Decolonizing Curriculum and Pedagogy: One Syllabus at a Time

Group Submission Type: Pre-conference Workshop

Description of Session

CIES 2022 Pre-Conference Workshop Proposal - 18 April 2022

Title of the workshop: Decolonizing Curriculum and Pedagogy: One Syllabus at a Time

Workshop duration: 3 hours

Maximum number of participants: 25 participants

Pre-conference workshop description:
This pre-conference workshop is a demonstration of live and interactive syllabus deconstruction. It adopts a co-creative approach to reimagine the syllabus from decolonial frameworks and perspectives. More than a diverse reading list, we will collectively share best practices that we collected from previous workshops with diverse faculty, staff, students and community organizers, then we will guide the audience to deconstruct the syllabus in real-time. Our co-creative model aims to pluralize our knowledge and learning environments.

The purpose of the workshop: The purpose is to share and evolve our methodology for decolonizing syllabi to mobilize educators and students to be active change-makers in our fleet to transform our institutions, one syllabus at a time.

Learning objectives of the workshop:
The objective of this workshop is
· To share a methodology and prompts that foster critical thinking, self-reflexivity and decolonial thought in the classroom,
· To examine the proposed intervention into syllabi within higher education.
· to reimagine knowledge production processes within universities.
· To guide practitioners/instructors/educators/participants to center student leadership and empowerment in the classroom.

Overview of the workshop:
This co-creative work can bring up a lot of the complexities around decolonization and also some concrete ways to actively dismantle colonial practices within the classroom. This challenge requires creating a collective critical reflection on how we reinforce and perpetuate colonial knowledge and knowledge production. Our workshop is structured into two parts - context and syllabus deconstruction. To begin, we unpack the prospect, challenges and possibilities for deconstructing the syllabus drawing from our personal experiences & experiences shared from our hub community. Then, we engage in deconstructing the syllabus, while reflecting on these questions:
· In what ways do colonial structures in the academy perpetuate inequalities in the classroom?
· What do healing and resilience mean and look like in a classroom setting?
· What is the canon within your field? Which scholars and authors do we draw from for our fields most often and why?
· How can we embrace BIPOC knowledge systems in the class without tokenizing BIPOC students?
· How can land acknowledgments be incorporated and recognized in the classroom?
· How can we authentically, ethically, and respectfully design a course syllabus in ways that reflect the voices and lived experiences of students from multiple lenses?
· How can BIPOC scholars be integrated into your research and curriculum beyond an add-on topic in one week lecture?
· How do you privilege local elders and community sharing in a manner that is reciprocal and not extractive?

Delivery plan: This workshop aims to have an open, safe, but brave space that interactive learning can be flourished through active participation.

Agenda:
-Introduction of the workshop and presenters/facilitators (10 minutes)
-Interactive activity: Participants and facilitators are sharing their vision of what does ‘decolonizing education’ mean in their context? How to decolonize curriculum and pedagogy (45 minutes)
- Break (10 minutes)
- The introduction of syllabus deconstruction interactive activity (15 minutes)
-Small groups activity: Co-creating the deconstruction and reconstruction of the syllabus methodology (75 minutes)
5 groups and each group starts looking into different sections of the one of ‘example’ course syllabus and switch.
Sections: (1) Syllabus course introduction, (2) Course description and objectives, (3) Territory Acknowledgement, (4) Grading and assessment, and (5) Weekly Reading list
-Large group: Each group representatives shares group ideas (15 minutes)
-Concluding remarks (10 minutes)

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Pre-Conference Workshop

Workshop Organizers

• Ezgi Ozyonum, Concordia University

• Jamilah Dei-Sharpe, N/A

Presenters

• Ezgi Ozyonum, Concordia University

• Jamilah Dei-Sharpe, N/A