Weaving Indigenous Education into Your Practice: A Teacher's Resource Guide

Virtual Teacher's Resource Guide — Companion Checklist, Overview & Resources

This Teacher's Resource Guide is designed to support educators in weaving Indigenous education into their practice. To accompany this guide, a checklist has been created. The five chapters are divided into a total of 23 sections, each with time stamps for ease of access. For an overview of the five chapters, you can browse the video playlist here. For more information and to give feedback on your experiences using the Teacher’s Resource Guide, please contact Dr. Leisa Desmoulins (ldesmoul@lakeheadu.ca). Contact NCCIE.

Introductory

Chapter 1 — Chapter 1: Introduction to the Virtual Teacher’s Resource Guide and the NCCIE Website

Chapter 1 introduces the NCCIE and this guide, which is grounded in Indigenous education principles. Elder Shirley Williams opens with a prayer in Anishinaabemowin, followed by her explanation in English. Introductory and key background information are shared by the co-authors, NCCIE founder Dr. Mark Dockstator, and Dr. Nicole Bell. Dr. Jennifer Dockstator concludes this chapter with a tour of the NCCIE website to show viewers how to find resources and lesson plans.

For the documents introduced in this chapter and referred to in future chapters, see the Images & Documents tab.

Methodology

Chapter 2 — Chapter 2: Considerations for Integrating Indigenous Content into the Classroom and the Four Directions Education Model

Chapter 2 features two educators. First, Dr. Nicole Bell describes the 4-Direction Education model as well as a Medicine Wheel and its origin. Next, Dean Smith describes a Medicine Wheel as a "reflection wheel" and its origin. Both offer applications to infuse Indigenous education into the classroom.

To view the Medicine Wheel models and teachings referenced in this chapter, see the Images & Documents tab.

Elementary

Chapter 3 — Chapter 3: Lesson Plans that Infuse Indigenous Content into the Classroom – Elementary Level

In Chapter 3, two teachers, Ginette Toivonen and Angela Faught, review two elementary lesson plans from the NCCIE website. With the first lesson plan, Tree Tapping (from southeastern Ontario), they discuss the Indigenous components of an NCCIE lesson plan. For the Weaving a Web of Resiliency lesson plan (from northwestern Ontario), they discuss assessment strategies and connect to the Ministry of Education document, Growing Success.

Secondary

Chapter 4 — Chapter 4: Lesson Plans that Infuse Indigenous Content into the Classroom – Secondary Level

In Chapter 4, Ginette Toivonen and Angela Faught return to review two secondary lesson plans from the NCCIE website. For the lesson plan Indigenous Settler Political Relationships (from southeastern Ontario), they share strategies to support teachers to address sensitive topics in secondary classrooms. For the Land-Based Math lesson plan (from Alberta), they show how they adapted this land-based lesson plan to their urban context in Ontario.

See the Checklist tab to view the checklist they followed, showing how they adapted the lesson plan.

Conclusion

Chapter 5 — Chapter 5: Acknowledgements, References, and Checklist

Chapter 5 provides the co-authors' acknowledgements and list of references, followed by a review of the companion checklist. The checklist is a guide for teachers who are adapting lesson plans from another region to their local area and school board contexts.

See the Checklist and Images & Documents tabs for references, images and documents by chapter, as well as the checklist for adapting lesson plans from other locations to your contexts.