First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning
First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning involves a collective endeavour to navigate what success and support looks like when finding ways to include First Nations, Métis, and Inuit perspectives and content in all aspects of educational programming.
This Leading the Process webpage provides tools and templates that reflect that collective journey and guide you through a professional learning process.
This process supports the goals of Learning to Be, Learning to Know, Learning to Do, and Learning to Relate and culminates in the design and implementation of a professional learning plan.
Use the features on this webpage to build capacity in six steps that can be implemented in a professional learning process.
Currently, success in First Nations, Métis, and Inuit education is fundamentally measured by high school graduation rates for self-identified Indigenous students. A focus on the achievement gap reflects the notion that the problem lies with self-identified First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students, when the underlying issue is educator capacity to create a relational space to bring Indigenous perspectives and content to all aspects of educational programming. The deficit lies within the realm of educator and system capacity, not with an identified demographic of students.
The research and design of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning Project has been informed by Dr. Allan Luke’s extensive research in Indigenous education. The most significant impact of his work has been the influence on ensuring the project follows a strength-based approach as opposed to deficit-model thinking in relation to Indigenous education.
Through the reporting and planning process tools and templates provided for this project, participants are contributing to a qualitative narrative approach to identifying success and achievement in professional growth. This has been a fundamental feature of the project, intended to create alignment between the goals of professional learning and the means educators have to report achievement and share wise practices with one another.
Using an inquiry-based design for the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning Project has allowed regional perspectives to be heard within a provincial context. The guiding inquiry questions that focus each of the project pillar’s goals also encourage participants to engage in critical thinking about their professional learning.
First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning Process
Development of leadership through mentorship roles
Research-based implementation approaches and self-assessment processes
The selection of resources that support implementation
Teacher professional growth and time for professional learning activities
Engagement of community members
Supports for the Six Professional Learning Process Steps
for a Learning Guide that will guide you through the use of this website.
to find a Guiding Document to support the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning process.
to find videos that introduce the six steps and provide educator reflections on process and impact.
to find tools to build your own resource binder, including a poster, covers, folders, and tabs.
Use the arrows or click on each circle in the slider below to identify the focus of, and resources for, each step of the professional learning process. This circle slider also identifies Google Docs specific to each of the six steps that guide the development of a professional learning plan.
The process has been designed so it can serve an individual educator, cohort, school community, or used to plan professional learning for an entire school authority.
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
Step Four
Step Five
Step Six
Step One: Focus on Vision and Goals
Learn about the goals, principles, and processes of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning process.
Use the Planning Tool and Reporting Tool to establish a vision and identify your goals.
Start to develop a professional learning plan, using the PD Planning Tool template provided for the Professional Learning Plan.
Step Two: Focus on Success
Explore the competencies associated with the goal for each pillar, as well as interrelated attributes, skills, and understandings that support each goal.
Use the PD Planning Tool template for the Indicators of Success Tool as your project resource for this step.
Step Three: Focus on Current Professional Learning Activities
Create an inventory of relevant professional learning activities in which you have participated and their impact on student learning.
Use the PD Planning Tool template for the Indicators of Success Tool to assess how your current professional learning activities support the goal for each pillar.
Use the PD Planning Tool template for the Self-Assessment Tool to situate yourself on a continuum of learning.
Step Four: Focus on Leadership and Mentorship
Identify areas in which you can provide mentorship, resources, and expertise to support other educators.
Summarize your areas of strength using the the PD Planning Tool template for the Self-Assessment Tool: Summary of Areas of Strength. Consult this summary to identify sources of mentorship and leadership opportunities.
Step Five: Focus on Building Capacity
Assess your competency with the goals of the four pillars. Use this self-assessment to identify key focus areas in which you will build capacity for professional learning and growth. These areas can support competencies in the Teaching Quality Standard or Leadership Quality Standard.
Use the PD Planning Tool template for the Self-Assessment Tool: Summary of Areas of Focus to identify your key focus areas and goals.
Step Six: Focus on Planning
Focus on the development of your Professional Learning Plan.
Use the Professional Learning Plan and Learning Roadmap PD Planning Tools to identify strategic pathways and actions for implementation.
Consult the resources and supports on each of the four pillar webpages. Use the resource gallery on the Learning to Do webpage to find curriculum-specific resources.
Sort the resources in this gallery by clicking on each step or category below. Mouse over and click on the icon or touch the photo tile to select resources.
Empowering the Spirit is a collection of resources curated to increase awareness and understanding of First Nations, Métis and Inuit histories, perspectives and ways of knowing. The collection of tools, videos and websites found within Empowering the Spirit lend support to teachers and school leaders as they endeavor to weave Indigenous knowledge systems into their current practice. In celebration of the important connectedness of learning and the natural world, and in appreciation of the Indigenous peoples who were this land’s first keepers, the turtle icon serves as a symbolic guide to help navigate this site. The turtle is significant in many Indigenous communities as a crucial member of the Creation story, viewed as a knowledge keeper and teacher.
Stories
Stories
“Stories, along with songs and ceremonies, have kept the knowledge alive, even when memory of actual places has faded” (Chambers & Blood, 2010, p. 6).
Chambers, C., & Blood, N. (2010). Love Thy Neighbour: Repatriating Precarious Blackfoot Sites. Learn Alberta, www.learnalberta.ca
“Inuit means ‘the people’ in the Inuit language of Inuktitut. Inuit living in the western Arctic are called Inuvialuit, and Inuit living in the central and eastern Arctic are called Inuit.” (Our Way is a Valid Way)
We can acknowledge the diversity of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples by being mindful to go beyond the acronym “FNMI.” We can reflect our understanding by being specific about naming community members. Click here to find interactive maps in the Government of Canada Map Room.
Elder Joseph Deschamps, Louis Bull First Nation
Susan MacLellan Spring Gathering 2016
Jane Atkins Spring Gathering 2016
Chantal Nicollette Spring Gathering 2016
Lisa Cruickshank Spring Gathering 2016
Melissa Purcell Spring Gathering 2016
Christina Fox Spring Gathering 2016
Chelsea Jackson Spring Gathering 2016
Shelagh Hagemann Spring Gathering 2016
Elder Virgle Stephens, Stoney Nakoda First Nation
Elder Randy Bottle, Blood Tribe
Wolf Creek School Division No. 72 Spring Gathering 2016
Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Separate Regional Division No. 4 Spring Gathering 2016
Rocky View School Division No. 41 Spring Gathering 2016
Edmonton Public School Board Spring Gathering 2016
Edmonton Catholic Schools Spring Gathering 2016
High Prairie School Division No. 48 Spring Gathering 2016
Calgary Catholic School District Spring Gathering 2016
Chinook’s Edge School Division No. 73 Spring Gathering 2016
Six Process Steps
Watch this 58-second video to learn about the six steps of working with the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning Project. Apply these six steps to develop a Professional Learning Project.
Strategic Pathways
Watch this 26-second video to learn what strategic pathways are in the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning Project.
Project Goals and Inquiry Questions
Watch this 1-minute video for an introduction to the goals for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Professional Learning Project. This video provides you with an overview of the four project goals and the inquiry questions that will help guide your professional learning.
Introduction to the Professional Learning Project
This 10-second video will give you a brief introduction to the Professional Learning Project.
Learning to Relate
As a community member, to what extent do I contribute to creating a relational space where learners are empowered to achieve success by:
reviewing resources and consulting First Nations, Métis, and Inuit community when selecting resources?
demonstrating a strong determination in the pursuit of a deeper understanding of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit perspectives and content through collaboration with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities?
using a number of strategies to engage with community members?
As a community member, to what extent do I contribute to creating a relational space where learners are empowered to achieve success by:
participating in professional learning which contributes to effectively teaching First Nations, Métis, and Inuit content and perspectives to all students?
consulting with educational and community leadership to select appropriate resources and instructional strategies to support all students in First Nations, Métis, and Inuit education?
modifying and adapting curricular programming to reflect an in-depth understanding of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit perspectives and content from a regional perspective in a provincial context?
As a community member, to what extent do I contribute to creating a relational space where learners are empowered to achieve success by:
accurately providing interpretations that illustrate insight to historical events and current contextual realities?
analyzing historical events and current contextual realities, examining relevant evidence, drawing insightful conclusions, and making perceptive assessments?
analyzing the issue with a clear sense of scope and context, fully considering pertinent political, economic, and social factors?
As a community member, to what extent do I contribute to creating a relational space where learners are empowered to achieve success by:
identifying alternative viewpoints and articulating the evidence and reasoning that supports other perspectives?
using multiple strategies to acquire information from several electronic sources and evaluating the acquired electronic information effectively?
accurately and thoroughly describing relevant obstacles and address these obstacles using creative solutions?
actively promoting effective interpersonal interaction and expressing ideas and opinions in a way that is sensitive to the feelings and knowledge base of others?
The concept of harvesting can capture and express the idea that expertise can be found and gathered to help others adapt and build capacity.
Mushrooms have been used for thousands of years as both food and fuel. These mushrooms are Turkey Tail, one of the most common mushrooms. The rope, left from previous hunters, has now become part of the block.
Habitats
Habitats
Story to come
Versatility
Versatility
Story to come
Healing
Healing
Story to come
Adaptation
Adaptation
Story to come
Humility
Humility
Story to come
Responsibility
Responsibility
“We must pay closer attention to the multiple ways our human sense of living together is constructed through the minutiae of day-to-day events, through the stories and interactions which always are imbued with a living principle of reciprocity, and hence moral responsibility for a shared future. After all, as Kainai Elder Andy Blackwater advised, our tipis are all held down by the same pegs now” (Donald, 2009, p. 9).
Donald, D. (2009). Forts, curriculum, and Indigenous Métissage: Imagining decolonization of Aboriginal-Canadian relations in educational contexts. First Nations Perspectives, 2(1), 1-24.
Honouring place and space
Honouring place and space
“Many of Canada’s Indigenous people define themselves in terms of the homelands that sustained their ancestors. These are the places where their spiritual roots lie… In effect, the land was their history book” (Ray, 1996, p.1).
Ray, Arthur J. (1996). I Have Lived Here Since the World Began. Toronto, ON: Key Porter Books Limited.
Honouring Stories
Honouring Stories
Narrative inquiry “encourages the telling and retelling of stories, and through this process it honours shared experiences through relationships and offers the ability to grow through the stories” (Lessard, 2010, p.19).
Lessard, S.M. (2010). “Two-stones” stories: Shared teachings through the narrative experiences of early school leavers. Unpublished Master’s Thesis. University of Alberta, Edmonton.
Community responsibility
Community responsibility
“Knowledge is passed down orally by other members of the community: historians, healers, those responsible for meting out justice, individuals with special knowledge of the environment, leaders of the social and spiritual societies, and storytellers… education in First Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures was seen as a community responsibility” (Alberta Teachers’ Association, 2008, p.34).
Alberta Teachers’ Association. (2008). Education is our buffalo. Edmonton, Alberta.
Perspective
Perspective
“The research clearly demonstrates that ways of knowing is tied to both individual and cultural epistemologies and belief systems. This means that curriculum designers will need to be cognizant of the implications for content choice, as it will be affiliated with a particular personal or worldview as well as the relationship this content selection has to the ways of knowing the disciplines” (Parsons & Beauchamp 2012, p. 126).
Parsons, J., & Beauchamp, L. (2012). From knowledge to action: Shaping the future of curriculum development in Alberta. Alberta Education.
Places and Spaces
Places and Spaces
Consider the landscape and think beyond the colonial history books to further understand the places and spaces we share. We can respectfully engage with regional Indigenous community members to learn about acknowledging the Treaty territory and the Métis homeland as a way to contribute to the calls for action for reconciliation.
This photo was taken on Treaty 7 territory in Okotoks, Alberta.
Vitality
Vitality
“Learning is then a lifelong enterprise eventually yielding to a self-directed path. It is also found in collectives, schools, and communities where a sense of vitality, energy, vision, and purpose prevail; when it is nourished, the difference can be seen in the hope, inspiration, and purposeful activity it generates” (Battiste, 2013, p.181).
Battiste, M. (2013). Decolonizing education: Nourishing the learning spirit. Saskatoon, SK: Purich Publishing, Ltd.
Decolonization
Decolonization
“Decolonization in Canadian context can only occur when Aboriginal peoples and Canadians face each other across historic divides, deconstruct their shared past, and engage critically with the realization that their present and future is similarly tied together” (Donald, 2009, p.5).
Donald, D. (2009). The curricular problem of Indigenousness: A genealogy of inside/outside. In J. Nahachewsky & I. Johnston (Eds.), Beyond ‘presentism’ : re-imagining the historical, personal, and social places of curriculum. Rotterdam/Boston: Sense Publishers.
Capacity
Capacity
If every educator had foundational knowledge of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, what would a student’s educational journey look like as they go through school? As educators, we can reflect on our gaps in knowledge so we can focus on professional learning that supports building personal capacity and developing a deeper understanding of our First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities.
Community
Community
Educators foster a sense of community by creating relational spaces and places that acknowledge and honour First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people. By respectfully engaging with regional First Nations, Inuit, and Métis community members, we can expand our collective knowledge and understanding of wise practices to guide educational programming.
Collaboration
Collaboration
Collaboration is the key to empowering educators with resources and tools to support curricular programming that includes First Nations, Métis, and Inuit content and perspectives for all subjects in all grades. Educators can connect with regional Indigenous community members to have the important conversations about appropriate resources that acknowledge and honour the rich diversity of ways of knowing and doing. Collaboration also involves finding innovative ways for educators to work together to design and share resources and tools.
Windmills
Windmills
Story to come.
Tilted
TIlted
Story to come.
Persistence
Persistence
Story to come.
Wisdom
Wisdom
The bison is honoured for its strength and wisdom. Leaders of eleven First Nations from Alberta and Montana have signed a treaty establishing an inter-tribal alliance to restore bison to areas of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains, where millions of these animals once roamed. These majestic bison rest in a winter clearing near Peace River.
Strength
Strength
The strong spirit of the bison continue to be honoured today. The needs of First Nations, Métis and Inuit students must be continuously assessed and supported on an individual basis, using a strength-based approach.
