After reading Indigenization Guide: Indigenous Epistemologies and Pedagogies (Caldwell 2022) I found the Indigenous epistemologies around personal and holistic and experiential reflective of how I wish to practice in my context as a professor in television and film, broadcast journalism and radio broadcasting.
One of the academic submission papers I am working on examines learning by doing. My curriculum is hands-on lab-based teaching and learning. I found the experiential section resonated quite strongly with me. “In traditional pre-contact societies, young people learned how to participate as adult members of their community by practicing the tasks and skills they would need to perform as adults” (Caldwell, 2022). I believe learning by doing and practicing, is key to not only my delivery but student success as well. To give you context, I teach students how to shoot with a video camera and how to edit to create their respective versions of production. For example, TV News students learn how to shoot and edit news stories; radio broadcast students learn how to shoot and edit fun, short video content for their radio station’s Facebook page or Tik Tok or Instagram. It is learning by doing and practice, practice, practice that moves students along a continuum toward success. “In recent years, the importance of bodily experiences for mental processes has been established both theoretically and empirically, demonstrating that cognition is closely intertwined with the sensorimotor characteristics of human bodies” (Reese, 2011).
Looking at how Indigenous pedagogies approach holism also reflects the essence of my own philosophies around being an educator and how you evaluate students. There are so many facets to who a student is and how they perform that grading strikes me as a stranglehold on how to measure student success. “Academic or cognitive knowledge is valued, but self-awareness, emotional growth, social growth, and spiritual development are also valued”. (Caldwell, 2022). I think about the type of graduate I want to influence or my place in that student’s journey – someone who can produce strong audio-visual deliveries and yet I also wish to contribute to the development of the “…four dimensions of knowledge (emotional, spiritual, cognitive, and physical)”. (Caldwell, 2022). I do believe that someone who performs weakly on traditional quizzes, tests and exams could very well be successful in their context, film, television, news, or radio broadcasting. I do believe that Indigenous epistemologies and pedagogies can inform transdisciplinary approaches and have a positive impact, creating strong graduates and a flexible curriculum that honours who a student is and what they can contribute versus the value of what their grade point scores say about their ability to succeed.
References
Caldwell, J. (2022, January 6). BC Campus News. Fiscal 2021-2022, Indigenization Guide: Indigenous Epistemologies and Pedagogies. https://bccampus.ca/2022/01/06/indigenization-guide-indigenous-epistemologies-and-pedagogies/
Reese, H. (2011) The Learning-by-Doing Principle, Behavioural Development Bulletin Vol. 11. https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2014-55719-001.pdf