Best Practices: Teaching & Learning
As educators and members of aboriginal communities work toward developing and implementing strategies that improve the success of aboriginal students, more and more best practices are identified. Research is beginning to support the use and the results of these best practices. The links below are some of the most recent sources for best practices in Aboriginal education.
The Council of Ministers of Education Canada collected best practices in Aboriginal education from each province and territory. They consider a best practice to be a project, strategy, or program that produces outstanding results according to set criteria:
- is transferable
- is validated by educators and local Aboriginal community groups
- improves academic outcomes
- increases community wellness
- develops partnership between jurisdiction(s) and stakeholders
- increases student well-being, self-confidence, identity, values, pride, personal development, or competence
- fosters sharing of materials
- creates a positive link to employment
- inclusion of Aboriginal content or perspective
- increases participation in the education system
- includes active participation in community life
Canadian Council on Learning: First Nations Holistic Lifelong Learning Modules
This culturally appropriate framework offers educators an approach that not only identifies sources and domains of knowledge, but also measures learning through the lifespan, and identifies economic, health, and social barriers to learning.
Redefining How Success is Measured: Three Holistic Lifelong Learning Modules
This report by the Canadian Council on Learning offers a summary of the development, content and use of the three holistic lifelong learning modules.
Canadian Council on Learning: Aboriginal Learning Knowledge Centre
This knowledge centre was a national collaborative forum to support the development of solutions to the barriers that First Nations, Metis and Inuit learners encounter and what their 'learning spirit' journey has been. Outcomes include promising practices, several publications, literature reviews, videos and dialogue.
CIHR Aboriginal Knowledge Translation:
Understanding and respecting the distinct needs of Aboriginal communities in research.
The Aboriginal University Education Roundtable University of Winnipeg 2007
This report outlines the outcomes of a roundtable where scholars discussed issues in First Nations, Inuit and Metis students’ university experiences.
"As I Am" 2010 NFB short documentary
This documentary is set to a poem written by Mohawk Janet Rogers that challenges stereotypes of aboriginal people.