Promising Practices in Indigenous Teacher Education

This book provides a comprehensive overview of navigating the on-going systemic challenges, hardships, and problems facing many indigenous teacher education programs today, helping to foster a commitment to developing quality indigenous teacher education programs that are sustainable, distinctive and excellent. However, despite a growing cadre of indigenous peoples working in teacher education, there is still a noticeable gap between the uptake of what is being taught in conventional teacher education programs, and how this translates to what we see student teachers doing in the classroom. The often tricky and complex nature of indigenous teacher education programming also means that there are multiple realities, approaches and pathways that require greater communication, collaboration, and cooperation. The very nature of this complexity, the book suggests, requires a strength-based and future-focused approach built on trust, integrity, courage and respect for indigeneity, as well as an understanding of what it means to be indigenous. The examples and experiences presented identify a number of promising practices that work well in current indigenous teacher education programs and beyond. By promoting a greater appreciation for the inclusion of culturally relevant practices in teacher education, the book aims to breathe new life into the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of indigenous teacher education programs moving forward.

Table of Contents:
Introduction.- Part I Locating Indigenous education in conventional teacher education programmes.- 1 Lessons and legacies: Forty years of Alaska Native teacher preparation at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.- 2 Teaching the teachers: Re-educating Australian teachers in Indigenous education.- 3 Indigenous cultural competence: Building indigenously culturally competent teacher education programs at Charles Sturt University.- 4 Developing understanding of Indigenous culture: Experiences from Australian pre-service teachers.- 5 Integrating Indigenous Māori frameworks to ignite understandings within initial teacher education — and beyond.- 6 Beyond the classroom: The impact of a required Indigenous education course in the lives of teacher candidates.- Part II Indigenous language teacher training.- 7 Bridging the gap in Indigenous Australian languages teacher education.- 8 Connecting Indigenous languages policy, programs, and practices.- 9 Distinctive pathways of preparing Hawaiian language medium-immersion educators.- 10 Huarahi Māori: Two decades of Indigenous teacher education at the University of Auckland.- 11 Diving into the language work: Preparing teachers for the Diné language classroom.- 12 Building on achievements: Training options for Gumbaynggirr language teachers.- 13 Lighting a fire: Community-based Indigenous language teacher education.- Part III Indigenous-led teacher education programmes.- 14 Raven’s response to teacher education: NITEP, an Indigenous story.-  15 “Hold strongly to one another”: The development of an Indigenous teacher preparation and professional development program.- 16 Looking at the evolution of University of Nuhelot’ine Thaiyots’I nistamêyimâkanak Blue Quills language programmes.- Part IV Living to lead in Indigenous teacher education.- 17 Aloha Kumu, Aloha ‘Āina: A graduate program to prepare teacher leaders for the health, wellbeing, and prosperity of Lāhui Hawai‘i.- 18 Strong foundations, stronger futures: Using theory-baseddesign to embed Indigenous Australian education content in a teacher education programme.- 19 onikanêw: ‘she who leads’. Learning to lead in education.- 20 The price of equity in Aotearoa New Zealand teacher education: A critical institutional ethnographic perspective.

About the Author :
Dr. Whitinui is an indigenous Māori scholar from Aotearoa New Zealand and an assistant professor at the School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education (EPHE) based at the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Education in BC, Canada. His research is interdisciplinary by nature and broadly linked by relationships between indigenous education, Indigenous sociology, Indigenous community health, Indigenous wellbeing, and indigenous autoethnography. Over the past 10 years, Dr. Whitinui has published and presented extensively on culturally responsive teaching and learning, indigenous educational leadership in higher education, treaty-relational health, the benefits of indigenous performing arts (i.e., kapa haka) in public high schools, and the application of indigenous autoethnography in teaching and learning, and health. Presently, he is the co-chair of the World Indigenous Research Alliance under the auspices of the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC),as well as a reviewer for the online WINHEC journal. Dr Carmen Rodriguez de France is an assistant professor in the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Education. She facilitates graduate and undergraduate courses on indigenous knowledge, pedagogy, and education. The focus of her research is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, weaving together fields of education that influence her work in preparing students to work within a diverse society. Dr. Rodriguez de France has published books and journal articles nationally and internationally, and contributes to the field of indigenous education as member of national and international journal editorial boards. Dr. Onowa McIvor is an assistant professor and the director of Indigenous Education at the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Education. Her research interests center on indigenous language revitalization and indigenous teacher education. Dr. McIvor has been a contributing author to several edited book projects and has provided peer-review editing for several international academic journals such as AlterNative, Educational Research, the Canadian Journal of Education, and Curriculum Inquiry.