Informal Interviews Summary

 Here are a list of suggestions/tips we obtained from our informal interviews:

General suggestions:

- Link learning targets with First Peoples Principles of Learning objectives

- Remember to slow down and teach at a speed that allows students to learn rather than rushing through content goals (in line with the FPP "Learning takes time and patience"). Emphasize content that is important and spend less time on content that would be nice to cover but won't effect the students' ability to succeed in the future.

- Build relationships with students (FPP and also SEL)

- Create an atmosphere where students are able to express and explore their identity (FPP and SEL)

- Show students tangible examples of roles in their community and tie those into class lessons (e.g. talking about astronauts feels far away but maybe a local job where they can actually see it’s doable would work better)

- Find the math in the Indigenous culture/history, avoid tokenism

- Don’t generalize
    - not all Indigenous students are comfortable sharing their culture or info about themselves  

- Bring in/attention to people in STEM who happen to be Indigenous.
    - we don’t refer to people as “the White biologist” so don’t do the same thing for Indigenous people

- Challenge 1D story of Indigenous people by introducing more contemporary and positive viewpoints
- Professional development - don’t be afraid to learn alongside the students

- This is an ongoing process so it's a good idea to keep learning about Indigenous culture and continue to build/maintain relationships with your Indigenous Education department (and Indigenous communities if possible)

Activity Examples:

- Talking circle activity: explain the significance of this Indigenous custom and implement it into your class as a regular/reoccurring element.

- Basket story example: Disclaimer: We do not own or have permission to use this story - we are simply using it to illustrate a point for the purposes of this class: One of the storytelling application problems we were told was about a cannibal woman who lived on a hill. In this story, they talk about this cannibal woman and how parents would warn their children that if they were bad (or maybe were out after dark? I can’t quite remember), that they would be taken by this woman. Sure enough, some children in this story ignore the warnings and are taken by the cannibal woman, who carries them up the hill in a cedar basket. There are say, six children of various ages who are placed in this basket and taken. The question is, how big would that basket have to be to carry all six children? This is a non-numeric question that requires students to research and figure out what they need to solve this problem.

- 3D/360˚ totem pole - classes came in and asked questions about the process and the artist was able to talk about his technique, which included a lot of mathematical concepts

    - be on a look out for local projects where you may be able to do this  

- patterns in weaving

- storybooks of local Indigenous stories with teaching guide (available at your local Indigenous Education Department)

Guest Speaker/Co-teachers:

- It's better to build up to Indigenous guest speaker co-teacher (i.e. mention Indigenous Perspectives in the classroom regularly and also prepare students by letting them know a guest speaker might be able to tell us more about whatever topic it is we're talking about)
    - check with speaker first if it’s okay to put your hand up for a teachable moment/making connections to previous class
    - etiquette is huge:
        - invite them like a guest to your house
        - prep students to be respectful
        - make sure students thank the guest afterwards
        - send a thank you gift - often a reflective card about what you learned
        - possibly invite them to your class again
    - kind of like meeting the mayor - give them the proper respect they deserve
- don’t isolate the Indigenous aspect

- Indigenous guest speakers and videos etc. not just for content goals, but also for representation for students

More Resources:

- Abbotsford website: curriculum.abbyschools.ca
- Suggested books: Dr. Martin Brokenleg Reclaiming Youth At Risk
- Dr. Joann Archibald Indigenous Storywork
- Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World: https://mexikaresistance.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/american-indian-contributions-to-the-world.pdf
- When looking for resources, it’s often helpful to look at things that are not necessarily targeted at math because you might be able to identify the math within those resources yourself (we were recommended the general FNESC website because it has a lot of content)

Course Reflection Post

Image source: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fkrisztibunica.files.wordpress.com%2F2013%2F01%2Finquiry-cycle.gif&f=1&nofb=1

 A big theme of this class for me was moving away from the traditional "teacher lectures and students do homework" format of a math classroom to a more holistic approach and gaining strategies to do so. One of the pieces we looked at that was highly influential for me was the Jo Boaler video. It seemed like such an obvious concept - that our focus in math needs to switch from computational to real-world/meaningful problems - but she just presented all the information and research in such a clear way that it is still with me. Another very influential reading/presentation we watched was Dr. Robin Kimmerer's work. As I am still navigating and learning more about Indigenous Perspectives, I find myself referring back to her braid metaphor for ways of knowing quite frequently. Sustainability in math is still a little overwhelming for me, however, I have been able to gain some insights during other courses and also by tying it back to Indigenous Perspectives. Specifically, I found the idea of teaching math as a part of a whole, as opposed to an isolated subject helpful in finding a way to introduce sustainability, at least a little bit at a time, as I myself explore the topic. Other helpful methods of teaching we talked about were embodying math, the effects of marking, which we talked about in other classes as well so it was nice to have complementary material and gain a deeper understanding of these topics as well.

In terms of suggestions for next month, I'm not sure if this is really a topic or not, but I would be interested in finding out more about assigning less traditional assignments/projects to students. For example, we talked about Mike Naylor's math novel, and my SA had me read The Curious Case of the Dog at Nighttime in which the main character often described his thinking or events using mathematical puzzles or concepts. It would be interesting to hear from teachers who have assigned novels as readings, creative writing math pieces, or other things not typically assigned in math classrooms and how they explicitly tied that to the course or emphasized the mathematical importance along the way.

Inquiry Project Reflection Post

Image source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Totem_poles_in_Prince_Rupert_2.jpg/220px-Totem_poles_in_Prince_Rupert_2.jpg

 Here are the slides for Amrit's and my inquiry project:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-reZ5v1zqvOBf-ijZqi2-QvIw1j9RFKeBb3mE_-J62w/edit#slide=id.p

Through the course of researching this topic, I was met with quite a few surprises. First of all, I hadn't realized how many teachers were using the FNESC textbook. Because it has been a short amount of time since the book was published, I anticipated not being able to collect a lot of information on the effectiveness of its usage. However,  I hadn't thought about looking into Indigenous knowledge implementation from around the world until we started doing our research. 

We discovered that a lot of similarities between the struggles Indigenous students faced here and in places like Australia and Africa. Through reading on the strategies used in other parts of the world, we were able to find methods that would help us in our own classrooms. In addition to this, we did find some instances of successful integration of Indigenous Perspectives in Canadian classrooms as well as what we should avoid (or what is less effective). I am glad that we were able to find a lot of resources and starting places for integrating Indigenous Perspectives into our classrooms and I hope to delve deeper into them through the continuation of our Inquiry project.

Exit Slip # 10: Inquiry Project Update

 Amrit and I have found our sources now and have several different possible real-world connections that we will incorporate depending on what we receive from those conversations. We have started our slides and are starting to get more specific in our plan of starting with an introduction, detailing the research, and going into the activity. Narrowing down the scope of our project has been a little difficult because there are so many aspects to Indigenous Perspectives, but we are trying to stick with knowledge that directly impacts our study, while leaving helpful links for our classmates who might be interested in exploring those other aspects.

Annotated Bibliography for on Indigenous Perspectives in the classrooms

Annotated Bibliography for on Indigenous Perspectives in the classrooms

Karishma and Amrit are working on the inquiry project on Indigenous perspectives in the classrooms. We plan to start with the introduction of Indigenous culture and after that we will discuss the academic impact and SEL impact on the students. The articles and videos that we are using in our research are as below:

· Barta, J, & Shockey, T. (2016). Finding the ‘Space Between’ in Developing Mathematical Curriculum and Pedagogy across Cultures: The Mathematical Ways of the Northern Ute. The Journal of Mathematics and Culture. 10(3). Retrieved from: https://journalofmathematicsandculture.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/barta-shockey-final-august.pdf

These articles include information on how Indigenous peoples of Ute used or continue to use math in their lives. It provides explicit connections to curriculum-required content, as well as different perspectives, such as spatial awareness.

· Cherinda, M. (2015). Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Mathematics School Curriculum: What is the Story so far? Ethomathematics Studies. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2598.1282

In this article, a research was done on shifting traditional teaching practices into hands-on activities. It also tells about how this shift helps students socially and emotionally by developing their cognitive skills. It also explains how to create connections between cultural knowledge and mathematical knowledge.

· Chrona, J. (2015). Learning recognizes the role of Indigenous Knowledge. Retrieved from: https://firstpeoplesprinciplesoflearning.wordpress.com/learning-recognizes-the-role-of-indigenous-knowledge/

This blog page describes what Indigenous Knowledge is and how it connects to various subject areas, including math.

· First Nations Education Steering Committee. (2020). Math first peoples: Teacher resource guide, elementary & secondary. Retrieved from: http://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PUBLICATION-Math-FP-TRG-2020-09-04.pdf

This textbook includes good descriptions of what constitutes Indigenous practices/perspectives but since it’s a fairly new textbook, not much is mentioned about previous successes in implementing these ideas. There are also various activities listed that are designed to help teachers tie Indigenous Perspectives and curriculum goals together.

· Galindo, Ed. (2009). Compassion: A Hearts-on Paradigm for Transiting Native American Students into a STEM University Environment. The Journal of Mathematics and Culture. 4(1). Retrieved from: https://journalofmathematicsandculture.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/compassion-a-hearts-on-paradigm-v4-1.pdf

This article details the efforts of a collaboration project between a high school and university in Idaho called “Indian Summer,” which aimed to increase Indigenous student enrollment into STEM fields by working with students on locally relevant issues. Although specific to Indigenous students, this article illustrates the Indigenous Perspective of “hands-on-hearts-on” learning and how this benefits students on a social and emotional level.

- Goeson, D., Nicolidakis, M., Gamble, K., & Houghland, M. (2017).Weaving Math Aboriginal Mathematics Inquiry Team. Burnaby Schools Website. (https://burnabyschools.ca/indigenouseducation/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/11/weaving-math.compressed.pdf

This PDF details the lesson plan and successful outcomes of a weaving activity done in a Grade 10 math classroom. We plan on conducting a similar activity with our class using paper instead of yarn so that our classmates get a sense of what incorporating Indigenous Perspectives in a classroom actually looks and feels like.

· Meaney, T., McMurchy-Pilkington, C., & Trinick, T. Indigenous students and the learning of mathematics. (pp. 67-87). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. doi: 10.1007/978-94-6091-970-1_5

This article discusses the reasons why Indigenous students struggle in Western-centred math classrooms in Australasia. The article also includes suggestions of good ways to incorporate Indigenous perspectives in a meaningful way (e.g. group work is an Indigenous perspective so long as it is framed that way because it includes oral passing of knowledge and collaboration).

· Nolan, K., & Weston, J. H. (2015). Aboriginal perspectives and/in mathematics: A case study of three grade 6 teachers. In Education, 21(1), 12. Retrieved from: https://ineducation.ca/ineducation/article/view/195/788

In this study, three teachers are given a kit that includes various math activities involving Indigenous perspectives. The article discusses the results each teacher found in their classroom, which ranged from no perceived gain in mathematical knowledge to a seamless incorporation of both Indigenous knowledge and curriculum-required mathematics.

· Peterson, S. S., Jang, S. Y., San Miguel, J., Styres, S., & Madsen, A. (2018). Infusing indigenous knowledge and epistemologies: Learning from teachers in northern aboriginal head start classrooms. McGill Journal of Education, 53(1), 26-46. Doi: 10.7202/1056281ar

This article talks about SEL and Academic impact of indigenous knowledge. It also reflects the impact of residential schools on the students' social emotional learning and how they lose their language and get disconnected from their land and ancestors. This article is full of real examples presented by the students, how they share their cultural knowledge and land acknowledgement and feel connected with other students in the classroom.

· Toulouse, P. R. (2016). What matters in indigenous education: Implementing a vision committed to holism, diversity and engagement. Measuring What Matters. Retrieved from: https://peopleforeducation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/MWM-What-Matters-in-Indigenous-Education.pdf

This article talks about building interpersonal relationships among students in the classroom by allowing students to present their cultural knowledge thoughts in an authentic way. It also explains the impacts of connecting students with the real world by acknowledging the student’s prior knowledge and skills.

· Troutman, J. & McCoy, L. (2008). Re-membering Mathematics: The Effect of Culturally Relevant Lessons in Math History on Student’s Attitudes. The Journal of Mathematics and Culture. 3(1). Retrieved from: https://journalofmathematicsandculture.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/re-membering-mathematics.pdf

This article describes the importance of teaching culturally and historically relevant mathematics to students by showing the attitudes of different students towards math that lacks this connection. That is, this article shows that including diverse backgrounds, including Indigenous perspectives, increases all student motivation and SEL.

· Stavros Stavrou. (Nov 22, 2015). Aboriginal math education: Collaborative learning [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHyvlrbCiAY

This video provides some examples of how to incorporate land into the math classrooms. It also presents how aboriginal language acknowledgement helps aboriginal students to build confidence and feel connected with other students.

Exit Slip #9: Inquiry Project Progress Report

 We are currently still going through our sources to determine which are the most relevant. We briefly contemplated looking exclusively at Indigenous Perspectives in a Canadian context, but found that there aren't enough articles detailing the effects of Indigenous Perspectives in a math classroom on students; resources are more focused on introducing activities to use in the classroom or explaining what Indigenous Perspectives are and the key aspects that should be incorporated in a math classroom without necessarily listing results. However, we have quite a few sources in North America in general, as well as a few from Australia and Africa, which share similar issues of having a Eurocentric curriculum.

In preparation for our real-world connection, I have reached out to four different people of Indigenous background from Prince Rupert, one of whom has been tutoring students in the community for over ten years, and another who has already been working on introducing math to her two-year-old. In addition to this, I have notes from a talk I had with the Indigenous Education teacher from my practicum school. Amrit will also be looking to hear from students that are not of Indigenous background to see how they would feel about learning Indigenous Perspectives in the classroom. I may reach out to students in my hometown and my practicum school, depending on how many responses we receive from the others. I am hesitant to contact elders at this stage because I don't wish to rush the process. I would like to do that in the future if possible; however, I don't know the best approach to organizing an interview and what we should be prepared with beforehand.

Our proposed outline for our presentation is 

1) Introduction to what Indigenous Perspectives are and how they relate to a math classroom 

2) Discussing our findings on the effects introducing these perspectives has on students 

3) Interactive activity (we are thinking a weaving exercise that our classmates can use recycled (or other) paper for)

Inquiry Potential Links for Annotated Bibliography

Amrit and I are still reading through our selected links to make notes and change articles/videos that may be less relevant but here is a link to our google doc for the time being:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LVYqUvWxDa52QCz-uqi5z2uUkLEbXVE5oWjvv37efNI/edit?usp=sharing