{"id":23,"date":"2021-05-04T14:55:15","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T18:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca\/intheirmoccasins\/?post_type=front-matter&p=23"},"modified":"2022-09-14T12:49:30","modified_gmt":"2022-09-14T16:49:30","slug":"methodology","status":"publish","type":"front-matter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/intheirmoccasins\/front-matter\/methodology\/","title":{"raw":"Methodology","rendered":"Methodology"},"content":{"raw":"In Their Moccasins<\/em> is an online game environment based on the \u201cchoose your own adventure\u201d storybook format. The game supports the education of allies about Indigenous ways of knowing, learning, and being and fosters empathy toward the experiences of Indigenous peoples with the goal of building solidarity with an Indigenous resurgence in higher education and beyond.\r\n\r\nThe idea for In Their Moccasins<\/em> came out of a desire to educate student affairs professionals on working with First Nations, Inuit, and M\u00e9tis (FNIM) students. By telling the stories of FNIM learners in an immersive, interactive and accessible serious game simulation, the OER is designed to increase empathy and understanding in postsecondary student affairs professionals working with Indigenous students. However, we know this game is also useful and accessible for faculty and staff working in post-secondary education as well as settler students. It is of value to anyone wishing to deepen their understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing and being and prompts participants to recognize the ways that colonialism has and continues to influence the structures of education.\r\n\r\nThis project has generated a learning resource that is informed by and rooted in the reality of the lived experiences of Indigenous students navigating postsecondary education and is a valuable teaching tool. Indigenous students report feeling isolated, misunderstood and marginalized in postsecondary education, in part due to the systemic underrepresentation of Indigenous staff and instructors in the academy (Assembly of First Nations, 2018). By enhancing participants\u2019 cognitive understanding of Indigenous students\u2019 lived, day-to-day experiences and personal histories, this innovative and interactive OER will help to improve the postsecondary learning and training experiences of the 309,845 First Nations, Inuit and M\u00e9tis people who live in Ontario, a population that represents the single largest Indigenous community of any Canadian province (Canadian Federation of Students, 2017).\r\n\r\nThe project educates and empowers allies through an interactive modality that personalizes and humanizes information and statistics about Indigenous histories and current social realities. The game facilitates self-reflection to create a learning community beyond institutional and identity-related boundaries. The game-based open educational resource (OER) provides a platform for thinking and feeling through how we can better support Indigenous student success and facilitate Indigenous resurgence on our campuses.\r\n\r\nThe use of serious games have been correlated to improved learning outcomes (Gee, 2005; Keogh, 2018; Squire, 2011; Abt, 1970; Flanagan, 2009, 2014). Empathy training using the modality of interactive storytelling and roleplay has been correlated with improved cognitive and affective empathy among adult professional and young adult learners (Teding Van Berkhout & Malouff, 2015). This OER is designed to educate and create allies within instructional staff and student support communities for FNIM students.\r\n\r\nThe project fosters empathy and understanding in an intentional, evidence-based and foundational way, reflecting Indigenous ways of knowing, learning, and being. The OER helps instructors expand their understanding of the whole student using Indigenous teaching methodologies such as the Medicine Wheel framework as articulated by LaFever, M. (2016). Allowing post-secondary instructors and staff to understand the spiritual, physical, emotional and intellectual needs and realities of students will help to create postsecondary environments that are welcoming to both FNIM and settler students.\r\n\r\nKey to the creation of the game were Indigenous pedagogical methodologies including that of LaFever (2016). LaFever (2016) provided a framework for this work in her foundational work, \"Switching from Bloom to the Medicine Wheel\"[footnote]LaFever, M. (2016). Switching from Bloom to the Medicine Wheel: creating learning outcomes that support Indigenous ways of knowing in post-secondary education, Intercultural Education, 27:5, 409-424, DOI: 10.1080\/14675986.2016.1240496[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_71\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"391\"]\"A johnhain (pixabay.com) Retrieved from https:\/\/www.needpix.com\/photo\/223794\/medicine-wheel-wholeness-well-being-four-directions-mind-spirit-body-emotion-balance[\/caption]\r\n\r\nLaFever (2016) framework helps direct instructors, instructional designers and student staff away from the often-used pedagogical tool Bloom\u2019s Taxonomy. Instead, the authors looked at things in an Indigenously-informed, holistic way, and integrates the mental, physical and emotional into consideration.\r\n
\u201cWhat good is education without love?\u201d ~ Catherine Adams, Kwakiutl, born 1903 Smith\u2019s Inlet, B.C<\/div>\r\nIn our discussions, we acknowledged as LaFever (2016) does that this fourth aspect is completely ignored in traditional Western\/North American pedagogy. We asked ourselves: \"How might the spiritual be integrated into the classroom?\"\u00a0 LaFever (2016) proposes that the spiritual can be woven into a learning environment in the following ways:\r\n