Improving Indigenous Access to Contemporary Knowledge in Canadian Schools: Maamaawisiiwin Professional Teacher Development Program

• In Event: 15.040 - Pushing Back Against the Post-Truth Paradigm: The Transformative Power of Research in Higher Education

Abstract

The purpose is to examine the introduction of the Maamaawisiiwin Professional Teacher Development Program (MPTDP) into a secondary school in Thunder Bay, Ontario. A Te Kotahitanga-based teacher development program, adapted by an Indigenous educator-scholar with years of experience working with Indigenous learners in Ontario, MPTPD helps non-Indigenous high school teachers learn to teach through a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations.(CRPR). The development cycle features learning circles, in-class teacher observation, co-constructing teacher goals; coaching, and research component. The design and field research, led by an Indigenous scholar, follows a group of 12 teachers as they participate in the MPTDP to reveal the impact of the program on their work with Indigenous students, families and communities over one school year.

Authors

• John H. Hodson, Lakehead University

• Julian D. Kitchen, Brock University