Pedagogical Strategies
We’ve designed the lessons and student project contained within in this guide as a way to answer the question: In an online classroom, how can we use technology to engage students physically in their local environment? Below we provide rationale for 1) why it is important to connect students to their local environment, and 2) why we should use technology to do so. For more information on the key frameworks that informed this project, please use the drop down sections below.
1. Why connect to local environment?
Alberta Treaty Map (Alberta Teachers' Association, n.d.)
Privileging Indigeneity
As non-Indigenous teachers living and working in Indigenous communities and on unceded Indigenous traditional territory, it is important that we problematize the e-learning classroom. Several authors identify a variety of ways that technology and computer mediated learning reinforces Western beliefs and values while undermining Indigenous beliefs and values (Bowers et al., 2000; Cole and O’Reilly, 2012; Marker, 2006). Many Indigenous scholars speak of the importance of the land and the need for learning to take place in meaningful contexts such as in ceremony or on the land (Hare, 2011; Marker, 2006; Howe,1998; Turner & Leddy, 2016; Styres, 2017). If, as educators, our goal is to place Indigenous values centrally in the classroom, then we must understand those values. In the Northwest Territories our understanding is guided by the Inuuqatigiit and the Dene Kede, both of which prioritize the Dene and Inuvialuit relationship with the land (“the land” includes water, plants, animals, landforms, weather, and more). If we are to place Indigeneity centrally in the online classroom, then every opportunity should be made to ground students in place. In the virtual classroom we can privilege the connection to the land by defaulting to the knowledge of place instead of the internet. Best practice, when prioritizing Indigenous knowledge in the classroom, is to incorporate experiential knowledge (Best Practices, n.d.).
Place - Based Learning
Place-based approaches to learning connect learners to their local environment, using the community as a classroom, and “restore[s] essential links between a person and her place” (Lane-Zucker, 2019). Engaging with the local environment, developing connections to the land, increases commitments to environmental stewardship (McKay, 2020). Understanding environmental and anthropogenic influences on the physical environment and their relationship to social and political actions engages learners in a discourse around their agency, autonomy, and potential to enact change, support conservation efforts, and serve as environmental stewards.
Place-based education (PBE) is learner-centered, inquiry-based, engages learner in design thinking, uses local learning to understand global challenges, focuses on community, and is inherently interdisciplinary (Vander Ark, Liebtag, & McClennen, 2020; Lane-Zucker, 2019; Getting Smart, EduInnovation, & Teton Science Schools, 2017). PBE is rooted in the primary purpose of education, that learners are equitably able to “participate fully in public, community, and economic life,” (New London Group, 1996, p.9). The community and agentic principles of PBE align with the literature and theories around participatory culture, such as emphasizing community involvement and civic engagement (Jenkins, 2009). Inquiry-based, situated learning and PBE embraces the key principles of Citizen Science, as it transitions learners from passive consumers of information to active contributors (Herodotou et al., 2017).
2. Why use technology?
Connected Civics (Ito el al., 2015)
Participatory Culture and Connected Civics
Learners are no longer willing to be passive recipients in their education, but rather active participants (Jenkins, 2009; Kalantzis & Cope, 2010; Ito et al, 2015; Turvey & Pachlar, 2016). This generation of learners deserve educational experiences that capitalize on their sense of agency in curating their lifeworlds. The new teacher, as described by Kalantzis and Cope (2010), needs to hand over the learning process to students so that they can engage in their own learning. Jenkins (2009) implores educators to create learning environments that allow youth access to the skills needed to be media makers and full participants in online communities.
A participatory culture, as defined by Jenkins (2009) is one in which there is strong support for artistic expression, civic engagement, and informal mentorship. It is in this environment that members feel socially connected to others and believe their contributions matter. Within the scope of our project, online teachers can use the virtual classroom and technologies to create participatory environments in which students can curate and document their own experiences with respect to connecting to the environment. Educators can then utilize the participatory culture of varying technologies and the virtual classroom to empower learners to engage in politics, civics, and the environment as they pertain to community life. Ito et al. (2015), explain connected civics as the intersection of student “agency and peer culture,” “interests and affinity,” and “civic opportunity.” The connected civics framework can be applied to environmental stewardship as a way to prepare students to develop their civic voice.
Applying theories of connected civics extends the potential of these learning opportunities. Participatory culture theories intersect with connected civics when the learners’ “deeply felt and highly sophisticated civic or political interests, identities, and skills” are “connected to or activated in highly agentive ways,” (Ito et al., 2015, p.15). In this case, we propose to connect these concepts with a focus on local environments, which are increasingly political. Learners must develop the ability to research, articulate, and advocate for issues relevant and important to them. These are essential skills for equitable and full societal participation.
Constructionism
According to Papert & Harel (1991, p. 8), “the simplest definition of constructionism evokes the idea of learning-by-making.” Integrating PBE into technology-supported learning environments introduces opportunities for constructionism and technologies for learners approaches to pedagogy. The six lessons contained in this guide help facilitate students construction of a final multimedia product that they can share with their class and publish to a wider community. By having the opportunity to interact with different types of online media and create a final product they can construct new relationships to knowledge (Kafai 2006). Additionally, according to Krajcik & Blemenfeld (2006; as cited by Mouza & Lavigne, 2013, p. 4), “deep understanding occurs when students actively construct knowledge for themselves by engaging in real-world activities and by reflecting on their experiences.”
Students will be using technology to take their abstract knowledge and make it concrete. Technology can support learning across time and place (Mouza & Lavigne, 2013), permitting significant implementation flexibility, local applicability, and global interconnectedness of PBE. Using a technology for learners’ approach with PBE, learners are encouraged to explore and engage in design thinking and various digital media to express their current understanding of a topic of interest to them and demonstrate achievement of curricular outcomes. The teacher acts as a facilitator and mentor, supporting learner exploration, interpretation, creation, and dissemination of their place-based learning artifacts.
