Blind your Ponies: Online Curriculum Development for Native Students

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Blind your Ponies On-line Curriculum
Development for Native Students
A Presentation by Lori Lambert, PhD Salish
Kootenai College
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BLIND YOUR PONIESBlind your ponies is an
old Lakota practice of covering the eyes of a
young horse with a blindfold to prevent them from
becoming frightened when Lakota warriors trained
them to jump from heights.  

• Blind Your Ponies is about so much more than
  developing on-line courses and degrees for Indian
  students. It's about overcoming adversity, false
  perceptions and personal fear. It's about
  courage, the courage to assess our strengths and
  weaknesses, to change paradigms and pedagogy, and
  to jump in and take a chance.

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Native Values

• Water, Earth, and Air are three things that
  tribal peoples highly honor. Without these
  three, we would perish.
• But it takes a fourth element to understand what
  to do with these other three and that fourth
  element is spirituality. Spirituality or
  Religion is the most important of all and cannot
  be separate from the other three.
• (Pat Pierre, Salish Tribal elder at the River
  Honoring Ceremony, May, 2000

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Perseverance

• Open your hearts and minds to a new/old way of
  providing access to Native learners who want a
  culturally based college education.
• Our Elders have asked us to earn our education
  but not to forget our cultural values, and be
  knowledgeable in the world of technology.

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Mission Mountains
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Indian Reservations in the US
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Salish Kootenai College Campus
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Television Station and Library
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Spirit of the Buffalo
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Examination of Learning Styles Teaching Styles

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Focus Groups
• Individual Interviews
• Canfield learning styles inventory
• Canfield Teaching Style Inventory

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Learning Styles of North American Indians

• Learn best in groups
• Community of learners (The tribe, the family)
• College Community
• Use of Mentors for retention and tutoring
• Traditional way to learn from Aunties, Uncles
  etc.
• Visual Orientation Show me how first

• Practice in Private then Perform in Public
• Respect for the learner, not public humiliation
• Stories
• New information based on the past
• New information relevant to my life as an as
  Indian person (Cultural Application)

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Cultural Values of North American Indians

• Importance of Family
• The Natural World
• Spirituality
• Cooperation
• Patience
• Careful Listening
• Careful Observation
• Veneration for Age

• Holistic Approach to Health
• Moderation in Speech
• Bilingualism
• No Word for Time
• Cultural Pluralism
• Self Discipline

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The Ways our Ancestors Did Things

• No Word for Theory in Native Languages
• Not a New Pursuit
• Cave Paintings
• Newspaper Rocks
• Runners
• Ledger Art
• Wampum
• Story Robes

• Cultural Relevance
• Group Learning
• Community of Learners
• Songs, stories, Traditional knowledge

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Developing the Conceptual Framework

• The mission of the Institution-The mission of the
  Project
• Philosophical Underpinnings
• Program Outcomes
• Student Outcomes
• Assessment
• Formative (While the students are in their
  program)
• Summative (When they graduate/ Exit assessments)

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Learning Theory and Pedagogy

• Constructivist Theory
• Building on prior Knowledge in Science and
  Spirituality and Life experiences
• Bring to the course Tribal stories, case studies,
  and beliefs about the Creator and the world
• Native Science and Traditional Knowledge as well
  as Western Science
• Presenting Content in ways appropriate for the
  students learning styles
• Students interacting with the content
• Making meaning of the content for their own lives
  (Personalizing the content)

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Gagnes Events of Instruction

• Gain Attention
• Capture the attention with graphics, questions,
  interesting facts
• Relevant to the learner Native designs and
  questions
• Inform learners of objectives
• Helps to motivate the learner and is the basis of
  assessment
• Recall prior learning
• base on past learning or cultural history
• Helps to encode the new learning

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Gagne continued

• Presentation of the content
• Content should be chunked and organized
  meaningfully variety of media text graphics
  audio and video
• Provide Learning Guidance
• Use of examples, case studies, mnemonics, etc.
• Elicit Performance
• Practice with the content

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Gagne continued

• Provide Feedback
• Specific and immediate feedback/ called formative
  feedback
• Assess Performance
• Final test, poster, case study, accepted level of
  mastery 80-90
• Enhance retention and transfer to the job

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Measurable Learning Outcomes

• Compare and contrast..
• Plan and implement
• Design
• Define
• (Use Action Words)

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Un measurable Learning Outcomes

• Gain knowledge of
• Will know..
• Show knowledge of.
• Will understand

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Questions for Course Design

• Does the course immediately capture attention?
• Does the course answer students relevance What
  is in it for me?
• Are learning Objectives presented at the
  beginning of each lesson?
• Are learning Objectives specific and measurable?
• Is there an interesting variety of media?
• Are there interactive activities beyond the
  assessment?
• Is feedback from instructor immediate and
  specific?
• Can the learning be applied to case studies?

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Guidelines for Incorporating Native Learning
Styles in Instructional Design

• Friendliness of instructor 1
• Practicality (Makes sense to me as an Indian
  person)
• Stories as part of content
• Caution (Practice first in Private Apply
  learning to practice)
• Experiential Learning
• Go do SomethingMake soil Dirt Pile Island
  Visit a special place virtual field trips
• Incorporating Culture
• Incorporating Art as assessment for knowing
  content
• Group Assignments
• Case Studies Tribal Issues

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Assessment of Student LearningInformation is
not Education

• Inquiry based research
• Design a microbe.
• Application of knowledge in a case study
• Parfleche /E-Portfolios
• Art and poster presentations
• Writing research papers
• Members of Ethics Committees (Role Play)
• Labs on CD Rom
• Careful of tribal values no dissection for
  scientific purpose cutting animals for food OK
  get out your dead chicken.

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Helping Faculty to Come into Knowing

• Learn the behavioral signs of oppression Anger,
  hopelessness, poor self esteem.
• Work with students individually
• Be someone who is there for them no matter what
• Read about the Culture
• Visit people who can tell you/visit with students
• Learn the stories and ceremonies as far as you
  are permitted
• Dont impose your values on the students

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Native Ways of Knowing Non Native Faculty

• Teacher as Learner
• Learn About Cultural Difference
• 550 US Tribes Different cultures, history,
  language, ceremonies, treaties,sovereignty
• Cultural Dissonance
• School vs Home
• Science vs Native Wisdom and Traditional
  Knowledge (Find ways to Blend both)
• Using Humor, but not to degrade your learners

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Implementing Native Culture into on-line Courses

• Know your Audience-
• Tribal stories
• Star Stories (astronomy/physics)
• Creation Stories (religion/humanities)
• Case studies involving tribal lands or treaties
• Using the Tribes language (i.e. anatomy courses)
• Current Events
• Indian Country Today/ First Nation newspapers

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Tyro Research

• Culture Key to Learning and Remembering content
• Friendliness of instructor Key to success for the
  student
• Talk to the students in the Course Room 3X/week
• Students need strokeshow am I doing?
• Understand extra layer of technology and that it
  can separate students from the learning process
• Understand the behavioral manifestations of
  oppression
• Anger, Poor self esteem, suicide, no incentive

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Tyro Research Cont

• Some students are totally isolated
• Understand nature of ISPs in isolated areas
• Dont blow them off because they come from a poor
  Reservation/Reserve
• There are many Native Scholars.
• Believe they can do the work.
• Let them know you believe they can do it, and
  they will do it!