Including Indigenous Perspectives in the Classroom

Indigenous Perspectives in the Classroom

In preparation for the new school year, you may consider the best ways to include Indigenous perspectives and ways of knowing. You may also wonder how to do so appropriately and respectfully. It is important to remember that fully integrating Indigenous perspectives means more than adding Indigenous content. It is important to integrate them into learning experiences. You can begin with your classroom setup and extend it to the types of activities that you choose.

Integrating Indigenous Perspectives and Ways of Knowing

You may already know that a collaborative and democratic classroom is a pedagogical best practice. These concepts are important for holistically bringing Indigenous perspectives, ways of knowing, understanding, and learning into your classroom.

Collaboration

Understanding that everyone is an educator and learner is central to traditional Indigenous education models. This Indigenous perspective can make your learning activities more engaging and varied and offer learners more agency over their learning. A classroom where everyone works together enables learners to benefit from knowledge sharing. It provides the opportunity to be both a learner and an educator.

Democracy

Another central idea of traditional Indigenous education models is choice and ownership over learning. Teachings, especially stories, have the capacity to convey many different lessons. Certain lessons and concepts may alter from one learning context to another. What a learner extracts from teachings will depend on what is relevant to their life at the time. That may remind you of the saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” This idiom reflects the learning process. Learners must be ready to accept knowledge.

Inclusive Classrooms

Include your learners in decision-making. It can help them feel more control over what and how they learn. It makes the classroom more comfortable and makes learners more open to learning. Let’s look at some ways to set up your class to embody the ideals of collaboration and democracy.

Desk Placement

Desk placement can greatly impact learners’ perception of your class as collaborative and democratic. There are many possible desk configurations, but I will focus on three popular options: rows, groups of four, and U-shape. Depending on your class size, you may need to adjust the groupings. Each configuration signals something different to your learners about what they can expect from your class.

Rows

Rows signal learners that they will work mostly on individual tasks, not interact with others much, and listen to you speak often.  

Groups

Groups indicate there will be lots of group work. Learners will share experiences, learn with their groups, and engage in project-style learning activities.

U-Shape

In a U-shape setup, learners will expect to work in pairs and as a whole class, have many class discussions, collaborate with the class as a whole, and have opportunities to learn in various ways.

Grouping desks or placing them in a U-shape creates a collaborative atmosphere. These configurations lend themselves well to discussions, group activities, and collaborative learning. They also help you avoid falling into the “sage on the stage” role and instead place you in the “guide on the side” role. Learners’ gazes focus on each other instead of the front of the room. This atmosphere lends itself to a more democratic and collaborative classroom.

Classroom Management

It is important to give learners a say in classroom management strategies. Creating classroom expectations with learners has gained ground for quite some time. It’s a great way to give your learners ownership over their learning environment and reinforce a collaborative and democratic classroom atmosphere.

Establish Cultural Norms

You can include learners in creating classroom expectations in various ways. The main point is that you and your learners come up with classroom expectations together. Teaching learners who have a different cultural background than yours has the added benefit of providing you with the opportunity to learn which behaviours are culturally acceptable in their community. Listing these cultural norms in classroom expectations and keeping them visible helps learners feel comfortable knowing the space represents and accepts their ways of being.

Structure and Consistency

We all know that classroom management doesn’t end with setting up classroom expectations. There are so many different and conflicting views, programs, and strategies that aim to help you create a safe, happy, and calm classroom with varying degrees of success. My goal isn’t to tell you how to run your class. You will manage it in a way that fits your teaching style. However, I want to reinforce what you likely already know: Structure and consistency are key.

These concepts may not seem to tie into collaboration and democracy. However, it can be challenging to balance structure and consistency in an open, collaborative, and democratic classroom. Still, it is a balance worth striving for. Structure and consistency actually make these other concepts possible. When you have a strong framework for your class set up and apply it, it is easier to provide space for collaboration and democracy. Structure helps learners be active, positive, respectful, and constructive class members.

Beginning of the Year Activities to Welcome Indigenous Perspectives

Beginning of the year activities can help you understand your learners’ strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes. They can help inform your pedagogy and tailor the types of activities you include throughout the year. Encouraging learners to provide feedback early on creates an opportunity to work collaboratively throughout the year to create a comfortable learning experience for all.

3-2-1

3-2-1 activities are one of the most versatile activities you can use in your class. For a beginning of the year spin, ask questions that give you insight into what your learners do and do not enjoy. It can show you what behaviours you can expect from learners in the coming year. For example, you could ask your learners to share three activities they enjoyed last year, two types they didn’t enjoy, and one thing they wish educators knew about them. The answers to these questions can tell you which activities will engage learners best, which activities learners may act out during, and other information that may help you speak to and work with learners.

Word of the Day

Learning about learners’ interests is the quickest way to build a bond. At the beginning of the year, ask learners about their favourite thing to do. Then, ask them to tell you how to say this activity in their community’s language. Continue asking learners to teach you their language in a “word of the day” activity throughout the year. You can also set up a bilingual word wall including words, pictures, stories, etc. This type of activity can help build a relationship and a sense of trust in your classroom. This also reinforces that you are a learner, and they have much to teach you.

Remember: When completing any “word of the day” activities in a language you don’t know, check with other educators to ensure the words your learners are teaching you are correct and appropriate for a school setting. Many learners have robust senses of humour, and nothing is funnier than making an educator say something inappropriate!

Hopefully, these ideas help you begin including Indigenous perspectives and ways of knowing in the classroom. Happy start of the school year!

Welcoming Your Students

Welcoming students

As the new school year approaches, many educators and schools prepare their education spaces to welcome learners. As an educator, I know how much time and dedication we put into setting up bulletin boards and classroom decor to make learners feel welcome. We often use funds from our own pockets to create an atmosphere where learners feel comfortable and ready to learn. We also think about welcoming and engaging our new learners. Icebreaker activities, classroom space arrangements, and even creating a set of class rules as a group are ways we try to get to know our learners.

Welcoming and Safe Classrooms

Finding new ways to make your classroom welcoming and safe is on most educators’ minds right now. To make that process easier, we’ve come up with some great ways to integrate learners’ backgrounds and home life into your classroom atmosphere. Below are some introductory activities for you and your learners to get to know each other. We’ve also thought of ways to integrate parents and guardians into this welcoming process because parental involvement in education is an important part of student engagement in learning.

An important part of teaching is building successful relationships with learners. They feel safe in a classroom where educators get to know and care about them. When you know a learner’s background and family story, you understand better what challenges and supports they have at home. Some of the following activities weave in Indigenous history and knowledge sharing. There is a strong emphasis on family and sharing of stories in First Nations, Métis and Inuit teachings. Modelling this importance in your classroom can help learners of all backgrounds feel better connected to their learning environment.

Our Family Wall

Start the year off by creating a photo wall of learners’ families. Ask learners to bring photographs of their parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents or other people they consider family. Each learner should have a small space on a bulletin board to post their pictures. You need not limit the wall to pictures. Encourage learners to post anything that symbolizes their families. For example, if their family likes going to movies on Sunday, learners could put up a ticket stub. If the learner’s family is from a Nation with a Clan system, they could post a picture of their Clan’s animal. Finally, ask learners to write a short piece describing their family and post it with their pictures or other materials.

My Family Story

Family histories are extremely important to many Peoples. In many Indigenous cultures, Elders tell children stories about family members, living and deceased. Family histories are passed down through the teachings and experiences of the Elders. If children know their family history, they will know who they are and where they come from.

Get to know your learners by having a family story-sharing session. Your family history might be a starting point for a lesson on family histories. You can model what you would like to hear from learners by telling your family’s history. That might include the number of people in your family, your cultural background, where you lived growing up, what your parents and grandparents did, and any other stories important to your family history.

Ask learners to find out more about their family history. They can begin by interviewing parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. When learners complete their research, they can present their family’s history in a classroom Family History Circle. An alternative is to guide learners to share their family histories in pairs. Then, in a circle, each learner tells the history of their partner’s family. Learners can also illustrate a portion of their family history with a painting or drawing and add it to the Family Wall.

The Story of My Name

Among many Indigenous Peoples, names are powerful and important connections to family. Names are sometimes passed down through families in special naming ceremonies. Some names have been carried for many generations and may have fascinating stories. In some Indigenous cultures, newborn babies are named after a recently deceased relative or community member because it is believed that infants inherit the qualities of the deceased person.

Ask learners to collect information from home about their names. In this way, parents will become involved, and learners will expand their knowledge of their family history. Once this research is complete, invite learners to share the story of their name with the class. Again, your naming story could be the starting point for the lesson. The story behind your name (if there is one) could include who gave you your name and why, who else in your family had that name, and whether the name has significance in your family.

Welcoming and Involving Parents and Guardians

A circle of people around a child is directly involved in their learning and growth. Educators and learning organizations only make a small part of that circle. It is important to acknowledge the roles that many other family members, community members, and Elders play in the lives of children and their development.

An excellent way to make learners feel welcome in your classroom is to make parents feel welcome. Sending home a letter about you, your classroom, and your ideas for parental involvement in learning would be a great place to start. Finding opportunities to involve families in your classroom can also help learners feel safe. It isn’t always an easy task, and it may take time to build strong relationships depending on your school’s community. Below are a few ideas.

Involving Parents

  • Bring special skills to the classroom. Parents and family members can share these skills through a natural teaching style. Some skills include baking, cooking, gardening, sewing, simple woodworking, drama, dance, music, and sports.
  • Make learning materials for classroom use, like cultural items, or decorate classroom spaces with traditional objects.
  • Accompany learners on field trips or land-based activities.
  • Tell stories to learners, in particular, stories about their family background.
  • Hold workshops where family members and staff design and create a cultural place for learners to reinforce and rekindle First Nations, Métis and Inuit traditions.

With these tips and the advice of other educators in your learning community, your classroom will be ready for learning and welcoming come September.

What other techniques do you use to welcome your learners? Please share them with us at achieve@learningbird.com. 

A Guide to Gamification: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Gamification

Gaming Can Change the World

You may be hearing a new word in education and technology a lot these days: Gamification. Gamification applies elements associated with video games (game mechanics and dynamics) in non-game activities. In a nutshell, gamification is a means of increasing learner engagement and promoting good classroom behaviour. In 2011, Deterding defined gamification as using game design elements and characteristics in non-game contexts. Think of the key elements of a game: achievement, goals, rewards, quests, and the ability to level up your character. Generally, each of these drives a player’s promotion or levelling up within a game. Gamification takes that reward and levelling structure and applies it to participants, that is, your learners.

Tweet, “Gamification is a means of increasing learner engagement and promoting good classroom behaviour.”

As a classroom management tool and motivator, gamification has great potential in pushing learner achievement and making school more attractive (Lee & Hammer, 2011). The idea here is that using a gamified tool can introduce what really matters from the world of video games – increasing learner engagement – without using a specific game. The levelling and reward system borrows what makes good games fun to play. Learning can be fun if learners learn as if they were playing a game.

The Good

The gamification framework will help guide the educator.

  • Create challenges tailored to the learner’s level of knowledge, and increase the difficulty of these challenges as the learner acquires new skills.
  • Set up multiple ways to successfully achieve an objective, allowing learners to overcome roadblocks in learning.
  • Consider failures part of the learning process. A learning objective can be met successfully after several failed attempts without penalizing learners.
  • Enable learners to assume different identities and roles, allowing them to explore the interaction with other parts of who they are.
  • Enable peers and parents to recognize a learner’s progress.
  • Maintain a standard of behaviour and expectation in the classroom while rewarding learners who meet the challenges set before them.

Here are some examples of systems that show gamification at its best and examine gamification research.

The Education Arcade

The Education Arcade is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology initiative and has material for educators to produce more effective teaching methods. The site also has news and commentary on contemporary education developments. Content on the site is designed for grade 5-12 educators.

GameSalad

GameSalad is a game design education program that is simple enough to master quickly but complex enough to create highly customizable materials and games. Once educators use it, it’s easy to teach learners to create their own games. They’re on Twitter @gamesalad

Games and Learning Alliance

GALA, the Games and Learning Alliance, blogs on serious developments in gamification and the intersection of games and education. They invite many people to submit papers commenting on gamification’s impact on behaviour. They’re on Twitter @gameandlearning

Educators can turn to several games and tools when looking to implement gamification in their classrooms. These are two of the most effective curriculum and classroom management tools we recommend.

ClassDojo

GoalBook

The Bad

As is the case with most trends, some teachers and administrators want to use gamification just for the sake of using it. The name is catchy, it sounds fun, and many educators and researchers in technology have praised its results in other fields. But maybe gamification isn’t right for your classroom, certain learners, or the demographic of learners. Before implementing a gamified system, think about why gamification can work for your classroom. Think of the end pedagogical goals of teaching using gamification.

1) How will you teach using it?

2) What parts of your classroom will be gamified?

3) What could go wrong?

If it’s difficult to come up with solid answers to why you would use it in the classroom, it may be best to go in a different direction.

The Ugly

Knowing what can go wrong in your classroom with gamification is important. As with any changes to your pedagogy, you need to consider how learners could be negatively affected.

Choices

Offering too many quests or goals in a small timeframe could overwhelm learners. They might log in, see 25 quests, and not know where to begin. Limit the expectations in your use of quests or assignments.

Leaderboards

Instead of motivating learners, reaching the top of an “academic” leaderboard might be considered “uncool.” Worse, this might alienate learners who are already struggling. Consider making this optional for learners or highlight winners of various tasks and quests beyond academics.

Neglecting Player Types

Gamers play games for many reasons. Some play to win, others play for the fun of it, and many of your learners play to make friends or engage with their friends outside of school. This makes for many types of players/learners. Most gamified systems cater heavily to the competitive type. If your game/quests/goals ignore players’ cooperative or explorative types, your learners could disengage. Diversify your quests to consider all types of learners or players.

Not Celebrating Failure

Games celebrate success, but they also celebrate failure. Navigating a game always involves several “redos” or failures as you progress. If you are not celebrating failure in your gamification model in the classroom, you are not celebrating learning. By only celebrating success, you place value on winning rather than growth and persistence. Do you have badges for “Sticking With It,” “Big Improvement,” or “Asking for Help”? You should!

Gamification can be a helpful process for engaging and motivating your learners. However, doing it right requires thoughtfulness and an awareness of how your learners learn best.