explore how teachers might better enable deepened...

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7.6 Learning Aboriginal pedagogy and principles of Aboriginal learning

sabrina — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:51:20 +0000

Yet educators like the individual profiled above are not in abundance in BC schools. The majority of teachers are non-Aboriginal and as a result have particular biases and ways of thinking about schooling that need to be unpacked. This effort to unpack and dismantle colonial mindsets is part of what we have already highlighted in our earlier discussion as necessarily reflexive; that is...

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7.5 Aboriginal education for all: Integrated content, engaging, relevant learning

sabrina — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:50:45 +0000

I am an experienced teacher and I have been involved with inquiry and the NOII for over 7 years. I use inquiry as an instructional strategy and as a vehicle for professional development on my own and in teams. This year, we have many forces driving extraordinary learning for staff and students: AESN Inquiry team, NOII inquiry team, School District Inquiry Team and my Humanities 9 Inquiry question...

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7.4.4 Case 4

sabrina — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:47:50 +0000

For one Network leader, the attempts to disrupt deficit thinking about Aboriginal peoples prompted her to pursue an inquiry that reached beyond the school walls: “For me personally, I have a strong sense of wanting our society to acknowledge what has happened in the past, and that has created what we see now, we’ve ignored it as a nation. And we haven’t done anyone a service by ignoring Aboriginal...

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7.4.3 Case 3

sabrina — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:46:19 +0000

A Vancouver Island middle school infused Aboriginal inquiry into their grade 7 programming. At the heart of the inquiry was raising awareness and understanding of Aboriginal ways of knowing. All grade 7s took a six-week exploratory course designed to expose students to the “big stories” – an overview of Aboriginal peoples in British Columbia and Canada. In the four years the program has been...

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