A Connected-Knowledge Approach to Computing and Indigenous Knowledge Education for American Indian Youth

• In Event: Indigenous Technologies: Lessons From the Field

Abstract

Objectives & Purposes:

Traditional STEM curricula and equity efforts, particularly in computer science, have failed to serve American Indian students because they are often disconnected from indigenous knowledge (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009; Castagno & Brayboy, 2008). To address this, we examine the implementation of a “connected-knowledge” approach within a science-focused summer camp for American Indian youth. By “connected-knowledge” we are referring to the contextualization of STEM learning within an indigenous knowledge framework. During the summer camp, students connected their learning of indigenous knowledge about local fauna to the creation a communal and computationally enhanced quilt embedded with electronic media.

Perspectives:

When considering accessibility of STEM learning in American Indian communities, we need a more expansive rather than additive conceptualization of computational learning to enable a deeper consideration of how technology is defined and understood across cultures (Bang, Marin, Faber & Suzukovich III, in press).

Methods, Participants, & Data Sources:

This research took place with 7th and 8th grade students at a community college on Native American lands. Collaborating with local community partners, we designed and implemented a connected-knowledge workshop, during which American Indian youth decorated a quilt in the shape of tribal lands, with quilt squares illustrating local fauna. During the workshop, students learned about electronic circuitry and computer programing as staff from the community’s Cultural Resources Department discussed what “technology” means in the local indigenous context. Additionally, staff members taught students about local plants and their uses. With this basic knowledge, each student designed, constructed, programmed, and contributed a computationally enhanced quilt square.

We documented students’ engagement with the design task through field notes, photographs of their projects in various stages (aesthetic design, circuit blueprint, physical construction, finished product), and screenshots of their computer code. We also documented the workshop contributions made by community partners. Our goals were to better understand how indigenous knowledge systems and computation could be mutually supportive for students’ learning, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the workshop.

Findings:

In contrast to a previous program where American Indian youth (see Searle, this panel) chose to make projects connected to popular culture, our most recent students were assigned to make culturally-connected artifacts. By constraining what students were expected to make, the projects reached a higher level of computational sophistication. Our disappointment was that, in spite of efforts to implement indigenous knowledge into the workshop, the majority of time was focused on teaching electronic media content. As a result, students had forgotten the names and uses of the plants they were making.

Discussion & Significance

Our findings suggest that a connected-knowledge approach can support learning that is meaningful to an indigenous community and engaging for students, especially when the curriculum considers local knowledge (plants) and values like collaboration. However, resources privileging computational knowledge suggest more work needs to be done to disrupt pre-existing knowledge hierarchies in order to reinforce the connections between indigenous knowledges and the kinds of STEM content knowledge valued in formal learning. The research herein is limited in scope by its short duration.

Authors

• Cristobal Martinez, Arizona State University

• Kristin Anne Searle, University of Pennsylvania

• Yasmin B. Kafai, University of Pennsylvania

• Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, Arizona State University