Ti’tooqan Cuukweneewit: An Innovative Alternative Teacher Education Experience Leading to State Certification

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: UREAG Round-Table

Proposal

The Ti’tooq’an Cuukweneewit-AlterNATIVE project has identified the critical need “for relationally-based educational service delivery to promote Native student success" as paramount for Native teacher education professional development programming. Through a relationally-based approach, this project works to maintain its responsibilities to student participants and relationships student(s) participants have with their families and communities (Kulago, 2016; CHiXapkaid et al., 2008).

In response to the high need for more Native teachers and school administrators in the region, the WSU College of Education Department of Teaching and Learning has worked in intentional partnership with local and regional tribal education departments to provide a culturally responsive Native education professional development program with an innovative design, where students’ professional learning and experiences are integrated into a state competency based model, delivered in a flexible “place-based” format.

The Ti’tooq’an Cuukweneewit-AlterNATIVE project addresses this high need through an innovative and integrated Native education teacher preparation program by:
(1) Identifying, recruiting and supporting future Indigenous teachers and administrators;
(2) Strengthening pre-service and in-service teacher and administrator preparation, induction, and professional development to integrate culturally responsive supports including the Since Time Immemorial tribal sovereignty curriculum and Indigenous teaching approaches including innovative distance learning video conferencing;
(3) Ensuring that Indigenous epistemologies, pedagogies, and ontologies are foundational to program components; and
(4) Enhancing and applying faculty knowledge and research on PK-12 Native education, curriculum, and instruction in the preparation, mentoring, and induction of Native educators.

Decolonizing the traditional teacher education process with our co-heart of students is taking intentional efforts as we attend to developing a competency based experience as opposed to a course driven program. This allows us to honor the lived experiences that each educator has and to tailor their experiences accordingly. Challenging current colonizing educational practices that are deeply rooted needs to be done at local, state, national, and international levels. If we want to encourage knowledge exchanges that facilitate and support sustainability and give due diligence to attend to complex global societal needs, we need educational experiences that support and honor culturally responsive pedagogy and epistemologies.

Within this presentation, I will highlight various aspects of our learning path as we challenge practices that have resulted in numerous barriers and move towards supporting systemic changes that support Native educators’ successful journey to state teacher certification. I would also like to engage conference participants in conversations around decolonizing educational practices around the world. We must pursue our visions as individuals, families, and communities, in ways that reflect attention to the needs of our children and future generations…the stakes are very high...

Author

• Susan Rae Banks, Washington State University