The two Indigenous resources I have selected are The Southern Alberta Professional Development Consortium’s list of resources and the First Nations Education Steering Committee’s website. Both have excellent resources and are almost overwhelming to try to sort through. Fortunately, the Southern Alberta Professional Development Consortium’s website has an amazing graphical keyword cloud, so you can easily find information specifically about FNMI and Indigenous topics. Within these areas, it contains dozens upon dozens of resources. It should be noted that some things appear to be specific to the Alberta area (for example, there are workshops and opportunities to borrow floor-sized maps locally) but the vast majority is information on how to embed Indigenous lessons into the classroom. There is a video series called “Weaving Ways, Indigenous Ways of Knowing in the Classroom” that looks to be very valuable and informative. There are also Books lists, video book talks, a Google Slide deck for teachers looking to incorporate more Indigenous literature, and Learning Guides. These are literally just a couple of the resources available.
The First Nations Education Steering Committee’s website also has a great number of resources. There is a huge and expansive list of Indigenous books (divided up from K-9 and 10-12) as well as several teacher resource guides for reconciliation. There is even a resource for First Nations math, which often seems to be overlooked. While not as large a collection as the SAPDC’s, the resources here are a little classroom friendly – more plans and guides of things that you can almost immediately do in the classroom, versus the more theoretical pedagogical focus of the SAPDC. It should also be noted that there is a focus on British Columbian First Nations communities.
The two resources are amazingly expansive, and taken together could help to inform your practice for years to come, From off-the-shelf lesson plans to videos and virtual workshops to help you reframe your pedagogical focus, these resources have something for everyone. These also had the greatest focus on the elementary curriculum, so several of the resources are specific to my practice. I look forward to using some of these resources and activities.