Browsing by Author "Poitras Pratt, Yvonne"
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Item Open Access Audio-walks: Moving digital learning off-screen and into balance(2022-07-19) Poitras Pratt, YvonneAs an Indigenous scholar who teaches undergraduate and graduate-level Indigenous education courses, I often challenge myself to bring Indigenous pedagogy and practices, both theoretical and praxis-based, into my classes (see Louie et al., 2017; Poitras Pratt, 2020). In the context of what has been life-altering physical, emotional, and psychological challenges over the past several years, I have placed an increased focus on the collective wellbeing of students as a requisite priority. With public health restrictions as a factor in how and where we teach, educators and students alike have had to face not only hours of screentime but also any lingering anxieties they might have had in using digital technologies. In this vignette, I share my own attempt at bringing a greater sense of wellbeing and balance into my online teaching and learning spaces by introducing you to my emerging practice of audio-walks. My hope is that you will see how Indigenizing principles can support the use of digital technologies to achieve a more balanced learning environment.Item Open Access Creative Flourish; The Effects of the Artifacts of Creativity Developmental Activity on Personal Wellbeing for Adult Learners(2023-10-03) Dickerson, Teena; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Groen, Janet; Kelly, Robert; Russell-Mayhew, Shelly; Conrad, DianeDuring the challenging isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals turned to a multitude of creative activities. Educators noted that engaging in creativity positively affected post-secondary learners’ wellbeing and resiliency during lockdowns and our triaged turn to online learning. Drawing on my experience as an artist and art educator while learning from and thinking through Indigenous principles, this arts-based research sought to understand how creativity developmental activity might affect wellbeing and contribute to the aims of reconciliation. This art-making research program examined the immediate and diachronic influences of artifacts of creative activity on wellbeing of adult learners at any level of creative capacity. These knowledge-based insights drew from the experiences of the participants and myself in the creative process and revealed creativity as a meaningful innate human characteristic with profound growth potential. In sum, educators could use creativity and the artifacts of the activity as an educational intervention to bolster wellbeing and sustain all learners through difficult times and the challenging topics of transformative learning in adult education.Item Open Access Designing and Sharing Relational Space Through Decolonizing Media(University of Calgary, 2016-05) Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Lalonde, Solange; Werklund School of EducationAs Indigenous educators who share a passion for innovative approaches using instructional media, we are inspired to explore the ways in which technology can support teaching and learning from Indigenous perspectives. Several scholars advocate the use of technology in reclamation of First Peoples’ voices, stories and other ways of knowing (Ginsburg, 2000; Iseke-Barnes, 2002; Dyson, Hendriks & Grant, 2007). Reflecting social constructionism, we believe media can be designed to build educator capacity within these special interest areas. By highlighting work that is currently underway within Indigenous education, we invite readers to imagine their own possibilities for transformative and decolonizing pedagogy.Item Open Access Early Learning Experiences of Post-Secondary Bangladeshi Students with a Study Permit Participating in an Online Indigenous Learning Event(2022-04-28) Adrita, Nujhat Tasnim; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Kawalilak, Colleen; Bhowmik, SubrataThis project explores the early learning experiences of Bangladeshi students on a study permit in Alberta, Canada after their participation in an online, asynchronous Indigenous-created learning event comprised of a video that explores issues of colonially imposed ideas around Indigenous identity and other colonial injustices. In this community-based mixed-method study that drew on principles of action research, I explored participants’ early learning experiences vis-a-vis Indigenous peoples in Canada in an informal setting and the challenges encountered in learning more about Indigenous peoples in universities across Alberta, Canada. The action research framework that informed my study guided me to take a solution-focused approach where, based on my findings, I suggest the need for mandatory learning in post-secondary intuitions for international students about Canada’s colonial past, before entering on the work of reconciliation. Due to the complexity of reconciliation, entering reconciliatory work requires careful and considered preparation in tandem with Indigenous peoples. The findings provide a broader view of how early learning experience ignited curiosity and awareness about Indigenous topics among participants, how they made meaning of reconciliation and post-secondary intuitional responsibility to create a mandatory learning session that is accessible, cost-free, and unevaluated by collaborating with Indigenous peoples.Item Open Access The Experiences of Youth from Immigrant and Refugee Backgrounds in a Social Justice Leadership Program: A Participatory Action Research Photovoice Project(2019-03-11) Ko, Gina; Gereluk, Dianne T.; Lenters, Kimberly; Poitras Pratt, YvonneResearch about the negative experiences of youth from immigrant and refugee backgrounds commonly emphasizes a lack of English language proficiency, criminal activity, and underachievement. More recently, a strengths-based, resilient, and social justice lens has been used to look at this historically oppressed population. In this research, I examined the experiences of immigrant and refugee youth in their involvement in a social justice leadership club in a secondary school in Calgary, Canada. I drew from Iris Marion Young’s theoretical framework using her five faces of oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence; and her four normative ideals of a deliberative model of democracy: inclusion, political equality, reasonableness, and publicity. I used photovoice and semi-structured interviews as part of the research design to work collaboratively with six female high school youth between 16 and 17 years of age to share their social justice initiatives with educational powerholders. The themes of identity and belonging, advocating for social justice, mental health awareness, and aspirational stance to dream emerged from photovoice participant analysis and interview data. I share the overarching themes of resiliency, self-efficacy, and empowerment; troubling Islamophobia; and reshaping the narratives of the school and community despite pressures to conform to the dominant culture. I also present future directions and recommendations to support youth from immigrant and refugee backgrounds in their social justice endeavours.Item Open Access Experiences with Indigenous Education in College: Stories from the Early Childhood Education Classroom(2018-09-05) Kinzel, Cheryl A.; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Kawalilak, Colleen; Simmons, MarlonDrawing from socio-constructivism, I work from the qualitative methodological approach of narrative inquiry through storytelling, oriented by critical pedagogy and informed by Indigenous methodology, in order to understand non-Indigenous adult learner perspectives in how Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing were experienced in the early childhood education (ECE) program at an urban post-secondary college in western Canada. Exploration and analysis of these stories through the lens of critical pedagogy and within a storytelling approach helped identify the participants’ initial transformative learning experiences with Indigenous knowledges and Reconciliation. Critical reflection on these themes led to the identification of several key findings: 1) the promise of transformative learning may be found in the students’ initial reflections en route to, 2) understanding reconciliation as an acceptance of the truths and realities of Canadian history, and 3) the necessity of experiencing Indigenous knowledges. Through the metaphor of building a nest, I see the promise of transformative learning as the foundation, or the sticks and twigs of this nest. The work of Reconciliation provides the string and the mud that, although messy, with perseverance can bind this nest together. Finally, Indigenous knowledges, or Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing, represent the contextual feathers that line this nest and provide a place of comfort.Item Open Access Exploring what Success Means from the Perspectives of Aboriginal Elders, Parents, and Educators in Aklavik, Northwest Territories(2016) Wick, Meghan; Drefs, Michelle; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Badry, Dorothy; Danyluk, PatriciaThis project explores both Gwich’in and Inuvialuit perspectives of success in the remote community of Aklavik in the Beaufort Delta Region of the Northwest Territories. From the onset, this project has been completed in a collaborative partnership with the District Education Authority of Moose Kerr School in Aklavik, which involved constant collaboration regarding all aspects of this work. A group of 12 Aboriginal Elders, parents, and school educators collectively came together to participate in focus group sessions and semi-structured interviews with a goal to develop a common, balanced, and culturally-based vision of what constitutes success in learning for Gwich’in and Inuvialuit peoples in Aklavik. During focus group and interview sessions, themes emerged that reflect a deeper, more holistic understanding of success for the community. Through several direct quotes captured by community participants, the findings highlight strengths the community has in fostering success, as well as areas the community continues to work towards. The community was determined to achieve their own success in this work, which is reflected in both the insightful words brought forward by participants as well as in a working model of success created by the community. The visions of success brought forward in this project will provide a foundation for how the current education system can be understood, challenged, and transformed for generations to come.Item Open Access Indian Residential Schools: Perspectives of Blackfoot Confederacy People(2021-03-02) Fox, Terri-Lynn; Louie, Dustin William; Lenters, Kimberly A.; Hanson, Aubrey Jean; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Burke, SusanThis qualitative research project explored two main themes: the Indian residential school (IRS) settlement agreement for survivors of federally funded and church-run institutions, and the participants’ perspectives (N = 16) on the apology to the survivors and subsequent generations that have been affected. I focus on the First Nation population of southern Alberta, specifically the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksikaitsitapi). I use a Siksikaitsitapi lens and methodology on their experiences at an IRS, the IRS settlement, the Canadian government’s apology to former students, and the status of reconciliation as a whole. Criteria for participant inclusion were being an IRS survivor and a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Semistructured interviews revealed that receiving the IRS compensation led to survivors reliving their trauma and that money did not buy happiness or foster healing. Themes related to the IRS apology included its lack of positive reception and lack of sincerity; some stated they did not watch it, whereas others shared it was emotional for them to view. Other common factors that affected participants while in an IRS were loneliness, pain, abuse, and being unable to speak Blackfoot or engage in Blackfoot cultural practices. Learning from our shared past, Canadians must lean towards trusting and respectful acts of reconciliation, and respectful relationships, which form strong partnerships for all. A Siksikaitsitapi framework is provided as a starting point for relearning, rebuilding, renewing, and restorying after 500 years of decolonization. Using the framework, all stakeholders can begin to understand and heal issues relating to overall health and well-being from within an Indigenous lens and methodology. This approach respectfully honours the 7 generations before us and the 7 generations that will come after us.Item Open Access Indigenous Dawn Breakers and Daybreak People: The Braided Journey of Indigenous Professors(2021-08-20) Shawana, James; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Louie, Dustin; Groen, JanetA growing number of Indigenous people have successfully obtained an undergraduate degree and have continued their educational journey to earn a graduate degree. Indigenous communities have more Indigenous people attending post-secondary institutes seeking Western Knowledge as this is what is offered. Indigenous graduate students can transcend the colonial imposition that exists in Canada and in universities by pursuing a graduate studies education as a tool of empowerment. This qualitative study involved interviews with eight Indigenous professors who shared experiences of their graduate educational journeys and thoughts for future Indigenous graduate students. By exploring these stories and their messages in this study, I am helping Indigenous professors share how they broke the trail for generations to come. Those who arise at dawn, when the sun rises, are known as Dawn Breakers and Daybreak People. In contemporary times, they are ones who have sought a new path of graduate studies and have gone on to create this new path for future generations of Indigenous scholars. This research presents its findings through the metaphor of a sweetgrass braid where the lived experiences, colonial-based experiences, and academic experiences of Indigenous faculty members are the three central strands. The first strand of lived experiences concerns the importance of families in graduate students’ lives, establishing a new Indigenous community, understanding an Indigenous cultural imperative, and relocating to attend graduate school. The second strand of colonial-based experiences represents some of the negative outcomes of a colonial past on those pursuing graduate degrees, including the personal struggles as graduate students with feelings of inadequacy, preserving Indigenous culture during graduate studies, awareness of the labour market, racism in society and universities, and universities’ deficiencies. The third strand of academic experiences represents the educational context of Indigenous professors, highlighting the need for mentors to help support Indigenous graduate students, understanding the relevance of a graduate degree as a condition of employment at universities, navigating finances, time management considerations, and having frank discussions to understand all that is involved in pursuing graduate studies. Culture is rooted in but not limited to the past, as this Braid of new Knowledge will serve as a gift to distil insights for the success of future Indigenous graduate students.Item Open Access Indigenous instructors’ perspectives on pre-service teacher education: Poetic responses to “difficult” learning and teaching(Race Ethnicity and Education, 2020-01-27) Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Hanson, Aubrey JeanInstructors teaching an Indigenous education course face the challenges of shifting students’ understanding and inviting them into the work of decolonizing education. Indigenous instructors take on the embodied and emotional work of highlighting diverse representations of Indigenous peoples, histories, and perspectives in scholarship in order to make this learning meaningful to students. Bringing such views to education students, who are mostly non-Indigenous, is no easy task. In this study, we examine instructor experiences of difficult teaching within a mandatory Indigenous education course in Canada. We adopt a ‘poetics of anti-racism’ to represent and explore the moments of difficult teaching that are indicated by what is said, and unsaid, by the Indigenous instructors we interviewed. We argue that poetic approaches are powerful in articulating the complexity of Indigenous instructors’ experiences, as well as inspiring moments of transformation in education.Item Embargo Librarians Transitioning From Professional to Academic Roles: An Exploratory Case Study(2018-10-17) Wheeler, Justine L.; Patterson, Margaret; Donlevy, James; Samek, Toni; Jones, Vernon; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Hayden, K. AlixThe primary purpose of this research study was to explore the experiences and understandings of academic librarians who transitioned from professional to academic roles at a Canadian college that became a university. Secondary research questions explored factors that hindered or assisted the librarians’ transition processes and the implications of such a transition. The theoretical framework for this study was adult transition theory. The research design was grounded in a case study approach. Epistemologically, a social constructivist perspective was taken. Sources of data included participant interviews, informant interviews, internal library documents, institutional documents, and external documents. Four main themes emerged from this study: readiness for transition, identity formation, communities of practice, and role strain. Key findings from this study were: (a) the institutional codification of shared academic governance required a parallel shift towards a shared leadership model in the library; (b) the librarian participants struggled to resolve perceived tensions between their professional librarian identities and their emerging academic identities; and (c) through a shared narrative, the librarian participants experienced a group transition process. Recommendations for postsecondary administrators, library administrators, and academic librarians are presented to support the transition of librarians from professional roles to academic roles.Item Open Access Metis Remembrances of Education: Bridging History with Memory(University of Calgary, 2014-05) Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Daniels, Lyn; Werklund School of EducationThe authors invite a deep listening of memories of Métis people in Alberta that represent an unofficial yet significant account of history. Engaging with a critical pedagogy of decolonization means revisiting history written from the colonizer’s perspective (Smith, 1999). These memories are explored for points of connection with official history and mainstream interpretations. We aim for hopeful remembrance by opening up the present to its insufficiencies with history (Simon, 2000). We ask: What Indigenous memories are missing from the official history of your community? What would it mean for you as an educator to really hear those memories?Item Open Access Moving Toward Critical Service Learning as a Signature Pedagogy in Aboriginal Communities: Why Good Intentions are not Enough.(University of Calgary, 2016-05) Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Danyluk, Patricia; Werklund School of EducationThis study examines the experiences of student teachers that participated in a service-learning program working in Indigenous communities throughout Alberta. The intent of this study is to share what student teachers experienced as they combined formal theoretical knowledge and course content with community-based praxis. Initial results point to a synergistic relationship between the length of service learning and the depth of critical reflection. Those education students who were able to shift their understanding of the educational gap from a deficit perspective to recognition of their own gaps in knowledge are often those who think, act and perform with integrity.Item Open Access Post-Secondary Student Services and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Exploring how Non-Indigenous Student Services Leaders Can Respond to the Calls to Action(2020-05-14) McLeod, Kyla Jean; Mendaglio, Salvatore; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Winchester, Ian; Danyluk, Patricia J.; Gaudry, Adam James PatrickIn June 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), a federal commission chaired by Senator Murray Sinclair, issued a final report that includes 94 calls to action (TRC, 2015d). The report also identifies the moral obligation of educators and educational leaders to facilitate systemic change. There is a direct correlation between several of these recommendations and calls to action and the work of post-secondary student services practitioners. However, most student services practitioners in Canada have been raised in Western colonial systems of education that have excluded Indigenous Knowledges and offered limited understanding of the experiences of Indigenous people in Canada. Therefore, many non-Indigenous student services practitioners have a knowledge gap that may impede their interest and ability to engage in reconciliatory work. This research paper explores how non-Indigenous student services practitioners can be guided to respond to the call for reconciliation and Indigenization of post-secondary education that has been made in the TRC’s final report. Research took place on the lands of the Lekwungen, Xwsepsum, and W̱SÁNEĆ families and involved participants from the three public post-secondary institutions within these regions. The research methodology integrated qualitative participatory research methods with Indigenous methodology and methods. A total of 14 participants were engaged in the study, including seven Elders, six student services practitioners, and one faculty member. The study resulted in the identification of six findings that offer direction and support for student services practitioners to engage in reconciliatory work: learn the history and reality of colonization in Canada; build relationships with local Indigenous communities; view Indigenous students holistically; examine and reduce barriers to Indigenous student retention; become consciously aware of the complexity of reconciliation; support the development of cultural allies. These findings identify a need for significant training and education of non-Indigenous student services practitioners about the impact and legacy of colonization on Indigenous people. In order to effectively respond to the calls to action, non-Indigenous student services practitioners develop an understanding of, and respect for, the histories, diverse cultures, and knowledges of Indigenous people. They also need to consider the lived experiences of the non-Indigenous students that they serve.Item Open Access Re-storying Métis Spirit: Honouring lived experiences(2016) Bouvier, Victoria; Field, James; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Srivastava, ArunaThe discussions that surround Métis identity are full of great complexities and conundrums as one begins to look at the diversity within the Métis population. These complexities can not only be understood on a macro societal scale, but also on a micro individual scale. In order to explore the nuances of Métis ways of knowing, this thesis specifically focuses on the personal narratives of four Métis individuals in order to find connections to, and evidence of Métis ways of knowing. Alongside the stories of the participants, I lace my own reflections and stories and create a narrative that ignites, reaffirms, and celebrates the Métis spirit.Item Open Access Reciprocal Citizenship: Settling into the Responsibilities of Living on Indigenous Lands(2024-09-04) Bodnaresko, Sulyn; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Lacerda-Vandenborn, Elisa M.; Domene, José F.; Gereluk, Dianne T.; Chung, Stan Sae-HoonThis study examined newcomer-settler citizenship as a personal and scholastic response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action 94. With the guidance of Indigenous principles, including relationality, respect, interconnectedness, and reciprocity, I engaged with newcomer-settlers and Indigenous peoples working in the immigration and settlement sector to consider, “How can I be the best relative that I can be, and learn from others, while living on these Blackfoot, Stoney Nakoda, Tsuut’ina, and Métis lands that my settler-colonial family and I call home?” This Indigenist, interpretative, mixed methods research study has helped me to more fully understand the costs paid by Indigenous peoples to support my standard of living and comfort on these lands. Through relationships and this research process, I have also come to recognize an ethical and decolonizing way of being—called reciprocal citizenship—whereby non-Indigenous peoples can challenge settler-colonialism’s inherent oppression by centering Indigenous truths, dignity, and liberty in their thoughts, actions, and words. Reciprocal citizenship is about the ethical acts of giving back for the gifts of living on these lands, and seven actions revealed through this study include: respecting Indigenous-settler relationships; critically self-reflecting on oppression in Canada; acknowledging one’s own moves to innocence and comfort; seeking to learn; growing settler-colonial awareness; imagining shared futures; and actioning personal responsibilities that are guided in relationship with Indigenous peoples, knowledge systems, and the land. Reciprocal citizenship brings together citizenship education, transformative learning, and reconciliatory education. It asks both newcomer-settlers and established-settlers to step into their citizenship responsibilities, so that all can live in mutual respect and flourish on these lands that that we now call Canada.Item Open Access Remembering Msit No'kmaq: Self-in-Relation Métissage(2023-04-21) Scott, Michelle Elizabeth; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; McDermott, Mairi; Donald, DwayneIn the spirit of relationship renewal and repair, I ask the question: How can we begin to enact our responsibilities to learn how to be good relatives to each other, the Land, and our other-than-human kin that is outside of the settler-colonial violence that Canada is built on? I suggest a necessary first step is to take our own self-reflective journey(s) of self-in-relation (Graveline, 1998) to locate our unique kinship networks of relationality and responsibility across time and space. In my research, I centred my embodied personal theory-making (Simpson, 2017), kinship relationality (Donald, 2021) and relationships to Land (Simpson, 2014, 2017; Styres, 2011, 2017, 2019) as a Mi’kmaw and Irish/English woman who has lived in Moh’kins’tsis for twenty-two years, was born and raised in Oniatari:io, and has ancestral and kinship ties to my Mi’kmaw relatives in Ktaqmkuk. Through the process of creating my métissage, I came to know and conceptualize colonial shrapnel as the ways in which colonial violence is embedded within our bodies through generations of spiritual, emotional, and blood and bone memory, and Elemental Kinship as a way to repair and heal through direct relationship with the elements – water, fire, earth, and air. I offer these concepts as curricular apertures with an invitation to others who are interested in moving beyond a fractured identity (personally, and collectively) toward a curriculum of remembering msit no’kmaq (all my [their] relations) at their own sacred fire.Item Open Access Stories of Empowered Alberta Teachers: Enacting Responsibilities in Indigenous Education(2023-04-30) Meade, Sarah M.; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; McDermott, Mairi; Alonso-Yanez, GabrielaTeachers in Alberta are tasked with adhering to the Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action (2015b) and the Teaching Quality Standard (Alberta Education, 2018) related to Indigenous education, despite having little formal Indigenous education in their formal schooling. In this action-based qualitative study, I employed a decolonizing methodology, grounded in the principles of participatory action research and oriented by critical pedagogy to explore how teachers are enacting their responsibilities as champions of Indigenous education. Using Photovoice and sharing circles as methods, the findings that surfaced in the data revealed that, in enacting their responsibilities in Indigenous education, Alberta teachers in this study are: encountering resistance and racism, embracing a pedagogy of discomfort (Boler & Zembylas, 2003), engaging in critical reflection and navigating oppressive structures in the education system. The methodology employed in this study can be replicated in future studies and could be used to develop professional learning for teachers in Indigenous education.Item Embargo The Relational Model for Teaching and Learning(2017) Lalonde, Solange; Poitras Pratt, YvonneThis thesis presents a learning-centred model where the goals and measures of success align in the process of teaching and learning. The education system in Alberta requires an alternative to using racial identity as a factor in measuring success. This thesis is a non-traditional creative research design which uses métissage as a research praxis to introduce the Relational Model for Teaching and Learning (RMTL). The RMTL is presented in the form of a professional learning guide to reflect a philosophy for teaching and learning that empowers educators to use a qualitative narrative approach to reporting achievement in their professional learning and in the practice of teaching and learning. This thesis represents a practical application and approach to designing and implementing professional learning for educators across multiple contexts and disciplines. As a method for decolonizing education, the RMTL offers an entry point to creating relational spaces for teaching and learning.