In 2016, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada made several calls to action to address systemic racism in Canada’s language and culture, child welfare, health care, judicial, and education systems. In the recommendations for reconciliation specific to higher education, the commission called for post-secondary institutions to increase the integration of Indigenous knowledge into the classroom. Carleton University’s Collaborative Indigenous Learning Bundles were conceived by Kahente Horn-Miller as a way to gather Indigenous ways of knowing and make them available to the Carleton learning community without overburdening Indigenous experts.
What’s in a Bundle?
Designed as both a resource for instructors and learning tool for students to use in the classroom, the Bundles provide the necessary factual and theoretical basis for understanding Indigenous history and politics in Canada, while also prompting students to consider how this knowledge might be applied in their area of study. Most Bundles include a lesson from an Indigenous expert followed by an audio or video interview with an Indigenous Knowledge Keeper. Each Bundle, produced and delivered by Indigenous experts, is formatted as a Brightspace lesson, addressing issues and topics relevant to Indigenous peoples.
Bundle topics
The Bundles provide the necessary factual and theoretical basis for understanding Indigenous history and politics in Canada, and are designed to encourage you to consider how this knowledge might be applied in your area of study.
Bundle topics include:
- The First Peoples: A Brief Overview
- Decolonization is for Everyone: Identity Formation in the Canadian Context
- Engaging with Indigenous Communities
- Indigenous-Canada Relations
- Introduction to the Metis People and the Metis Nation
- Cultural Conceptions of the Life Cycle
- The Inuit Story
- Maternal and Child Health
- Determinants of Health
- Indigenous Law and Conceptions of Human Rights
- Contemporary Indigenous Arts in the Gallery
- Ethics of Research with Indigenous Peoples
- Accessible Information: Library-based Research and Indigenous Communities
- Ongoing Colonialism: An Advanced Overview
- “Our Original Instructions”: Engaging with Lands and Waters
- Indigenous Sciences: Shifting the Paradigm in Western Science
- Indigenous Environmental Relations
How you use the Bundles
If you are interested in using one or two Bundles in your class(es):
- Submit your request. We will then enroll you on a site where you can review the Bundles in detail and determine how they fit into your existing course content and outcomes.
- Once you’ve decided which Bundle(s) you’d like to incorporate, please respond to your original request detailing which Bundle you would like to incorporate.
- We’ll reach out to schedule a meeting with a TLS learning specialist to determine what activities you can integrate into your class around the Bundle.
An Introduction from Kahente Horn-Miller
Feedback from Students
- “From this Bundle, I learned a lot of important concepts, including, Indigenous ceremonies, rituals, the difference between their approach to health and the rest of society’s approach, storytelling, rites of passage and the variety stages in life.”
- “I’m so intrigued by the differences in understanding of treaties by Indigenous Peoples and the government. Up to this point, I had very little understanding about what a treaty actually was… Learning more about Indigenous philosophy – relationships to each other, extended family, community, nation, non-human beings like land, water, and animals – explains so much about the ways that Indigenous Peoples govern, and the issues that they may take with the way our world is being governed now.”
- “By completing this Bundle it gave me a greater understanding of how being able to conduct research depends greatly on the relationship between the researcher and the group they wish to research. It gave me examples to understand some of the issues in the research from the past that has negatively affected the relationship that the academic community has created with the Indigenous one.”
Project Team
Kahente Horn-Miller, Naomi Bird, Renata Chiaradia, Allie Davidson, Mikayla Paton, Daphne Uras, and the great research assistants who have collaborated on this project. Carleton University’s Collaborative Indigenous Learning Bundles are a collaborative effort among The Centre for Indigenous Support and Community Engagement, the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, The Office of Quality Initiatives and Teaching and Learning Services.
If you have questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to share them with us.