The following is the handout with additional notes that accompany the powerpoint presentation.
Woksape Oyate powerpoint presentation handout with notes

The Institute was attended by over 30 full- and part-time faculty plus academic administrators from the Lummi and all other full service educational sites.  The following proceedings include videos, PowerPoint presentations and faculty documents created at the Institute.

Click here to view photos from the Teaching and Learning Institute

(Under Construction)

Proceedings for Day 1 of the Institute (June 27, 2011)

* Opening team building activity – Participants’ responses to the question: “What would you like to leave [the Institute] with?” – click to view notes

* Becoming a Four Year Tribal College – Dr. Laurel Vermillion, President, Sitting Bull College – Click to watch video of presentation

* Small group break out session -responses to the question “Who has inspired you and why?” – click to view notes

* Afternoon small group discussion of book chapter  “It Is Not Necessary For Eagles To Be Crows? – Integrating Culture in STEM programs at Sitting Bull College”  by Dr. Jeremy Guinn. – click to view notes

Proceedings for Day 2 of the Institute (June 28, 2011)

* Small group discussion – What do you do to motivate students? – click to view notes

*Overview of  the Achieving the Dream Initiative – Click to view PowerPoint presentation

*Overview of  the Teaching and Learning Initiative – Click to view PowerPoint presentation

*Active Learning  overview – Click to view PowerPoint presentation

* Action research group activity – Click to view notes

* Indian Education and the Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum – Click to view video

* Group Discussions on tribal sovereignty curriculum – click to view notes

* Creating a Landscape for Learning book chapter presentation – click to read the chapter

Proceedings for Day 3 of the Institute (June 29, 2011)

* Thinking and Writing as Voices for the Community: Native Leaders/Native Learners – Lee Vasquez-Ilaoa, Ph.D, OSU-Oklahoma City and Bacone College – Click to view PowerPoint presentation – Click to watch video of presentation

* Establishing Academic Foundations at the Developmental Education Level and The Myth of Indian Time – Don McCluskey, NWIC Faculty -  Click to view PowerPoint presentation -  Click to watch video of the presentation

* Closing of the Institute and suggestions – click to view notes

The philosophy of teaching and learning at NWIC acknowledges that each tribal student has a distinct, place-based identity.  The role of the faculty and our support system for students is to create access to the political, social and cultural knowledge that strengthens each student’s identity.  In order to navigate the contemporary environment of governance and business, and to access services including health, education, and housing, our students must also acquire excellent, marketable professional and technical skills. 

From the beginning of time, education has been the means by which indigenous peoples socialize children into the way of life of the people.  In our recent history, however, education has been used as a tool of colonization and assimilation.  As one of many institutions created to overcome these experiences, NWIC is committed to using education for the cultural restoration and revitalization of the ways of living of tribal students and their communities.

In order to support the education of our students, the faculty actively participates in this effort by developing their own self-knowledge, modeling wellness, taking advantage of faculty development opportunities, and participating in action-based, learning-focused research and curriculum development. In support of our unique first generation student population, faculty use strategies that support students’ college readiness and academic preparedness early in their college experience.

Our teaching and learning philosophy is based on the understanding that NWIC provides education that is:

1)      place-based within a learning environment that intentionally focuses on cultural context and integrated cultural experiences;

2)      informed by the highest expectations that students be self-motivated, disciplined, and willing learners;

3)      committed to the development of the skills of our students to address issues of social justice and support the vision of their communities;

4)      intergenerational with a specific focus on the development of young leadership; and

5)      holistic in support of students’ understanding of who they are and their sense of place.

The NWIC faculty supports students by providing experiential learning opportunities and by fostering access to expertise and opportunities to learn in areas of critical concern to tribal communities. The approaches and perspectives we use include community-based participatory research and scholarship, entrepreneurship, sustainability, Native Studies, restorative change practices, and indigenous service learning.  Our pedagogy of teaching and learning is intentional and conscientious and recognizes that our students and their families possess both content and contextual knowledge that contributes to their educational success.  The faculty encourages the gifts of our Native students by employing teaching and learning strategies that support multiple intelligences and learning styles.

Faculty and staff at NWIC model the learning community experience for our students and establish communities of learners throughout our system of education.  Communities of learners build relationships, responsibility and wellness, foster inquiry and critical thinking, and facilitate the progressive thinking necessary to fulfill our institutional mission of tribal self-determination through education and indigenous knowledge.

updated Sept. 8, 2011

Active Learning  Nov 2009

The following Powerpoint presentation is an overview of the NWIC Teaching and Learning Initiative made to the College’s Leadership Team in May 2010.

Teaching and Learning Initiative Overview May 2010

Click here to download a pdf version of this paper

Woksape is the Lakota value of wisdom.  It is the sharing of the knowledge of the people especially our elders with others so that they may learn and have good health and happiness.  It is hoped that in this sharing that good advice is offered so that others will benefit.  It is in the spirit of woksape and what I remember that I offer this discussion paper.

Tribal Colleges and Universities are described in many ways:  unique, culturally rich, culturally relevant, reservation based, even as underfunded miracles and the best kept secret in higher education.  This paper focuses on the many aspects of tribal colleges and universities that inform our identity as tribal institutions.  These are the qualities which make us distinctive institutions – distinctive and different from other higher education institutions that educate and serve indigenous peoples especially in the United States.  I will refer to tribal colleges or TCUs as the encompassing term for tribally-chartered institutions located on Indian reservations.  I also use the terms, Native, tribal, indigenous and American Indian interchangeably.

The history of higher education among American Indians traces its roots back to the early days of the colonization of the Americas.   This history will not be explored here except to call attention to the fact that many of the early higher education institutions included a mission to serve American Indians.  As public education grew in the United States simultaneous with the termination and relocation periods in Native historical experience, the intention of assimilation of Native peoples became more entrenched in educational practice.  American Indian history was minimally addressed, if at all, in curriculum and teaching and there was essentially no Native culture and language in higher education institutions throughout the country.  With WWII and the Korean Wars, Native people had become increasingly exposed to American society.  This along with the impact of relocation and termination and the rise of the civil and native rights movement caused many Native leaders on reservations to examine how their tribal communities had been impacted by the assimilation experience, what the status of development and management of tribal resources and programs looked like, and whether there was any positive value in sending young people off to college.  College entrance was dismal and successful attainment of degrees practically non-existent.

In preparing this discussion paper, I considered the identifiers of tribal colleges as those which are obvious – mission, location, student demographics, tribal charter; and those which are contextual and therefore more subtle as definers of a separate and distinct identity – such as the vision of the founders of the tribal college movement, character and nature of our students and the experiences that they bring into our settings, and the ways that the spiritual life of the people are integrated into the daily life of tribal colleges.

Tribally controlled colleges and tribally chartered colleges are terms often used to describe the institutions discussed here.  The foundational characteristic of these institutions is that they are established by a tribal government through a charter using the governance authority of the respective tribe.  I do not intend in this discussion to include institutions whose charters or incorporation exist under other authorities such as a corporation or federal charter or which are operated by the federal government.  The establishment of a tribally chartered institution is inherently a distinct experience because it puts the tribes as governments in charge of their own higher education experiences.

Tribal College and University leadership identified that our collective voice is one of our unique characteristics.  We have been able through the solid leadership of the founders and current members of American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) to maintain a cohesive voice for the preservation of the tribal college identity and the tribal college movement. Our voice which calls attention to the unique government-to-government relationship of our tribal governments with the federal government reinforces the establishment of the tribal colleges as an act of tribal self-governance.   Noteworthy is that AIHEC has evolved from a consortium of six tribal colleges with a focus on legislative funding to a 37-member organization with a broad policy and educational agenda that has significant national influence in higher education.

Also important to acknowledge is the role that tribal colleges have played in the international indigenous education community particularly through the establishment of the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC) an organization that promotes collaboration among indigenous higher education programs and institutions.

Related discussions that are inclusive of this discussion of the identity of the tribal colleges include the roles and opportunities associated with accreditation, academic assessment and institutional effectiveness, Native language restoration, land acquisition and development, and protection of inherent and acquired rights.  All of these issues and many others such as our land-grant status must relate to the identity of the tribal colleges and universities to be relevant.

VISION AND PURPOSES

Tribal colleges have an identity that is distinctive from other higher education institutions and from other Native-serving institutions.  Although the missions of the tribal colleges describe the cultural, social and economic roles of the institutions, they only touch upon the true intention of tribal colleges – which is the preservation of our identities as tribal people for all of eternity.  Not only do tribal colleges maintain existing cultural practice and traditions, in many instances, tribal colleges are a place of restoration of hidden or lost knowledge.  As described by Joan LaFrance and Richard Nichols in the Indigenous Evaluation Framework (Indigenous Evaluation Framework: Telling Our Story in Our Place and Time, 2008, AIHEC) as Native people our knowledge is not only what we learn and discover but is also what we acquire through spiritual engagement and practice.  What LaFrance and Nichols have done is provide a contemporary description of what the founders of tribal colleges knew – that a tribal college education would be a source of both learned and acquired knowledge.  Our founders defined the vision of TCUs is the preservation of the traditional practices, belief systems, languages and values of indigenous people.  They saw the importance of this in the development of the leaders of our reservations who would be called upon to negotiate challenging environments heavily influenced by western knowledge and experiences.  They wanted us to ensure that those qualities that make each tribal people unique are valued and promoted in the educational and community life of the institution.  No other educational institution regardless of its public or private mission has this vision of our survival as tribes as its deepest and most heartfelt intention.  This values-based mission is also well-grounded in the understanding that spiritual life is embedded in the everyday life of American Indian people and thus cannot be “taught” as a separate educational function.

It is well documented that the early founders of the TCUs looked at the whole picture of higher education for native people and found it sorely lacking in both quality and quantity.  There is some evidence that discussions of junior colleges or higher education programs on reservations were first held in the 1950s, probably as a result of the returning veterans and the recognition that termination was encroaching dramatically on Native rights and identity.  With the advent of anti-poverty programs and the civil rights movement came increased access across the country to higher education through community colleges systems and workforce training programs.  This combined with the rise of the American Indian Movement and the renewed federal and tribal commitment to tribal self-governance resulted in the establishment of the first tribally-controlled education institutions including Dine College (formerly Navajo Community College) as the first tribal college.  Dine College was quickly followed by the Lakota Higher Education Center (Oglala Lakota College) and the Rosebud College Center, (Sinte Gleska University) in 1969 and the early 1970’s.  Joined by other tribal institutions over the years, tribal colleges and universities now include 31 tribally-chartered institutions in the US, one in Canada, and five other tribal institutions who are now members of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC).

The founders of the TCUs described their vision in their founding documents as well as various speeches and writings both published and unpublished.  Many of the stories of the establishment of the tribal colleges are housed in the archives of AIHEC and at the various institutions themselves.  It is important to note that the strong and dynamic oral history of the tribal colleges is another of the distinctive characteristics of the TCUs.  The use of our oral history especially through storytelling is a valued and accepted means of remembering both our identity and our vision.  Among the written statements about the founding of the TCUs are statements contained in the book: Tribally Controlled Colleges:  Making Good Medicine by Dr. Wayne Stein, former President of Standing Rock Community College (Sitting Bull College) and now a professor at Montana State University. (American Indian Series Vol. 3, 1992, Peter Lang Pub Co)  Examples of founders’ statements from Navajo Community College, Oglala Sioux Community College and Rosebud Tribal College illustrate the early defining of the distinct tribal college mission, italics added to stress founding themes:

Among the founding principles of Navajo Community College (Roessel & Board of Regents, 1968-69)

1. For any community or society to grow and prosper, it must have its own means for educating its citizens.  And it is essential that these educational systems be directed and controlled by the society it is intended to serve.
2. If a community or society is to continue to grow and prosper, each member of that society must be provided with an opportunity to acquire a positive self-image and a clear sense of identity.  This can be achieved only when each individual’s capacities are developed and used to the fullest possible extent.  It is absolutely necessary for every individual to respect and understand his culture and his heritage; and he must have faith in the future of his society.
3. Members of different cultures must develop their abilities to operate effectively not only in their own immediate societies but also in the complexities of varied cultures that make up the larger society of man.

Early mission of Oglala Sioux Community College (1971)

Tribal:  to provide the Oglala Sioux as a sovereign people with trained human resources and personnel (and) to assist people with being active, productive members of their communities and the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

Cultural:  to present the Lakota view in teaching within the professional, occupational and community programs (and) to develop the Lakota culture as an area of study in itself (and) to research, study and disseminate the Lakota language, culture and philosophy.

Academic:  high academic standards, open enrollment, access, basic skills and human values, work with other institutions and agencies.

Community:  assist with determination of development needs of the reservation districts and communities in furthering their goals (and) to provide sound, basic education or GED.

Lastly, the late Jerry Mohatt, founding President of Sinte Gleska College spoke to the importance of his stepping aside to an Indian President, Lionel Bordeaux…”to be true to the mission and goals of serving the Rosebud People: providing quality higher education, always listening to the grassroots people of the communities, being locally and Indian controlled, and preserving and promoting the Lakota language and culture.”

Many similar statements and related stories exist for all of the tribal colleges regardless of whether they were established in the early years of the movement or more recently as evidenced by the founding mission of a newer member of AIHEC:

The College of the Muscogee Nation is the institution of higher education for the Muscogee Creek Nation emphasizing native culture, values, language and self determination. The College will provide a positive learning environment for tribal and non-tribal students as citizens of a tribal and global society supported by teaching excellence and will offer exemplary academic programs that meet student, tribal, and societal needs. Through instructional quality and visionary leadership, the College of the Muscogee Nation will encourage lifelong learners, for personal growth, professional development, and intellectual advancement.

The cultural vitality of tribal people as evidenced by strong tribal identity, social and economic prosperity, and maintaining the integrity of knowledge and practice represents the vision of the founders.  Tribal colleges are the only higher education institutions established through this vision.

DEFINING PLACE-BASED IDENTITY OF THE TCUs

Tribal colleges are reservation based institutions whose identity is irrevocably linked to the nature of the reservation experience.   Whether established as institutions on reservations that are the traditional homelands of Native people or on lands that came from the experience of being dispossessed of their homelands, the joys and sorrows of the lives of Native people permeate the lands and the resources on which tribal colleges thrive.  Up until the establishment of tribal colleges in Oklahoma, tribal colleges arose primarily out of the historic homelands of Native people.  This historical and contemporary experience includes the knowledge of how the people originated, how the land and resources came to be, and how the other nations joined humans in the time of creation.  Each tribe is unique in its understanding of creation and possesses all the knowledge of its identity in the language, experiences and history associated with the place of their origin.  Tribal colleges established in places where their people have been located as the result of forced removal have the challenge of reaching back to the lands of their people’s birth for their understanding of their world.

Dr. Stein also references the many challenging experiences that the early tribal college founders had as they promoted their institutions throughout higher education.  In the context of those experiences lie important descriptors of who the tribal colleges are.  For example, describing an experience of Dr. Ned Hatathli of Navajo Community College at a news conference in Washington in 1974 when asked why a tribal college, what makes a tribal college different, after some thought he replied “for one thing, we don’t teach that Columbus discovered America.”  This statement is indicative of our understanding that what tribal colleges teach is the history and knowledge of the world from tribal perspectives. Over the years, the experience of education at tribal colleges has evolved as Native scholars emerge more fully in the world of academia bringing research and curricular skills and improved teaching skills.  The evolving philosophy of education at the tribal colleges remain solidly based in tribal knowledge and scholarship as we have defined it as our way of thinking and our way of knowing the world.  Native Studies thrives in the tribal colleges in ways that are unknown in other settings.  It is place-based and deeply interwoven with the spiritual life of the people.  Native students at TCUs and the Native scholars and teachers who work with them have constructed an understanding of Native knowledge that interprets traditional knowledge and life for the contemporary settings that we live in today.

Also important in the definition of the tribal college is the commitment to both the sense of being a nation of tribal people and the sense of community and kinship that are inherent in tribal life.  Tribal colleges fill the need of Native people to “be at home” and to go college with each other.  Tribal colleges reach out to the people of tribal communities who despite a rich and abundant tribal culture are often left behind in the allocation of resources and services.  The grassroots people of the reservations are both the people with rich cultural lifestyles and those who have been disenfranchised from services including employment, health and education.  Sometimes those two sets of characteristics are held by the same group of people.  Regardless of the situation, tribal colleges reach out into tribal communities in ways that other institutions cannot, both because of their location and because of the nature of their educational services.  As tribal colleges mature there are generational experiences with education where the children and grandchildren of early tribal college programs are now students.  This multi-generational experience tied to the place-based tribal college is not easily replicated in other educational environments- it is most unique to tribal colleges.

In America today, most public education is solidly grounded in the development of productive citizenship which generally means the development of individuals who are economically prepared to contribute to society.  Although there is debate today over the role of the university and public higher education, it is difficult to challenge the perception of education as an economic tool when examining the allocation of resources and the priorities associated with innovation, technology, business and other economic engines.  Certainly, institutions with religious missions generally promote certain religious values and may or may not be in the practice of the promotion of certain religions.  They will often have core academic programs that are mission based from a religious perspective but will still focus considerable resources on economic outcomes.  I recall that during the time of the Indian Nations at Risk Task Force and its reports including the commissioned papers (Indian Nations at Risk, 1991, Department of Education, Washington DC) the United States educational and political agenda engaged Goals 2000 – aspirations for the competitive edge for America lie with economic drivers such as math, science and technology.  Tribal colleges as part of the overall tribally controlled education movement rejected that notion. The task force report began to clearly define what had long been known in our tribal communities – our goal is to develop human beings as tribes describe humanness.  We recognized that economic contributions are but one aspect of our wholeness as human beings.

Another way in which the tribal colleges are particularly unique is that the early founders of the TCUs established their institutions out of a genuine understanding of and experience with Native spiritual life.  They called upon their spiritual practices both for guidance and to assure success.  This foundational spiritual quality does not exist in public education today.  Faith based institutions may have similar foundational qualities with missions that are focused on spiritual and religious ways of living but are generally they are not in existence to preserve the identity and life ways of particular racial groups (in this case, indigenous people).  This is not to imply that spirituality does not exist for people involved in public higher education, rather it recognizes that spirituality is generally viewed as an external or at best peripheral endeavor.

Integrated in the spiritual practices inherent at tribal colleges is the necessary role of natural and customary law in the fulfillment of social relationships and in the governance of the institutions.  Most institutions practice a form of shared governance that empowers Native leadership and offers a consultative model of decision making.  Family, extended family and tribally-defined relationships such as tiyospaye and clan relationships are inherently part of the tribal college experience due to the cultural life and place-based location of the colleges.

SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT

Also critical to understanding the identity of the tribal colleges is knowledge of how they impact the social, economic, and political climates of the reservations in ways that off-reservation and mainstream experiences cannot.  Tribal colleges due both to their missions and their locations are by their nature influential in community life.  One aspect of the university in western society as a place of study and critical thought has translated itself well into the expression of activism at the TCUs.  Students learn how their tribal history and identity is not only critical to their tribe’s survival; it is interwoven in the lives of other tribal nations and in a more global experience of human beings.  Tribal colleges help students, staff and community members find their voice as Natives and as part of Creation.

TCUs are catalysts for community transformation, fostering economic growth and the development of the Tribe’s knowledge base.  TCUs model economic prosperity, often thriving in economic situations where the standard of living is significantly below the poverty level.  They can provide a steadfast source of tribal employment and pour millions of dollars into local economies through financial aid, payroll and direct services such as construction projects.  TCUs are often a primary driver of business development through incubation projects and technical assistance services.

In many instances, tribal colleges are the place where students learn about their family history and develop a strong sense of kinship.  They may learn for the first time about the history of tribes in the US, about Indian education, or about how to conduct themselves in tribal settings.  Poverty, disenfranchisement, and oppression along with mainstream media and transitory populations have severely hampered the ability of families to pass along tribal knowledge and skills.  Tribal colleges are a source for this knowledge as well as affording students access to different opportunities to practice traditional ways.

Political activism is another key characteristic of tribal colleges.  Ranging from advocacy for wellness and healthy living to educational reform to the reform of tribal government, tribal college students and staff are fully engaged tribal citizens when addressing the myriad of needs and issues in their tribal communities.  Lionel Bordeaux, President of Sinte Gleska University and the longest serving tribal college president is a clear voice of the intention of the founders of the tribal college movement to bring governmental reform to tribal nations through advocacy of a return to more traditional practices and values within the governance and social systems of the reservations.

Education in the US is a political act for indigenous people and especially for our Native students – they are taught a curriculum that promotes American/Western culture, capitalism and individualism.  They are taught with methodologies that do not honor their ways of knowing and which are not effective for their learning.  Most Native Studies classes at non-tribal college institutions are designed to be taught to non-native students.  Native Studies at tribal colleges is for native students.  It is a collective experience with indigenous ways of knowing at the core of its design.  The experience of education at tribal colleges evolves out of the best practices of teaching and learning with Native students.

CONSTITUENCIES AND LEADERSHIP

Tribal colleges serve an exceptional student population. Our students are reservation based, usually people with limited or no access to higher education and often with limited or no access to many other services including government, health and business services.  They are almost always rural and don’t have much family history of higher education.   Their historical experience with education is likely to be filled with trauma.  Their successful experiences at the tribal college foster a strong sense of accomplishment and a feeling of ownership of both their educational experience and of the tribal college.  The deepest cultural knowledge of their tribes is usually held by them or someone in their family and they are eager to take advantage of the education offered by the tribal college because it resonates with their cultural and familial experiences.

The people we serve are not only the students of the tribal colleges they are the teachers and scholars of their tribal nations.

Students at tribal colleges share that tribal colleges are a sanctuary, a safe place, often a place where a student feels that his or her life is being saved and transformed.  Students tell us that they have more opportunities to participate in the college experience at tribal colleges because they are not a number with us – they are our relatives, both literally and figuratively.

Similar to our student population are the characteristics of the faculty and staff at TCUs.  Because TCUs are reservation based institutions, our total native employee population will be high while the percentage of faculty who are not native will be significant. This is primarily due to the limited number of available trained Native individuals for faculty positions and the challenges associated with offering competitive opportunities for Native educators.  Under-recognized across the academy is that at the TCUs are some of the most knowledgeable Native faculty and scholars in the country.  The faculty and staff of the TCUs are experts at the education of American Indian adults and often possess the most knowledge of how to provide a seamless education experience in tribal communities.

Because of the community based nature of tribal colleges the academic and community programs of the college are accountable to the community’s elders and leaders.  This accountability goes beyond the expectations of any external evaluator including accreditation agencies.  It is often rigorous and challenging because the expectations and hopes of the tribal elders and leaders for the future of their children rest with the opportunities and resources of the tribal college.  Faculty and staff whether or not they are members of the community or tribe are responsible for a very close-up form of accountability.  At any moment, a student’s auntie might come to visit the campus or a young mother may bring her children to class.  This is almost unheard of in other educational settings.

A case study of Cankdeska Cikana Community College (CCCC) on the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota by Eric Longie and Annmaria Rousey (The Tribal College as Family Support System, American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 44 No. 9, May 2001, Sage Publications) demonstrates the crucial role of the place-based tribal college in support of Native student success.  Their study discusses the ways CCCC supports students in a manner that is different from non-tribal institutions.  This includes the expression of cultural and family support through the College’s mission and programs, the social services support provided by the College to its students, and the ability of the tribal college to be responsive to the student’s familial and social obligations as central in the College’s place-based role.  Their study examines the impact of this central characteristic of family and social support on the higher student retention and successful graduation of at-risk students at tribal colleges. It reinforces that the reservation or place-based role of the tribal college is critical to student identity and achievement.

The governing boards of the tribal colleges are also reflective of this community experience.  Regardless of whether elected or appointed, board members have governance roles at TCUs because of political, social, cultural and familial relationships.  Many board members are graduates of tribal colleges (as are an increasing number of TCU presidents), but they may also have little or no formal education.   Often they have deep ties to the grassroots members of tribal communities, to the cultural and spiritual leadership, and to the extended families who comprise most of our tribes.  They will live in the communities served by the tribal colleges.

Finally, presidents of tribal colleges also bring critical leadership and knowledge to the identity of tribal colleges.  As Janine Pease identified in her dissertation: The Tribally Controlled Community Colleges Act of 1978: An expansion of Indian trust responsibility (Montana State University 1994) a study of tribal college leaders revealed that the (Plains Indian) warrior traditions of spiritual strength and courageous dedication are notable characteristics of the TCU president.  Her description of the leadership prior to 1994 applies still today …”they were raised up in the tribal community with the values of family sharing, generosity, warrior commitment and spiritual dedication.”   Rarely does the opportunity exist for a college president to significantly influence the future of a cohesive and defined group of people in the way that a TCU president can impact the people served by his or her institution.  In tribal colleges, the presidency is very personal.

HONORING THE TCU IDENTITY

Native people are becoming increasing multi-tribal or multi-racial with the majority now living in urban areas.  Few opportunities for employment exist on many reservations so economic hardship has caused more Natives to move to cities for jobs.  We also have multi-generational residency in population centers where our relatives had been sent during relocation.  Because of access to media through television and the internet, our young people are increasing global citizens.  We are at a critical time in the protection of our nationalism as tribal people.  It is important that all Native people and their allies re-commit to the preservation and restoration of tribal languages and cultural knowledge and practices.  We should do everything possible to preserve our homelands and to teach our children and their families about their inherent rights and about the protections and rights afforded to us by treaties.  We must honor and practice our traditional and customary laws, our ways of governing, and our spiritual teachings.  Without these qualities, we do not exist at tribal people, not in a way that our ancestors would recognize.

Other institutions educate American Indian and indigenous students.  They provide opportunities for research and scholarship and build lasting and productive relationships with tribal communities.  They employ some of the most talented and well-educated Native people in the country in their various colleges and programs.  We honor and respect the work of Native faculty and staff at those institutions.  We support our Native students who attend those institutions and defend their right to a quality education at whatever place they choose.  However, these institutions no matter how many Native students attend, no matter how well-intentioned, no matter how long their relationships with surrounding tribes, are not tribally controlled colleges.

Tribal colleges are distinct because they are institutions of a specific place.  Tribal knowledge is gathered and taught at the tribal college from the context of the tribe’s place and all the teachings that go with that.  Traditional knowledge is taught in a contemporary setting just as the founders intended.  Tribal colleges are places where scholars and teachers have found strategies for preservation and restoration of knowledge in a place that might be a called a “living laboratory”.  They are places where Native students go to school with each other and work and learn toward living a life of balance – one that honors identity while developing skills and abilities to lead our tribes, manage our resources, and take care of our families.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

American Indian Higher Education Consortium (www.aihec.org)

Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education (www.tribalcollegejournal.org)

American Indian College Fund (www.collegefund.org)

Tradition and Culture in the Millennium: Tribal College and Universities (Warner & Gipp, editors, 2009, Information Age Publishing)

Tribal Colleges:  Shaping the Future of Native America (1989, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching)

Native American Colleges:  Progress and Prospects (1997, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching)

Author Bio:

Cheryl Crazy Bull, Wacinyanpi Win (They Depend on Her), is Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation.  Currently residing in Washington State where she has served as President of Northwest Indian College since October 2002, Cheryl is the at-large member of the Executive Committee of AIHEC.  She previously served as AIHEC Board Chair for four years, worked at Sinte Gleska University for 17 years and as the Superintendent of St. Francis Indian School on the Rosebud Reservation for over 4 years.

“Blogging allows us to think out loud together.” – Scott Rosenberg, “How Blogs Changed Everything”

Overview

A blog (short for weblog) is typically described as an online journal where entries are displayed in reverse chronological order.  A number of services and software platforms have developed that make this process nearly as simple as word processing.  As a result, it has become possible for someone without any knowledge of web design or HTML to publish content to the web.  While the traditional journaling use of blogs is certainly still common, blogs have evolved into much more than just a place to post journal entries online.  They have become, more importantly, personal publishing spaces.  What was once the exclusive domain of large media companies–the ability to publish to a mass audience–is now easily accessible to anybody with an internet connection.  While this has always been true about the web, the important difference with blogs is that they require very little technical knowledge to use them.  This simplicity is important, because as author Clay Shirky points out, “Communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.”  (Here Comes Everybody, 2008)  The ease of use that blogs bring makes them a useful tool for educators and students to extend teaching and learning into online spaces.  They can now focus on the sharing of ideas that can be facilitated and the connections that can be made between people without being distracted by technical details.

In thinking about blogs as personal publishing platforms, it is important not to confuse the characteristics of blog-based web publishing with publishing in print.  Personal publishing through blogs differs in some fundamental ways.  Print publishing, along with other traditional forms of media are mostly one way affairs.  They follow a broadcast model in which messages are sent out and the majority of people are merely consumers of the information.  With blogs, however, people are both consumers and creators of content.  It is a participatory medium that engages people as writers as well as readers, and as a result, is much more social in nature.  In addition, blogs provide a mechanism for readers to leave comments back to the author, providing a direct communication link between the writer and the reader.  The resulting form of communication created through blogs more resembles a conversation than a static printed document.  In addition, as people read, write and comment on each others’ blogs, the practice can encourage the formation of community through the shared conversations that emerge.  Many groups, including many colleges and universities, have adopted shared blogging platforms (many blogs hosted on the same system).  This allows for connections to be more easily fostered and managed between members of the group, in essence, turning the personal publishing platform into a community publishing platform.

The use of blogs for education is not necessarily a methodology in and of itself, but a form of communication, through which many different methodologies can be applied.  Blogs are flexible in their application and therefore lend themselves well to a wide range of creative uses.  That being said, there are many use cases that have been well tested and studied.  In a review of the literature on using blogs in higher education, Leslie and Murphy (2008) identified two major themes that speak to their efficacy 1) the facilitation of social interaction and social presence (including opportunities for group communication and feedback) and 2) the social and collaborative construction of knowledge (providing opportunities for community centered sharing).  In addition, other identified benefits of blogging include:

• encouraging students to take ownership of their learning, and to publish authentic artifacts containing their thoughts and understanding. (Ferdig and Trammell 2004)
• supporting community-centered instruction (Gergen 2002)
• offering a means to share knowledge and to help others (Anderson 2005)
• facilitating group communication (Grant 2006)
• allowing social learning experience to flow from learner to group and from group to learner. (Downes 2004)

The most common use of blogs has been in their original sense as an online journal used for sharing reflections, thoughts and ideas over time.  Using blogs in this way supports social constructivist pedagogies.  Teaching strategies that focus on learning through collaborative inquiry, shared narratives or reflection on experiences lend themselves well to using blogs.

Applicability to Native American Students

In a study on culturally targeted course redesign for distance learning classes, Hai-Jew (2008) identified the following qualities as being essential to culturally relevant instruction:

• They must maintain fluid student-teacher relationships; demonstrate a connectedness with all of the students, and develop a community of learners, among which students learn collaboratively and responsibly (Autumn 1995, p. 480).
• Culturally responsive instructors also need to view knowledge as “shared, recycled, and constructed,” and they must build bridges or scaffolding to facilitate learning; they must use a range of multi-faceted assessments for multiple forms of excellence (Autumn, 1995, p. 481).

The demonstrated ability of blogs to facilitate social interactions and the community nature of blogging support the qualities identified by Hai-Jew.  Also, the importance of viewing knowledge as “shared, recycled and constructed” matches up well with the ability of blogs to support social and collaborative construction of knowledge.

Blogs allow students to have a space where they can publish their ideas and their share them with one another.  This ability makes them an excellent tool to support learning through the sharing of personal experiences or narratives.  Native American journalist, Victor Merina, explains that, “the ability to hear the authentic voices and to share those voices with an audience is vital when it comes to covering Indian Country.” He sees the Internet and weblogs as a way to extend the long tradition of communication through storytelling (Merina, Fall 2005, pp. 32 – 33).  Another important aspect of blogs is that they facilitate the sharing of not only writing, but images, audio and video as well.  This lends itself to a broader range of media use in support of different learning styles and communication preferences.

Strategy: Common Course Blog

Overview

While blogs can be used in an almost unlimited number of ways, the common course blog is probably the simplest way to engage in blogging with students.  With a common course blog, a single blog site is set up for the course and all of the students in the class as well as the instructor have access to post to it.  Course blogs may be public, or they might have privacy restrictions which limit access to only members of the class if more privacy is desired.  The goal of the course blog is to create a community space where everyone in the class can connect and share with each other, or potentially to connect with an audience outside of the class.

The teaching methodologies behind this strategy for using blogs are not entirely new.  The best way to think about group writing on a blog is a hybrid of between roundtable class discussions and reflection papers.   In a common course blog, students write reactions or reflections just as they would for other writing assignments.  The difference is that with a traditional reflection paper, it is for the most part a private activity where students write for an audience of one, the instructor.  When reflections are published to a blog, the entire class or possibly even the community beyond the class (if it is a public blog) becomes the audience.  With blogging, students are expected to contribute their thoughts and ideas as well as listen to and respond to the other students just as they would in a roundtable class discussion.  The difference is that the conversations occur through writing and are not constrained to a specific place and time.

Activity

It is important that the instructor provide clear instructions for what students must post to the blog site and how they will be expected to participate.  A good way to do this is to require that students publish a weekly post to the site where they provide a personal reaction to the course material, readings or a specific question being asked by the instructor.  The instructor should encourage students to relate the course materials to their own personal experiences as well as link to other resources they find on the web.  Open ended questions or writing prompts work best because they help to provide a more student directed focus to the conversations which is key to creating a community learning space.  At the beginning of the course, it is important to provide simple and non-threatening prompts with the goal being to just allow students to become comfortable sharing and connecting with each other online.  Once students are comfortable posting to the blog, the instructor can gradually move the focus to more rigorous discussions of the subject matter.

In order to facilitate interactions between students it is important to establish participation requirements for commenting as well as posting.  A simple participation requirement might be to contribute one substantive post per week in addition to three to five comments on other students’ blog posts.  The comments are important because they encourage students to actively read and respond to what the other students write and provide a means of feedback.  In addition, when a student publishes a post to a group audience, there can be a certain amount of apprehension about sharing, particularly at first.  When a post receives a comment, it provides validation to the student that their post is being read and that their contribution is recognized.

In order to create the type of community space that engages students, the instructor must play an active role in facilitating participation, while at the same time stepping back enough to allow the students to make the space their own.  To accomplish this, the instructor should take on the role of co-participant in the activity, providing comments and questions that help direct the conversation.  The instructor should model participation and contribute to the discussion, particularly at the beginning of the course, but make sure not to dominate.

Assessment

It is important to establish clear expectations and guidelines, while at the same time allowing for enough flexibility for students to participate freely.  It is a good idea to create a rubric that outlines expectations.  Many examples of blogging rubrics can be found online, such as this rubric from San Diego State University, which can be used as a starting point.  This allows students to know up front what will be expected of them.  Providing examples that model a substantive blog post or a good comment is also an effective strategy, particularly for students who have not engaged in blogging as part of a course before.  It is important, however, to avoid focusing too much on the grading.  A good strategy is to give points to a student to reward them for their overall participation over a period of time, but refrain from giving grades to individual posts.
It is also important to use a separate communication channel to inform students of their grades.  The blog site should be used by the instructor to give feedback on ideas and help facilitate further discussion.  Communication about evaluation and grading should occur privately in a different venue.

Opportunities and Concerns

While blogging doesn’t require substantial technical skills, there may still be a significant learning curve for many students.  It is important to provide some basic training and support right from the beginning to help students feel comfortable.  In addition, students may have participate in writing and sharing online in their personal lives through social networking sites (Facebook and Myspace), but generally lack experience doing similar activities in an academic setting.  Students need direction and modelling from the instructor to help develop their ability to participate online for more academic and professional purposes.

Another important consideration is whether to make the blog public or private.  There are very good reasons for choosing both.  A private blog site can help to foster a small, safe community where students are able to share with their classmates.  Public blogs, on the other hand, may blur boundaries between the outside community and the classroom.  Opening up the conversation can enrich the classroom experience by connecting students to members of the community, experts in the field or students at other institutions.  Having an outside audience interacting with students on their blog posts can potentially be a source of motivation for students, giving what may be normally seen as just a school assignment relevance outside of the classroom.  Whatever the choice, students need to be informed about the privacy settings for the blog and the implications of the chosen settings should be discussed.

Other Potential Blog Uses

Individual Student Blogs

Instead of using a common course blog, the same activity could be done where students do the writing on their own blogs with links to all of the posts for the class aggregated on a common course site.  Individual blogs allow students to take more ownership of the blog site, to personalize it and make it their own.  If they are blogging for multiple classes, it would allow them to post all of their work in one place that could serve as a record or portfolio of their learning.  Managing a class across multiple blogs, however, requires slightly more technical sophistication and experience which may be a barrier to students at an entry level.

Instructor Blog

A blog can provide a simple way for an instructor to maintain a web presence for all of their work.  It can be used to provide a collection of papers, presentations, syllabi, or other work that can be shared.  A blog can also be a good way to share links to online resources, provide commentary in on issues in a field of study or connect with colleagues at other institutions.

Blog as a space for publishing course projects

Blogs do not need to be limited to online journaling.  Many blog software applications allow for static web pages in addition to chronological ordering of entries.  The static pages can be used as a simple way for instructors or students to publish to the web.  This is an effective means for sharing class projects, research or course materials with a wider audience.  Another benefit of using blogs is that they provide a mechanism for multiple authors to add content to the same site.  This makes them ideal for use as a collaboration space for group projects or as a single place to display multiple projects done by many students.

Blog as portfolio

By providing simple web publishing, blogs are an excellent way for students to display examples of their work across multiple classes and over time.  The use of a blog as a portfolio can accommodate both a snapshot of student work at a particular point in time or a space for ongoing reflection by a student about their own learning that captures the development of their thoughts over time.  Blogs could easily be used for students could create  portfolio sites where they can collect papers and projects over the course of a program.

Blog as point of aggregation

In addition to enabling individuals or groups to publish in their own spaces, blogs can be used as aggregation points to collect posts from multiple blogs.  This allows students, for example, to publish to their own blogs, while at the same time, the entries are collected on a class blog site.  Aggregation can also be done based on a particular topic using “tags” to organically identify and gather content.  For example, students in multiple classes could do a project or writing assignment on a particular current event.  All of these entries could be given a common “tag” and then all posts across the community that shared the same tag could be aggregated in one place, allowing students from different classes to share their work and have a discussion with each other.

Blog as news site

Blogs provide an easy way to create an online newspaper or newsletter.  Many pre-built themes have been developed to make it easy for any group to set up a news site where postings can be added over time and organized into different sections or categories.

Blog as Community Site

Blogs are an excellent way to provide a space for various groups around campus to have a shared online space where they can share information with each other.  They can be used as tools for people to publish event notices, share links and resources, post shared documents and have discussions with each other about these things.  Clubs and organizations on campus may be able to use blog sites to communicate within their group or to publicize information and engage an outside audience.

More Readings

http://delicious.com/jason4myers/blog

Submitted by Jason Myers, May 2010

Written reflection is defined as a meta-cognitive process or thinking about thinking. There are several ways to approach the written reflection process. One way is to use a writer’s log. This is a quick-write focusing on general information over a week’s time. Another type of written reflection is a draft focusing on a single piece of work. Still another is a polished piece of writing that discusses a body of work. In each reflection the students revisit information they have learned. The reflection can describe struggles, strengths, or weaknesses encountered. In each case the reflection moves past superficial thinking and into the realm of a true cerebral process or thinking about thinking (Swartzendruber-Putnam, 2000).

A team of researchers devised a scheme for scoring reflective journals. They wanted to meet their needs and the needs of future researchers/educators. The scoring techniques were field tested and found to be reliable. The researchers asserted that the scheme that was developed can be used in practical application for scoring reflective thinking, whether it is in an academic study or incorporated into a grading system for students’ work (Kember, Jones, Loke, McKay, Sinclair, Tse, Webb, Wong, Wong, & Yeung, 1999).

Another researcher/educator instructed students to write reflective journal entries using three different methods: structural, holistic, and post-structural. After analyzing each method the researcher noted that structural entries were limiting and depersonalized the reflection process. The other two avenues were more open ended and allowed for reflective thinking. The open ended reflection formats helped the writers review what they had learned and how they were changed, or not, by the learning experience (Mannion, 2001).

Many school systems in America teach to a very ethnically diverse population. To meet their educational needs researchers and teachers are developing curriculums with student input that encourage engagement through individual and collaborative activities. Students write reflections about their personal ethnicity and share in co-operative learning groups. It has been found that students who are invited to be part of the curriculum process from their cultural background think more profoundly about the material presented and engage in the comprehension process more fully (Nelson-Barber & Harrison, 1996).

Critical reflection is a skill. Educators who require reflective journals from their students realized that they must teach and model reflection skills to observe the desired outcome in the journals. Reflective thinking and writing are skills that must be taught through deliberate instruction and modeling. Devoting time to teach these skills produces quality, in-depth reflective thinking (Spalding & Wilson, 2002).

It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn. Without reflecting upon this experience it may quickly be forgotten, or its learning potential lost. It is from the feelings and thoughts emerging from this reflection that generalisations or concepts can be generated. And it is generalisations that allow new situations to be tackled effectively. (Gibbs, 1988, p. 9)

The reflective cycle (Gibbs 1988)

TOOLS and STRATEGIES

Writing assignments that require students to engage in critical and reflective thinking can be used in a variety of learning situations and across many disciplines. Reflective writing can include the use of readings, observation and experience related to the learning situation in question. Reflective writing assignments can be highly structured as in a take-home exam or unstructured as in stream-of-consciousness writing. Reflective writing may also be inwardly or outwardly focused depending on the degree to which reflection is directed towards self-awareness or development of domain content (Varner & Peck, 2003).

Types of reflective writing assignments taken from Varner & Peck (2003, p. 4)

The following may be used as an end of the term take home essay exam for the student and instructor to examine the learning that has taken place in the course.

Prewriting Exercise to Prepare for the Reflective Essay Name _________________________

Choose a few questions from each group to respond to, questions that allow you to explain and demonstrate your most important learning in the course. Also, choose experiences to discuss and passages to cite that illustrate more than one kind of knowledge.

Self-Knowledge — your understanding of how you are developing as a writer. Think about the writer you were, are, or hope to be. You can also contemplate how the subjects you have chosen to write about relate to you personally beyond the scope of your papers.

o What knowledge of myself as a writer have I gained from the writing I did in this course?

o What changes have occurred in my writing process or practices?

o What changes have occurred in my sense of myself as a writer?

o What patterns can I identify between the way I approached one writing project versus another?

o How can I best illustrate and explain the self-knowledge I have gained through reference to specific essays or parts of specific essays?

Content Knowledge — what you have learned by writing about various subjects. It also includes the thinking that has gone into the writing and the insights gained from considering multiple points of view and from grappling with your own conflicting ideas. Perhaps you have grasped ideas about your subjects that you have not shown in your papers. These questions about content knowledge can prod your thinking.

o What kinds of content complexities did I grapple with this semester?

o What insights did I arrive at through confronting opposing viewpoints?

o What new perspectives did I gain that may not be evident in the essays themselves?

o What passages from various essays best illustrate the critical thinking I did in my writing projects for this course?

Rhetorical Knowledge –your awareness of your rhetorical decisions—how your contemplation of purpose, audience, and approach or genre affected your choices about content, structure, and style. The following questions about rhetorical choices can help you assess this area of your knowledge:

o What important rhetorical choices did I make in various essays to accomplish my purpose or to appeal to my audience?

o What passages from my various essays best illustrate these choices? Which of these choices are particularly effective and why?

o About which choices am I uncertain and why?

o What have I learned about the rhetorical effects of audience, purpose, and genre on the choices I make as I write?

o How do I expect to use this learning in the future?

Critical Knowledge or Judgment — your awareness of significant strengths and weaknesses in your writing. This area also encompasses your ability to identify what you like or value in various pieces of writing and to explain why.

o Of the papers I have written this semester, which is the best and why? Which is the weakest paper and why?

o How has my ability to identify strengths and weaknesses changed during this course?

o What role has peer, instructor, or other reader feedback had on my assessments of my work?

o What improvements would I make in my essays if I had more time?

o How has my writing changed over the semester? What new abilities will I take away from this course?

o What are the most important things I still have to work on as a writer?

o What is the most important thing I have learned in this course?

o How do I expect to use what I’ve learned from this course in the future?

o

References

Gibbs G (1988) Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.

Kember, D., Jones, A., Loke, A., McKay, J., Sinclair, K., Tse, H., Webb, C., Wong, F., Wong, M., & Yeung, E. (1999). Determining the level of reflective thinking from students’ written journals using a code scheme based on the work of Mezirow. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 18(1), 18-30.

Mannion, G. (2001). Journal writing and learning: Reading between the structural, holistic and post-structural lines. Studies in Continuing Education, 23(1), 95-115.

Nelson-Barber, S. & Harrison, M. (1996). Bridging the politics of identity in a multicultural classroom. Theory into Practice. 35, 256-263.

Ramage, John D. , Bean, John C., and June Johnson. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing. 3rd ed. New York: Longman, 2003.

Spalding, E. & Wilson, A. (2002). Demystifying reflection: A study of pedagogical strategies that encourage reflective journal writing. Teachers College Record, 104(7), 1393-1421.

Swartzendruber-Putnam, D. (2000). Written reflection: Creating better thinkers, better writers. English Journal, 90(1), 88-93.

Varner, D., Peck, S. (2003). Learning From Learning Journals: The Benefits And Challenges Of Using Learning Journal. Journal of Management Education [6

“Reflective writing is a “combination of calm, quiet thinking with a retrospective focus–looking back over a period of time and considering its meaning and significance in connection with your experience. Reflective writing is a route to self-knowledge…” (Dr. Alice L. Trupe, August 29, 2001)

Click here to download a pdf version of the chapter

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Creating a Landscape for Learning:  Connecting Teaching and Learning at Northwest Indian College

by Cheryl Crazy Bull, Ted Williams, Brian D. Compton with contributions from Bernice Portervint, Jason Myers and Alex Prue, Sr.

“You can teach them to pull canoe or you can teach them to want to pull canoe.”- Willie Jones, Sr., Native Studies faculty and one of the founders of Northwest Indian College. A long-time canoe skipper, Willie often shares how he learned leadership and teaching through canoe pulling.

Northwest Indian College (NWIC) is a tribally chartered post-secondary institution primarily serving students from throughout the Pacific Northwest.  In recent years the College faculty, administration and students have focused resources and instructional efforts on the institutionalization of a transformative teaching and learning experience for the College community.  The theory behind this focus is that the improvement of faculty skills in the areas of cultural content, teaching methodologies, and content knowledge positively impacts student learning.  This learning occurs in the context of the unique tribal experiences of our students and in response to the at-risk socio-economic environment from which most students come.

Over the last several years, NWIC has accessed various intellectual capacity building resources focused on the improvement of student education, interventions with cohorts of students identified as needing support, and faculty development, particularly in the areas of cultural knowledge and teaching methodologies.  These resources target programming for first generation and first year students, developmental education improvements, cultural integration strategies, writing across the curriculum, distance education instructional practices, professional development in content areas and advanced education for Native faculty.

At the center of this effort is the mission of NWIC: Through education, Northwest Indian College promotes indigenous self-determination and knowledge.  As a tribal college, NWIC concentrates on the creation of place-based, dynamic and academically excellent education that derives from community and individual interests and needs and which promotes the identity and value of tribal cultures and ways of knowing.  Because of our large regional service area and the fact that we have students from all over North America attending our institution, we must be particularly sensitive to the diverse tribal constituencies served by our institution while supporting the priorities of our chartering tribe – the Lummi Nation.  We have to promote Native education that supports each individual person’s identity while remaining committed to the life ways of each tribe.  Each NWIC extended campus site focuses on its particular tribal constituency and we are especially committed to professional improvements at our main campus on the Lummi Nation where the majority of full time faculty and instructional resources reside, with resources allocated to site-based faculty where appropriate.

Throughout the process discussed in this chapter, we have sought images and tactile experiences to describe both the foundational values and the performance outcomes associated with our Teaching and Learning Initiative.  One of the most descriptive images that emerged is of a kaleidoscope which was created by faculty and administrators during a work session to visually express the NWIC teaching and learning philosophy.  Starting from the kaleidoscope the image evolves into a canoe with its canoe pullers representative of the journey that we are on toward improved access and increasingly culture-based education. It is a Native journey that we are all on together.  The kaleidoscope is a contemporary image that merges into the dominant tribal images of the woven blanket and canoe reflective of the traditions and practices of the Coast Salish people and other tribal nations served by NWIC.

(click on image to view larger)

Most significant in the image are the diversity of shapes, the Native representations contained in each shape, and the fact that all parts are in relationship such that in a kaleidoscope the merest touch shifts the entire image while each part remains intact.  What NWIC is doing with our Teaching and Learning Initiative is an assortment of “touches” ranging from the slightest shift in instructional knowledge to dramatic shifts in teaching practices.  The values of diversity, culture, relationships and dynamic change are foundational and weave their way into the fabric that is the teaching and learning environment at NWIC.  The images in the kaleidoscope of Grandfather’s Messenger (designed in celebration of NWIC’s 25^th anniversary by Semiahmoo artist, Stan Greene), the College’s eagle logo, the NWIC Foundation’s mortarboard logo, and embracing our homes, families and traditions all reflect what students and the College brings to this educational journey.

In many ways we are in the early stages of implementing the Teaching and Learning Initiative and it is therefore challenging to produce longitudinal performance data that directly attributes improvements in student learning to the Initiative.  As discussed throughout this chapter, we have seen clear affective changes due to the Initiative. The Initiative is viewed as emergent and transformative as part of an overall institutional commitment to a tribal and place-based educational experience.

We are a community of learners at all levels of our institution. As a result, we frequently find overlapping and interdisciplinary interests across our system.  This is the nature of NWIC as a learning organization and also the philosophy behind our Teaching and Learning Initiative and how we structure academic programs to promote student learning. Our commitment to community based participatory research on the institutional level, for example, reflects our action research practice in the instructional area.  A commitment to understand and act from a Native research paradigm resulted in several faculty and administrators reading the work of the Opaskwayak Cree (Manitoba) scholar, Shawn Wilson, who in his book, Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, used storytelling and relationship as a research methodology.  Wilson tells the story of his life work as a Native researcher to his sons, weaving his story throughout his discussion of his life’s research describing an Indigenous research paradigm.  In this chapter, we have adopted storytelling accompanied by description as our research methodology to explore the development of the Teaching and Learning Initiative at NWIC.  Brian Compton, a faculty scholar at NWIC and a member of the Teaching and Learning Committee, shares the story of his growth and development as a faculty and the impact on student directed learning while the remaining authors, all members of the College’s Teaching and Learning Committee, share their perspectives on the evolution and strategies of NWIC’s Teaching and Learning Initiative. Throughout this chapter we will use italics when we enter into Brian’s story to help the reader distinguish between Brian’s story and the descriptive parts of the chapter.

Teaching and learning, respect for diversity and a placed-based perspective have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Both of my parents were educators. As a child I grew up directly across the street from and attended a laboratory school at a university that was formerly a teachers college.  Beyond being the place of my first school experience, the university was the world of many of my earliest explorations.  At school I was in constant contact with innovative teaching in a diverse student and teacher environment; outside of school I explored the grounds, arboretum, greenhouse, classrooms, labs and other buildings of the nearby campus.

One of the most profound memories I have from childhood was when my family spent a summer when I was four years old in Bellingham while my father, a high school biology teacher, studied plant ecology at Western Washington University.  My memories of that time in the Pacific Northwest influenced me strongly as a child and as I grew up. After returning to our family home, I never forgot the draw of the Pacific Northwest. As an undergraduate in botany I was privileged to work with an advisor and mentor who opened my eyes to the relationships between people and plants from local and global perspectives. One year I accompanied him to Ecuador where we studied botany and other topics in the Galapagos Islands and up the mountains of mainland Ecuador where I met and learned from indigenous people of that place as well as learning about Ecuador’s colonial history. He also taught me a great deal about the experiences of oppressed people, given his own experiences of oppression having come from an immigrant Italian-American family. I remember him not only for instilling within me a passion for ethnobotany, but also for how he openly embraced opportunities to interact with students and others of very diverse backgrounds, many of whom experienced personal struggles in finding their own places within academia and the world at large.  Through his influence and that of my parents, I eventually learned of the works of Paulo Freire and others who wrote about the educational experiences of oppressed people.

Upon completion of my master’s degree in botany I returned to the Pacific Northwest to pursue and complete a Ph.D. in Botany at the University of British Columbia studying the relationships between plants, Native peoples and their languages of the central coast region. After completing my doctorate, I continued to teach, conduct research and do other work within and for Native communities in Canada and the United States until 2002 when I was contacted by Northwest Indian College with an offer to teach. I have been at NWIC since that time teaching in a variety of content areas from biology to Native Studies and Native Education plus team-teaching interdisciplinary courses within the College’s First Year Experience program, which helped deepen my understanding about the interdisciplinary nature of teaching at a tribal college.

NWIC Context for this Initiative

Tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) are institutions established for the purpose of providing culturally relevant, integrated, place-based education to Native students that supports their identity while simultaneously ensuring the acquisition of western skills necessary for today’s modern work and community life.  The formal educational experiences of most Native students rarely emerge from a foundational experience of Native beliefs and practices.  With the establishment of tribally controlled education institutions comes the opportunity to provide an education grounded in Native knowledge.  This is a tremendous challenge because the very structure of higher education institutions, on an academic calendar year with prescribed course delivery and predetermined curricula, is foreign to the experiential, natural and adaptive learning environments traditionally used by Native people.  TCUs have to be creative in their approach to learning so students can navigate these contradictory experiences.

Embedded in the experiences of the students, faculty and administration at NWIC is a long history of attempting to adapt western educational models to achieve an education that supports self-determination for Native individuals, tribal communities and tribal governments.  These efforts have evolved over time with varying degrees of success and buy-in from the faculty.  The current approach has been articulated in the Woksape Oyate (The People’s Wisdom) initiative. The Lilly Endowment funded this initiative through a gift to the American Indian College Fund which was then awarded to various tribal colleges for projects to support student learning, faculty development and intellectual capacity building.   NWIC uses its project resources to support its Teaching and Learning Initiative.  These and other resources over the past several years combine to focus on the improvement of the student educational achievement and success primarily through the improvement of faculty skills and through the coordination of strategies institution wide.

My commitment to a culturally- and place-based science pedagogy emerged out of my earlier family and academic experiences, work with Canadian First Nations in their traditional homelands, and the intention of supporting my students’ learning. I have tried many active learning techniques and struggled with the fact that so many of my students failed to become fully engaged with coursework and all too frequently would not complete their courses.  Despite some setbacks, I felt that I was aiding at least some of my students in the development of their higher academic knowledge and skills.  Some of the high points I recall over the years include several very collegial discussions with students about the metacognitive aspects of our academic and personal interactions.

During the summer of 2009 I attended the 29^th International  Conference on Critical Thinking. While attending the conference I became very aware of the dearth of Native perspectives and contexts in the discourse on critical thinking presented there. Following the conference I began to look elsewhere for Native manifestations of experiences linked to critical thinking. I found evidence of it presented by Native authors, e.g., in the works of Michael Yellow Bird (2005, pp. 9-29) and CHiXapkaid (Pavel) and Inglebret, (2007, pp. 93-109). Other authors addressed the concept of “Indian thinking,” describing it in relationship to uniquely Native perspectives, traditions and values, as well as the physical and metaphysical world (Blue Spruce & Thrasher, 2009; Fixico, 2003).  While elsewhere not explicitly labeled as “critical thinking,” this concept is implicit and embodied in a multitude of other aspects of Native thought and discourse using comparable language.  Further, it may reside within a broader cultural context and may be implicit within established cultural practices.

Reflection on my prior teaching experiences in light of the framework of the Teaching and Learning Initiative helped me to put my ideas about the informative and transformative powers of critical thinking, place-based education and student-centered active learning approaches into practice in my teaching. While all of these components had been part of my prior educational experiences, the Teaching and Learning Initiative helped me to focus on each of the components and see how they could come together in relation to each other. Most importantly, I became more reflective and intentional in how I could bring all of these elements in relationship and recognize and respond to them when they emerge spontaneously in my classes, as described by Crazy-Bull (2010). I also realized that since these are the same skills I want to engender in my students I could be more intentional in helping students develop them.  To that end, the students I work with also sometimes engage in a collegial approach to deconstructing curriculum that serves to further assist me in redirecting my efforts in education.  This can then lead to the mutual construction and evaluation of new knowledge where students bring their diverse knowledge and skills to the emergent creation of content that may support or even transcend the original intended content, expanding awareness and understanding of both the content in the process and the process itself.  And, as other faculty have found and noted, the inclusion of Native scholarship alongside standard texts and other curricular offerings allows for more continuous critical exploration of ideas that can yield far more comprehensive understanding of multiple bodies of knowledge from multiple cultural perspectives.

Key components of the Teaching and Learning Initiative

There are seven components comprising the formal NWIC Teaching and Learning Initiative:

• Development of a Native-based teaching and learning philosophy,
• Articulation of best practices in Native-based teaching and learning in a Teaching and Learning Toolkit,
• Development of a comprehensive teaching and learning website,
• Training of full and part-time faculty in best practices and methodologies,
• Incorporation of best practices into all aspects of teaching and learning at NWIC, including cultural integration in the faculty evaluation process,
• Use of classroom-based action research projects designed, implemented and assessed by faculty, the result of which are shared among faculty and, in some cases, prepared for future publication,
• Use of data and evaluation to substantiate the development of the intellectual capacity of the faculty particularly focused on improvement of instructional practices, cultural and content knowledge and the impact on student learning.

These components are especially important in light of the fact that the majority of faculty at tribal colleges are not American Indian, generally have a range of exposure to Native communities ranging from little or no experience to having lived and worked in Native communities for years, and are usually hired for their content knowledge and not necessarily for their tribal experience.

Intellectual Capacity Building

One of the most significant challenges of the Teaching and Learning Initiative is describing the ways in which our efforts have increased the intellectual capacity of faculty which then results in the improvement of student learning.  NWIC defines intellectual capacity that fosters student learning as the ability of the faculty, as well as students, staff and administrators, to:

• connect to the historic and modern Native experience,
• develop inter-relationships among content and cultural knowledge,
• identify and practice effective teaching strategies,
• utilize Native critical thinking and analytical skills,
• link their personal philosophy of teaching and learning with the institutional philosophy, and
• incorporate indigenous assessment and evaluation methods.

Faculty provide insight into their understanding of the historic and modern Native experience through periodic focused questionnaires and through evaluation feedback of the workshops, speakers, and faculty in-service activities.   All full-time and many part-time faculty expressed their perspectives about the teaching and learning environment at NWIC in a 2009 survey in which they reflected on their experience since October 2007.  Faculty stated that, as a result of the presentations and activities, they had:

• more knowledge about specific students with whom they interact since we began this process,
• more exposure to group presentations regarding historical changes experienced by Native Americans with regard to losses, perspectives, and responses,
• increased awareness of Lummi and Coast Salish knowledge,
• greater understanding of the significance of listening in tribal learning environments, and
• more skills with educational practices that are practical (such as teaching content that can be applied to topics regarded as practical and significant by students).

Faculty noted greater personal comfort in attending community and tribal functions because the Native resource people from the College and community shared knowledge and cultural protocols.  Equally important is that faculty indicated that they learn as much from students as they do from any formal or informal training at the College.

In addition to training faculty on the development and use of action research projects, faculty members have led workshops on best practices and methodologies.  These presentations resulted in content for the NWIC Teaching and Learning Toolkit and faculty resource website.  Pre-service and a teacher training institute have also provided concentrated opportunities for professional development.  For example, in 2009-2010, pre-service training included presentations by NWIC faculty on best practices in teaching and learning, such as the use of case studies, on-line education strategies, learning styles, and classroom management, as well as a presentation on active learning methodologies.  The Fall 2010 pre-service highlighted the action research projects and the use of multiple assessments to support outcomes evaluation.  In-service activities throughout the academic year included one half day and one full day of training on how to design, perform and analyze classroom-based action research projects, and a three day teacher institute at the end of the 2009-2010 school year focusing on college readiness/developmental education, cultural content/integration and student motivation with high expectations.

Findings from the evaluations of the teacher institute demonstrated an overall increase in institutional participant knowledge in topical areas and indicated that expert presentations from external and internal sources are a key strategy for improving individual knowledge.  Each faculty has the opportunity to share their knowledge with colleagues as expertise within the College.  Also very important to the success of the teaching institute was the fact that the institute was structured using best-practices in active learning so that participants’ had opportunities during and after each presentation to dialogue with colleagues and construct shared understandings, which they could then bring home and incorporate into their teaching.

Bernice Portervint, Associate Dean of Academics and Distance Education, has observed some of the following changes among faculty over the last three years:

• Increased sharing of articles and websites,
• More frequent and relevant individual and group conversations about teaching and learning including faculty roundtable topics, action research projects, and training topics,
• Greater focus in curricular design on outcomes, strategies and relevant assessment approaches
• Increased use by faculty of active learning methodologies, such as case studies, group work, experiential approaches, and reflections,
• Improved formative and summative assessment including assessing student knowledge at the beginning of each course, assessing more frequently and, most importantly, building on the prior knowledge of students.

Evaluation

Student and faculty evaluations now incorporate cultural indicators, assess instructional methodologies and their usefulness, and are designed to inform a continuous improvement approach for faculty.

We recognize faculty need to discover who their students are culturally, socially and individually in order to more effectively support their learning.  According to Associate Dean Portervint, a faculty member does this by using, among other strategies, the recommendations of Gregory Cajete, Tewa scholar and educator to engage in “careful observation of student compositions, informal discussion with students and family, and involvement with cultural activities within the community” (personal communication, April, 28, 2010). According to Cajete, relationship building is a key indicator for faculty and student success and includes how well faculty know the history of Native people, attend or know about ceremonial events, know something about the history of Indian education and includes the willingness of faculty to explore. Through the influences of presenters and what we have learned from our cultural educational activities, the NWIC instructional leadership revised the annual faculty self- evaluation forms and process to more fully incorporate cultural indicators.  The comment section of the faculty evaluation form now includes: teaching and learning, course and curriculum development, professional development, student support, college and community service and cultural indicators.  The faculty are currently vetting these changes to the faculty evaluation process.

Action research in teaching and learning projects, a key component of the Teaching and Learning Initiative, were implemented for the first time at NWIC beginning with the Winter and Spring quarters of 2010.    To initiate a project, interested faculty members submit brief proposals to the Teaching and Learning Committee for review and to receive financial support. Upon completion of the research project faculty present their findings to their colleagues and provide a written report of their findings which is published on the NWIC Teaching and Learning Initiative website (Teaching and Learning Initiative, 2010).

During the Winter and Spring quarters of 2010 faculty studied a range of topics listed below. Complete reports of each project are available on the Teaching and Learning Initiative web site.

• Academic Foundation in Developmental Education:  Don McCluskey
• Connecting ABE English and ENGL 100:  Kathy Stuart-Stevenson, Kathy Humphreys-Shaffer
• Connecting Math 98 and 99:  Nathan Hall, Matteo Tamburini
• Critical Thinking:  Brian Compton
• ITV and Faculty Presence:  Wayne Woods, Steve Zawoysky, Brian Compton
• Level of Competency Achievement in Chemical Dependency Studies: Cal Scheidegger
• Math on Steroids: John Frey
• Place-based Education:  Emma Norman
• Student Self Assessment:  Brian Compton, Ane Berrett
• Talking Circles:  Rose Roberts, Cindy Dodd
• Use of Kindle and Student Engagement:  Gary Brandt

One of my action research projects started as a reflection on the lack of a clearly and uniquely Native perspective available in mainstream materials on critical thinking  I was aware that many students struggled to express their critical thinking in academic work but I also observed that they were very good at collaboratively describing and elaborating upon critical and cultural thinking during class sessions and guided discussions.  I felt that a focus on an explicit critical thinking methodology interwoven with cultural considerations might benefit my students and our academic interactions.

Based upon readings by Yellow Bird and others as well as on discussions with my NWIC colleagues who were also performing action research projects, I began to reflect on the Lummi values listed in the NWIC catalog and how they relate to critical thinking, particularly:

Sela-lex^w: Our strength comes from the old people. From them we receive our teachings and knowledge and the advice we need for our daily lives.

Schtengex^wen: We are responsible to protect our territory. This means that we take care of our land and the water and everything that is on it and in it.

Xwlemi-chosen: Our culture is our language. We should strengthen and maintain our language.

Leng-e-sot: We take care of ourselves, watch out for ourselves and love and take care of one another.

This reflection led to my action research project on critical thinking and how it relates to student engagement, as well as a clearer focus in my teaching on an explicit critical thinking methodology embedded within Native cultural values. In doing so I used the introduction of a Native axiology to help indigenize the critical thinking component and structure a learning experience based on it. This approach increased the relevance of the content for students and supported them in thinking more deeply about the meaning of the material to them.

TEACHING AND LEARNING PHILOSOPHY

The purpose of the teaching and learning philosophy statement is to articulate the restorative role of education at NWIC toward strengthening the tribal identity of our students.  This purpose is embodied in the College’s cultural outcomes which are that students will demonstrate a sense of place and what it means to be a people.  Emma Norman, NWIC faculty member, describes the role of place-based education as the opportunity to link the content of courses to the physical place that is their home or, for some, a connection to a tribal homeland.  This connection creates a contextual experience that faculty have seen increases student engagement which enhances their learning, as noted by Cajete (1999). Place-based education is described more fully in the NWIC Teaching and Learning Toolkit available on the NWIC Teaching and Learning website.

During Summer quarter 2010 I took the ideas I had been exploring in my classes the past year to a new level in a place-, culture- and science-based approach. I integrated instruction and research in my classes, which included a research internship project and a Northwest Plants course. Some of the key components of the summer as it unfolded included:

• Integration of instruction and research efforts in the summer science internship project and Northwest Plants course;
• Focus on plant identification in unique habitats with past and current cultural and environmental significance;
• Using a methodology that would allow students to start with little or no prior botanical experience and make relevant learning gains over two months;
• Seeking a way to learn about science in local settings that would be of interest to students and which could lead them to further relevant academic work;
• Students teaching other students, especially one former Northwest Plants student, and including a student-led session on scientific poster design and critique;
• Involvement of an alumnus teaching assistant and Lummi Nation School teacher and students for some classroom and field experiences;
• Cohort development around topics of interest to students with emphasis on plants;
• Significance of Western scientific concepts and methods to questions, issues and problems of significance to American Indian and Alaska Native people;
• Aspects of natural and unnatural history (i.e., study of botanical, ecological and other topics in relation to post-contact environmental impacts on local habitats, plants, animals and people);
• Instruction presented in context of a cycle, e.g., the cycle of water as it moves throughout the land in western Whatcom County with emphasis on local primary water bodies and related aquatic habitats;
• Learning together by moving together through the natural world
• Study site selection based upon cultural, biological and ecological relevance and meaning (e.g., where origin accounts such as the story of Salmon Woman is represented by totem poles in association with ecological restoration efforts regarding salmon habitat);
• Salt marsh-inspired poetry for inspiration and reflection (Willard, 2004);
• The goal of success as defined by positive collaboration, the development of individual and collaborative student interests and activities, and on-going assessment with focus on commendations and recommendations rather than success or failure, performance or lack thereof;
• Seeking a more holistic and non-linear approach to teaching and learning; and
• Emphasis on experiential and hands-on learning supplemented by, not based primarily upon, the use of text and electronic resources when and where appropriate, interesting and productive.

As the summer progressed I noticed increased student interest and engagement as compared to previous summers. I encouraged students to journal in the field and, in particular, on the last field trip one student was taking copious notes regarding each new plant encountered, including their scientific names—much more than I typically observe and more than that student had done earlier in the summer. I think that the diversity, complexity and cultural relevance of study sites also contributed significantly to increased student interest and engagement. I also noted that student enthusiasm, energy and perseverance seemed to be generally enhanced in this process and several times during the summer the students continued to work well beyond scheduled class times. I believe it is worth noting that toward the end of the quarter students engaged in a discussion of aspects of student engagement as a reflective exercise on the summer experience and students proposed and followed through on a peer-review approach to the evaluation of final presentations with a focus on commendations and recommendations rather than a more typical ranking of student performance.

CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT THAT STRENGTHENS BEST PRACTICES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING FOR NATIVE STUDENTS

In order for faculty to create meaningful educational experiences for our students, we strive to influence the knowledge base of faculty through:

Knowledge of our institutional identity:

In order to deepen their knowledge of our institutional identity, faculty must have persistent exposure to the historical development of the tribal colleges, connecting with the founders of NWIC and those individuals who have consistently supported the College’s development and through guest speakers and discussions that contextualize the tribal college experience in relation to student learning and mainstream experiences.

Knowledge of our students’ tribal identity:

Tribal college students come from culturally rich experiences with a strong link between their identity and their place, be that their homelands or the tribal environment they choose to live in.   Since the majority of faculty at NWIC is not Native, they are often without a cultural compass from which to facilitate student learning.  Deliberate interactions with Native faculty, community resources, Native administrators and Native scholars help faculty connect content knowledge with cultural knowledge and supports our institutional commitment to student success.

Access to tribal ways of knowing

Students and community resources are the best source of knowledge about tribal life.   There is a growing body of scholarship and research available to faculty about indigenous ways of knowing, much of it published.  There are also many gatherings of tribal scholars, researchers and faculty including affinity groups and organizations that also include student participants.  A significant challenge in faculty access is the varying degrees of openness each tribe has in publicly sharing their cultural knowledge.  Part of NWIC’s efforts is to help faculty navigate that challenge and, in particular, to encourage their focus on student contributions to cultural integration and the importance of imparting content knowledge.

Developmental Education and College Readiness

Most of the students who enter NWIC need to take developmental education courses. Most need to take one or more math courses and many also need to take developmental English and reading.  In support of the continued academic success of our students, once they proceed from developmental to college level math and English, we emphasize that faculty have the skills to continue to support student developmental needs in English, reading and math in college level courses.  In addition to new strategies directed at developmental education courses, instructors in freshman and sophomore level courses are encouraged to learn reading and writing strategies, study skills, and to recognize and students with potential learning disabilities.

First Year and First Generation Students

The vast majority of students at NWIC are first generation college students, meaning that neither parent has a four-year college degree.  First year students, defined as any student with fewer than 45 college credits, take a 3 quarter long series of seminars designed to build cohort relationships, leadership and problem-solving skills.  In addition, all first year students take an Introduction to Successful Learning course which promotes self-motivation, goal setting and quality relationships.

Cultural Resilience

NWIC has adopted the recommendations and practices associated with the cultural resilience theory established by Iris Pretty Paint, a Blackfeet educator and scholar.  Cultural resilience theory focuses on the use of traditional and familial practices to promote student success.  Students adapt the teachings and traditions of their tribal life to navigate the college experience.  Living as a family and community are the foundation of tribal life and NWIC has adapted this model into the context of the learning communities fostered by the College.  Faculty and student services staff are trained in the model so they can guide and support students throughout their college careers.

CREATING ACCESS TO BEST PRACTICES

For many years, NWIC has strived to provide access to best practices through shared readings, training, workshops and conference participation.  Limited space prevented the College from creating a faculty resource room and hindered the ability of faculty and administrators from sharing information on a timely, as-needed basis.  The Teaching and Learning Committee determined that the creation of a virtual teaching and learning center was an appropriate response to shared resource needs which complements the existing acquisition of materials, workshops and conference participation.  As a creative resource, the faculty homepage on the NWIC website also contains the Teaching and Learning Initiative web site and the Learning Commons as resources for sharing institutional information and as a place for faculty to share external materials.  A methodologies section on the Teaching and Learning Initiative web site called the Toolkit includes a collection of faculty generated best practices.  Faculty members are paid to prepare toolkit resources with the intention that faculty share what works for them in educating our students.  The action research projects are supported with the same intention.

I’ve noticed that there are numerous parallels between student and faculty experiences in teaching and learning. I’ve found that sharing my experiences in teaching and learning with my faculty colleagues may result in richly rewarding as well as sometimes frustrating conversations and interactions. I believe that each faculty member must find those approaches that work for him or her, just as I have and will continue to do. In my discussions with faculty there are often differences in how we explore and reflect on methods and philosophies but I have seen that we are moving more toward seeing these differences as challenges and opportunities for collaborative discourse and growth rather than as irreconcilable conflicts.

As I and my faculty colleagues at NWIC move forward in this initiative I am reminded of the work of Deloria and Wildcat in their book Power and Place (2001) in that the nature of improving the teaching and learning environment at NWIC is an emergent process that can’t be reduced to any single set of contributors but instead is an organic process and requires the ongoing best efforts of everyone in the community.

Key Findings of the Initiative

The Teaching and Learning Committee acknowledges that there is a rich and vibrant history of education and experience at NWIC.  This Initiative has been evolutionary and emergent in its contribution to this history.  It is evolutionary as it builds on the knowledge, skills and abilities of our students by supporting the development of knowledge, skills and abilities of our faculty.  It is emergent in that we are still gaining our understanding of what we are learning, doing and becoming with the Initiative.   Tribal research and scholarship in Indian education–both our own and that of other Native scholars–contributes significantly to our capacity to understand the impact of education on our students and our institution.

Faculty dialogues about student learning and best practices in teaching have increased along with greater comfort with self-assessment and examination of the important connection between instructional practices and evidence of student learning.  Foundational knowledge about the cultural and educational experience of Native people serves as the basis of our faculty/student relationships.  This has evolved into greater instructional and institutional understanding of how outcomes can be used to inform teaching practices.  We are increasingly more adept at navigating the challenging implications of using our own cultural outcomes that students will demonstrate a sense of place and an understanding of what it means to be a people.  In the context of diverse tribal cultures and experiences and our commitment to tribal and personal sovereignty, our greater understanding of teaching and learning creates a renewed emphasis on student directed learning.

As Brian has described throughout this paper, students learn in increasingly meaningful ways when they are given the opportunity to explore the connections and relationships among people and their geographic, historical and contemporary place.  Student opportunities to lead teaching, to engage in reciprocal teaching, and to explore what type of learning works for them reaffirm traditional tribal learning environments that are place-based, experiential and which honor individual experiences, knowledge, gifts and talents.   Instructors have observed that students are increasingly able to deconstruct curriculum which results in redirection of the instructor’s efforts and allows for a more collegial, continuous and critical exploration of ideas that can yield far more comprehensive understanding of multiple bodies of knowledge and truly support the College’s mission of self-determination.

As a final reflection, my thoughts turn to the waters of this place; waters that may be calm or turbulent, fresh or salty, hidden away and under the surface of the earth, or present in all-encompassing torrential downpours.  In all its different manifestations water remains sacred, restorative and necessary, attributes I regard as inherent to teaching and learning at Northwest Indian College.

REFERENCES

Blue Spruce, D., & Thrasher, T. (Eds.). (2009). The land has memory: Indigenous knowledge, Native landscapes, and the National Museum of the American Indian. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Cajete, G. A. (1999). Igniting the sparkle: An indigenous science education model. Ashville, NC: Kivaki Press.

CHiXapkaid (D. Michael Pavel), & Inglebret, E. (2007). Develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. In The American Indian and Alaska Native student’s guide to college success (pp. 93-109). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Crazy Bull, C. (2010). Cultural integration at Northwest Indian College: An experience of cultural restoration. In Ancient wisdom, modern science: The integration of native knowledge in math and science at tribally controlled colleges and universities (pp. 27-41). Pablo, MT: Salish Kootenai College Press.

Deloria, V., Jr., & Wildcat, D. R. (2001). Power and place: Indian education in America. Golden, CO: Fulcrum.

Fixico, D. L. (2003). The American Indian mind in a linear world: American Indian studies and traditional knowledge. New York: Routledge.

Teaching and learning initiative. (2010). Retrieved October 8, 2010, from Northwest Indian College website: http://blogs.nwic.edu/teachinglearning/

Willard, N. (2004). In the salt marsh. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Yellow Bird, M. (2005). Tribal critical thinking centers. In For indigenous eyes only: A decolonization handbook (pp. 9-29). Santa Fe: School of American Research.

Click on any of the links below to access the report submitted for teaching and learning action research projects performed by faculty during the winter and Spring quarters of 2010.

Winter Quarter 2010

Math on Steroids- – John Frey

ITV and Faculty Presence – Wayne Woods, Steve Zawoysky, and Brian Compton

Talking Circles – Rose Roberts and Cindy Dodd

Use of the Kindle and Student Engagement – Gary Brandt

Connecting ABE English and ENGL 100 – Kathy Stuart-Stevenson and Kathy Humphreys-Shaffer

Student Self Assessment – Brian Compton and Ane Berrett

Critical Thinking – Brian Compton

Competency Achievement in Chemical Dependency Studies – Cal Scheidegger

Open vs. Closed book Exams – John Rombold – Winter 2010 – 12 10 10

Spring Quarter 2010

Academic Foundation in Developmental Education – Don McCluskey

Connecting Math 98 and 99 – Nathan Hall and Matteo Tamburini

Place based Education – Emma Norman

Winter Quarter 2011

Dispelling the Myth of Indian Time – Don McCluskey

Cheryl Crazy Bull at the Collaboration for Learning Conference in 1996 followed by a conversation between Cheryl Crazy Bull and Parker Palmer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cheryl Crazy Bull and Jerry Mohatt, former president of Sinte Gleska University, discuss the founding of the tribal colleges.

Click here to view the embedded video.