Elements of Design

For the final assignment of LRNT524, we were challenged to come up with a “manifesto”, or visual representation, of design elements that we feel are important in design work. This was based on the team assignment from my previous post, as well as feedback from other students in the program.

Here are my elements of design. I chose elements rather than manifesto as a nod to my science background.

LRNT524 – Design Thinking Challenge (Partners)

This was a really interesting assignment and one I wish we could have tested in real life! My partner for this assignment was Myrna Pokiak. Her blog can be found here.


Introduction

Integration of Indigenous ways of knowing in a learning context was the focus of our design thinking challenge. We used the process described by the d.School Design Thinking Process, part of the course materials for LRNT 524. We challenged ourselves to radically reimagine the design of digital learning environments (DLEs) for Indigenous learners and realize the potential of critical instructional design in practice by closing the education gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Closing the education gap has been shown to have benefits for improved earnings potentials as well as reduced cultural dissonance (Howe, 2011). Our solutions, which we have termed revolution instead, includes three main points that we propose to test: access, story mining and preservation, and acceptance of oral traditions in academia. 

Revolution One: Access

Access and reliable high speed internet is crucial for Indigenous learners to benefit from  DLEs. Without reliable access, there will continue to be a lack of Indigenous users for a DLE. As Anthony & Keating highlighted, Australia has seen some progress and has shown how urban versus rural access is not simply a matter of physical access, “what is a positive force for non-Indigenous urban communities must also be good for remote Indigenous communities” (2013, p. 5, para 3). The cultural differences between people who live in urban versus rural settings must be taken into account when attempting to design DLEs.

In comparing internet access across Canada, it is valuable to view the Indigenous populations, with the highest percentage of Indigenous versus non-Indigenous (Figure 1), and compare with internet access across the same geographic regions (Figure 2). This comparison shows a true visual of limitations for regions with the highest Indigenous populations per capita across Canada and the inequality that continues to exist.

Figure 1 

Percentage of the Indigenous population by Province/Territory

Note. The data are from Indigenous Services Canada, Government of Canada. (2020). 

Figure 2 

Internet Service inCanada

Note. The data are from Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Government of Canada (2019). 

Radical ways to meet user’s needs for Access 

  1. Tie regulatory approvals to funding for broadband. Resource exploration companies need not be internet network builders, but must be viewed as necessary partners in the development of remote communities for development of DLEs if they intend to continue to exploit these remote areas for resources such as oil and gas, diamonds, or uranium. 
  2. The Government of Canada must honor the 94 Calls to Action (TRC, 2015) and hold itself accountable, considering the mass deconstruction of Indigenous society through stolen unceded land (McIntosh, 2020), water, and resources. One example to achieve the sixth to 12th Calls to Action, would be the investment in internet access throughout Canada and implement swiftly to bridge the gap that currently limits users, particularly in rural Indigenous regions as illustrated in Figure 2. 

 

Revolution Two: Mining the Elder Populations for their Stories

Judy Iseke and Sylvia Moore have worked to develop Métis storytelling as pedagogy and research practice (Iseke & Moore, 2013). Elders need not have access to technology themselves. This can be provided for them so that their learnings can be captured and used later, as Iseke and Moore did in their Presenting ourselves to/in the Museum project (Iseke & Moore, 2011). 

 

Radical ways to meet user’s needs for Mining the Elder Populations for their Stories 

  1. Implementation of a technology space in Indigenous elders’ facilities to connect with learners throughout the world, would provide access to wisdom and elders knowledge. This would improve mental health strengths for elders and provide access for learners to connect with elders’ and knowledge through DLEs. Imagining access that is attained through oral history and connecting with elders who are natural storytellers, the technology space would encourage dialogue and offer opportunities for interviews, documentation, preservation, and teaching. A respected Inuvialuit elder, Randall Pokiak described the role of elders best in his last documented film about the current pandemic, “the elders’ responsibility is, we’ll protect you, we’ll teach you how.” (Code, 2020, 11:40 to 13:23). Elders crave to share their knowledge. In DLEs and underutilized elders facilities, the link between sharing elders’ wisdom with learners becomes possible.

Revolution Three: Working on Acceptance and Academy for Oral Traditions

Euro-centric educational models are not the only acceptable means of teaching. Oral traditions and their associated cultures of learning are valid alternatives (Iseke, 2013). Indigenous teaching traditions being studied by the Gabriel Dumont Institute and the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program (SUNTEP) (SUNTEP, 2013) are involving elders in education and focusing on supporting elders “to build relations and to create ethical space where learning and sharing can occur.” (Goulet et. al., 2009, p. 2).

We agree with Morris when he says that instructional design should “give platforms for those voices most usually suppressed or oppressed” (2018, para.7). Part of this work involves repatriating indigenous artifacts from their various colonial holdings around the world (NBC, 2021).  Elders can develop rich DLEs to teach the artifacts’ history in context, as is being done in the Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait (Inuvialuit Living History) project (CBC, 2020). Combined with Indigenous Digital Storytelling as described by Iseke & Moore “to teach youth their cultural traditions and the Western skills that will enable them to work in the wider world” (2011, p. 21), an alternative to the currently practiced Eurocentric model of written word and culturally appropriated teaching can be developed that is authentic, decolonized, and comes directly from the people who own it, rather than filtered through a western academic lens. 

Radical ways to meet user’s needs to work on Acceptance and Academy for Oral Traditions 

  1. Development of Indigenous resource websites, based on regions and representing all Indigneous groups, similarly to the Inuvialuit Digital Library (2014), collaboration between the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre and the University of Alberta. The creation of a National Indigenous website with links to each Indigenous region, would allow direct digital access to documented stories, visuals, and information from Indigenous perspectives, essentially taking the Native Land (2021) website one step further so when an Indigenous group is visited, links to websites like the Inuvialuit Digital Library become available.
  2. Repatriate artifacts such as the MacFarlane Collection that is currently housed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC (CBC, 2020) and provide resources to develop culturally appropriate learning resources.

Conclusion

This design thinking challenge was a good opportunity to stretch our thoughts on possibilities to close the education gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners and how that can happen. We were able to use the process to dig deep into what learners need to successfully participate in DLEs and build solutions to close the gap. We feel that reliable access, story mining and preservation, and radical acceptance of oral traditions are possible solutions for Indigenous learners who are survivors and as Wilson-Fontain put it, “thrivers” (Monkman, 2019).

References

Anthony, S. G., & Keating, M. S. (2013). The difficulties of online learning for Indigenous Australian students living in remote communities–it’s an issue of access. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 16(2).

Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Stuff The British Stole. (n.d.). [Collection]. Retrieved January 1, 2022, from https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stuff-the-british-stole/

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (2020, August 10). “All his wisdom will be missed”: Lifelong Inuvialuit advocate dies at 71. CBC News. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/randal-boogie-pokiak-inuvialuit-obituary-1.5680097

Code, Allan. (2020). Pandemic – at the end of the world. [National Film Board of Canada]. https://www.nfb.ca/film/pandemic-at-the-end-of-the-world/

Goulet,  L., Pelletier, J., Pete, S., Racette, C., Longman, S. Goodwill, K., & Fayant, R.  (2009). Asokan  (The  Bridge)  Teachers’  Work  with  Elders.  Saskatoon:  Dr.  Stirling  MacDowell Foundation for Research Into Teaching Inc., Project #188.

Hotte, N., Nelson, H., Hawkins, T., Wyatt, S., & Kozak, R. (2018). Maintaining accountability between levels of governance in Indigenous economic development: Examples from British Columbia, Canada. Canadian Public Administration, 61(4), 523–549. https://doi.org/10.1111/capa.12287

Howe, E. C. (2011). Mishchet aen kishkayhtamihk nawut ki wiichiihtonaan: Bridging the aboriginal education gap in Saskatchewan. Gabriel Dumont Institute.

Indigenous Services Canada, Government of Canada. (2020). Annual Report to Parliament 2020. https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1602010609492/1602010631711 

Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Government of Canada (2019). High Speed Internet Access for All: Canada’s Connectivity Strategy. https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/139.nsf/eng/h_00002.html 

Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Center and University of Alberta. (2014). Inuvialuit Digital Library. https://inuvialuitdigitallibrary.ca/collections 

Iseke, J., & Moore, S. (2011). Community-based Indigenous Digital Storytelling with Elders and Youth. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 35(4), 19–38.

McIntosh, Emma (2020). What it means when we say Indigenous land is ‘unceded’. Jan 24, 2020 Podcast. Canada’s National Observer.  https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/01/24/analysis/what-we-mean-when-we-say-indigenous-land-unceded 

Monkman, Leonard. (2019). From survivors to ‘thrivers’: former residential school students connect with culture and each other. CBC News. Retrieved January 1, 2022 from https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/residential-school-survivors-thrivers-1.5296107 

Morris, S. M. (2018). Critical Instructional Design. In An Urgency of Teachers. Pressbooks. 

Europe returns looted African treasures as it reckons with colonial past. (n.d.). NBC News. Retrieved January 1, 2022, from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/europe-returns-looted-benin-bronzes-africa-reckons-legacy-empire-rcna3986

Native Land. (2020). Native Land Digital. WordPress. https://native-land.ca/ 

SUNTEP (Saskatoon, Sask.), & Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native Studies and Applied Research (Eds.). (2013). “Be bold! Move forward!”: Measuring success. Gabriel Dumont Institute.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015). Truth and Reconciliation of Canada: Calls to Action. https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

Lovefool

 

From the early part of the 21st century, lovers have been placing “love locks” on bridges, railings, or other structures. They write the lovers’ names on the lock and throw away the key to symbolize the unbreakable love between them. This is not a discussion on whether this constitutes vandalism or not, but rather a metaphor for instructional design (ID) practice and tools.

In 2007, when I first started teaching certification courses for Exposure Device Operators (EDOs), I was handed a stack of overhead slides and the keys to the classroom for an already successful course. Over the next eight years, I took that material and, with the assistance of ID training I sought out and implemented, added various other tools that made that training course one of the most successful in Canada.

To visualize the tools, imagine a bridge or railing connecting two things: the learner before they begin learning about exposure devices and the learner after they successfully complete the training course and become certified. Each “lock” on that railing or bridge is a strong ID tool that I placed there using one of my superpowers (Meyers, 2020). It has the name of a learner on it who inspired the use or development of the tool and it is visible to the learners who come along later and see it there. The locks were things like:

  • use of a demonstration device (life-sized, but not radioactive) (superpower: shop teacher)
  • “field trips” (superpower: tour guide)
  • study groups (superpower: math nerd)
  • real-life examples of math required in the industry (superpower: storyteller)
  • learner-provided examples of problems to solve (superpower: cheerleader)
  • judgement calls – go back to early algebra or not? (superpower: mindreader)
  • case study discussion of industry incidents – collection of photos from field  work I’ve done (superpower: photographer)
  • videos of proper and improper use (superpower: videographer)

“Out of my comfort zone” (Meyers, 2020, 18:40) is a polite understatement for this type of work!

 

References:

Meyers, Melanie. 2020, April 17. Many Hats: Why Flexibility and an Open Mind Matters. [Video] https://ca.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/playback

Blinded by the Light

Bear with me as I try and combine some thoughts that came to me as I read through the readings for the first two weeks of this course. I am suffering from the mid-autumn cold/flu that has struck my family and I feel that my thoughts are interesting, but I am struggling to make them clear.

Albert Einstein spent a lot of time in Gedankenexperimente, or Thought Experiments. It was in this space of free thinking, without being under the influence of any particular instructional design model, that he realized the General and Special Theories of Relativity, which are the most beautiful scientific theories ever developed (Isaacson, 2015). He also had a spirited exchange with another scientist, Erwin Schrödinger, about quantum superposition using a thought experiment called “Schrödinger’s Cat”, which has been described in popular culture and remains important in my work. Both of these thought experiments dovetail beautifully with the readings from this first two-week period.

One of the hallmarks of Einstein’s work in Special Relativity was how he approached his view of the nature of light. According to the famous equation E=mc2, it is basically impossible for matter to travel at the speed of light (Jones, 2021). We can get close, but we cannot do it. One of the things that is important to consider when selecting design methods is how no method will be perfect and so we need to choose one and try it out. Dron (2014) noted that, as we learn, we are moving “towards a peak of fitness that forever moves as we approach it”. As with matter approaching the speed of light, we can never quite get there. It is therefore important to note that, even as we get better at refining and developing design models, we will never achieve a perfect model. We will never be perfect at learning.

The next question is how we should make design decisions and what role design models and innovation play in the process. Well, choosing a design model is choosing your preferred method of change. By choosing a design model, you are choosing the future path of your organization, whether that is for incident investigation, as Rothwell et al. (2015) said, or to hopefully make a lasting impact on learners, as Veletsianos (2011) said. You are choosing where you think you want to go next, but you can only set an intention. It is impossible to know how it will turn out. As Veletsianos (2011) said, “it is not possible to construct transformative experiences but, to provide opportunities for transformation”. An organization or even an individual can choose a design method, but can never choose what the learners learn. Similar to the thought experiment between Schrödinger and Einstein, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. As we make design decisions, our learners are both learning and not learning at the same time. I would argue that design models and innovation are both less important than we make them out to be. Veletsianos (2011) took some pains in his paper to point out that learning is not something that we do TO learners. It is their experience, not ours as the instructor or instructional designer. The model therefore matters less than the learner.

Finally, for the question about which models I have found particularly effective, I think I have been a victim of my own industry. The classic ADDIE basis (Analysis, Design, Implementation, Evaluation) is the most common in the nuclear industry and so it is the one that I have been forced to work with. I fit with the models that Göksu et al. (2017) described as most common, given that I am in North America and I work in science. I look forward to learning about more methods but recognize that my experience so far is quite narrow. From what I have seen in my career, that type of design model is justified by the nature of the risk posed by nuclear technology. From the readings for week two, I am curious to see how Gagné’s “behaviorist-turned-cognitivist” (Heaster-Eckholm, 2020) method might work in my work to focus on the learner. In my experience, the organization protecting themselves from liability in the event of an event is the usual reason for choosing a particular design model.

 

References:

Dron, J. (2014). Chapter 9: Innovation and Change: Changing how we Change. In Zawacki-Richter, O. & T. Anderson (Eds.), Online distance education: Towards a research agenda. Athabasca, AB: AU Press.

Göksu, I., Özcan, K. V., Çakir, R., & Göktas, Y. (2017). Content Analysis of Research Trends in Instructional Design Models: 1999-2014Journal of Learning Design10(2), 85-109.

Heaster-Ekholm, K. L. (2020). Popular Instructional Design Models: Their Theoretical Roots and Cultural Considerations. International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology, 16(3), 50–65.

Isaacson, W. (2015, October 30). Opinion | The Light-Beam Rider. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/opinion/sunday/the-light-beam-rider.html

Rothwell, W. J., Benscoter, B., King, M., & King, S. B. (2015). Chapter One – An Overview of Instructional Design. In Mastering the Instructional Design Process: A Systematic Approach. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Alternate link

Sutter, P. (2020, July 16). Why is the speed of light the way it is? Space.Com. https://www.space.com/speed-of-light-properties-explained.html

Veletsianos, G. (2011). Designing opportunities for transformation with emerging technologiesPublished in Educational Technology, 51(2), 41-46.