Centring place in student learning
Channel: Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, University of British Columbia
Date: 2020-06-19

Since first attending the Indigenous Initiatives Classroom Climate sessions at UBC’s Centre for Teaching and Learning Technology (CTLT), the centrality of place and acknowledgement of the land has come to the forefront in Dr. Catherine Douglas’ consideration of disciplinary research and her approaches to teaching at the Vancouver School of Economics.

As a researcher, Douglas was interested in understanding sources of knowledge and the longer-term forces of change in the economy. She acknowledges that her course content, to that point, included very little, if anything, about First Nations and other Indigenous peoples of Canada, or elsewhere in the world. It was particularly troubling to her that it was not clear to her as an instructor, how to address what she had come to recognize as a glaring gap. 

To learn more about teaching online visit https://ctlt.ubc.ca/otp

Going further - Links to resources used in Catherine’s course to support student work and reflections around place and Musqueam.

qeqən: A Walking Tour of Musqueam House Posts at UBC 
https://belkin.ubc.ca/events/self-guided-tour-qeqən-musqueam-house-posts
Video: https://youtu.be/1Hpa9kma8Fk

Musqueam Elder Larry Grant video - Land Acknowledgemnts & Dr. Linc Kesler - Why do we do Land Acknowledgements: https://indigenous.ubc.ca/indigenous-engagement/musqueam-and-ubc/

Musqueam teaching kit- (delta animation) http://www2.moa.ubc.ca/musqueamteachingkit/delta.php
Additional associated activities for classroom: http://www2.moa.ubc.ca/musqueamteachingkit/media/pdf/Chapter%206_Eng.pdf

Musqueam Through Time
Part 1: https://youtu.be/FiekdmBRhoo
Part 2: https://youtu.be/oCt3IoAobeM