Presentation by: Samantha Gilbert, Tom Owen
Session: Session A | Time: 9:00 AM – 9:20 AM | Location: Room 201
This interactive workshop will examine parallels between current educational theories and Indigenous pedagogies. We will explore how our teaching practices may already reflect Indigenous ways of knowing and learning and identify pathways for integrating Indigenous knowledge in a culturally responsive and respectful way.
When we first entered the teacher education program at UBC, we arrived with many questions of how to approach teaching Indigenous perspectives, pedagogies and knowledges in our classrooms. We came to realize, however, that these Indigenous ways of knowing and learning also seem to be reflected within many of the educational theories and best practices we have been learning about in teacher education. It quickly became clear that we were already familiar and comfortable with many Indigenous pedagogies known to us by another name. We believe that recognizing how we are already incorporating Indigenous pedagogies and perspectives into our classrooms is an important step on the journey to integrating Indigenous knowledge in a culturally responsive and respectful way. Using this exploration as a starting point we will examine ways we can deliver culturally relevant and responsive curriculum.
This workshop will begin with attendees identifying their own familiarity, comfort and competency of relevant Indigenous worldviews and pedagogies. We will explore how these Indigenous worldviews and pedagogies share similarities with current educational theories. We will then discuss examples of parallel Indigenous and western worldviews and teaching practices and their integration into the classroom from a variety of curricular areas, drawing from traditional knowledge and contemporary research on topics including science education and social and emotional learning programs.