Campfire Discussion

In this session, we will discuss the collective development of a Collaborative Online Indigenous Intercultural Learning (COIIL) Special Topics Pathway as a tool for exploration of what it means to be Indigenous serving through Internationalization of the Curriculum. This Pathway aims to support Indigenous and non-Indigenous faculty in developing inter-nation and international online opportunities for student collaboration. Interweaving Indigenous pedagogies, intercultural perspectives, and land-based approaches with academic expectations, the Pathway can be adapted to any post-secondary course offered within the community/context.

This session will be held in circle. We will begin by telling the story of our own connections to the land on which we reside as it relates to the genesis of this collaborative project. We will outline the dialogues held with Indigenous stakeholders and communities that informed the development of this Pathway, describing the iterative and ongoing process of reimagining online intercultural learning that ensures Indigenous perspectives are included.
Details of the Pathway will be shared, including the guiding principles within which it is rooted, specifically:

Connection

• to the land – grounded in land-based pedagogy
• to community – informed by relationships with local knowledge-keepers
• to the whole –takes a holistic approach, recognizing the interconnectedness of all of us and everything in our world
• to tradition – respecting oral traditions of storytelling as a way of connecting past, present, and future generations
• the Five Rs of Indigenous Education: relationship, respect, relevance, responsibility and reciprocity

Participants will be invited to offer their reflections and reactions along the way and to collectively explore how the Pathway could be applied across different departments, courses, and other COIIL projects.

Throughout our time together, participants will be encouraged to reflect on and share their connections to land, and to explore what Indigenous serving means within their contexts. We will take the time to consider our motivations and intentions in doing the work that we do. Central to this session will be the opportunity for dialogue, both in smaller groups and with the collective present. In this way, participants will experience the dialogical approach used to interweave the different narratives that inform this Pathway.

(Project funded by the CICan Innovation Fund)