1. Classroom Climate Fall Offerings
  a) Understanding and Supporting Indigenous Students ** POSTPONED to January 27, 2020 from 9-10:30AM, Irving K. Learning Barber Centre Dodson Room 302 ** 
2. Staff Profile: Q&A with Will Engle, Strategist, Open Education Initiatives, Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT) 
3. When Will We Be Ready? Sharing responsibility for Indigenous engagement in teaching and learning: Recap and Resources
4. Classroom Climate Winter 2020 Offerings
 a) Learning in Place: January 22, 2020 from 10am-12pm at IKBLC Seminar Room 2.22 
 b) What If We Were to Talk About It? Engaging Controversial Topics in the Classroom: February 6, 2020 from 1-3pm at IKBLC Seminar Room 2.22 
 c) Beyond Inclusion: Redistributing Responsibility for Institutional Change: March 31, 2020 from 1-3pm at IKBLC Seminar Room 2.22 
5. Across our desks: news, articles, and resources related to Indigenous engagement in teaching and learning

What would support for Indigenous students look like in departments, faculty and by staff? What are some of the ways in which Indigenous students approach and experience their education processes differently from other student groups?

This session invites you to approach these questions with the concept of “bandwidth,” which helps us consider underlying factors of Indigenous students’ learning experiences and outcomes. Bandwidth refers to cognitive and mental resources that are available to one to learn and perform. The literature shows that bandwidth is important for how effectively students can accomplish various tasks including learning, keeping track of information, and planning. It is important to consider factors that support or deplete students’ bandwidth. In particular, students from marginalized backgrounds tend to face numerous factors (e.g., racism, belonging uncertainty, family obligations) that deplete their mental bandwidth, hindering their ability to fully engage with learning and perform to their potential.

After providing a brief literature review of bandwidth, including undermining factors and strategies to mitigate them, we showcase an undergraduate research project that the Department of Psychology has launched to better understand and support Indigenous students in the department – in terms of experiences within the department that support/deplete bandwidth, and how the department and faculty can take responsibility of being a part of reconciliation by creating a supportive environment, instead of relying others, such as on-campus Indigenous community members and units, to do the work.

We then invite participants to discuss what they or their departments are doing (or can start doing) to address Indigenous students’ bandwidth and create supportive environment for Indigenous students.

Facilitators:

Benjamin Y. Cheung, Lecturer, Indigenous Initiatives Coordinator, Department of Psychology
Tara Morgan, Senior Indigenous Collegium Advisor, Indigenous Collegia
Hanae Tsukada, Educational Strategist, the Equity & Inclusion Office, the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology

On November 6th, CTLT Indigenous Initiatives in partnership with the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and the UBC Learning Circle co-hosted the event "When Will We Be Ready? Sharing responsibility for Indigenous engagement in teaching and learning". This event was a follow-up session to the first "When Will We Be Ready?: Integrating Indigenous knowledges in teaching" that was hosted back in May 2017 which featured non-Indigenous, non-specialists instructors who had been working to bring Indigenous topics into their courses and shared their practices, challenges, and learnings. This panel discussion centred the voices of Indigenous and Indigenous Studies faculty on sharing responsibility for Indigenous engagement across teaching and learning. 

If you missed out on the session or would like a recap and further resources, please visit the UBC Learning Circle website.  

Exploring resources to support learning about Musqueam's history, governance, laws and ongoing leadership on campus. During this session we will share resources that have been created in collaboration with Musqueam as a way to bring these important discussions into the classroom.  

Facilitator: Lorna Brown 

As a partnership between UBC Equity and Inclusion Office and CTLT Indigenous Initiatives, this experiential workshop introduces participants to a tool for engaging controversial topics, should they choose to do so. The presentation will be followed by a conversation about if, how, and when we might use such a tool.

Facilitator: Aftab Erfan

This workshop invites non-Indigenous faculty to face their complicity in the reproduction of systemic colonial patterns, and take responsibility for doing more of the intellectual, affective, and relational work that is required for institutional change beyond conditional forms of inclusion.

Facilitator: Sharon Stein 

Hosted each year in December, the Winter Institute is a time for colleagues to come together during the mid-academic year, and to reflect on the impact of their teaching practices on student learning and experiences. The Winter Institute provides an opportunity to network with colleagues, review the practical application of techniques and discuss practices that are successful in varying learning environments.

CTLT Indigenous Initiatives is collaborating and supporting colleagues across campus on responding to disclosures of sexual assault and distressing material. Please see below to register for the upcoming sessions: 

1. Responding to Disclosures of Sexual Assault: Wednesday Dec 11th from 11:15am-12:30pm
2. Distressing Material in (and Beyond) the Classroom: Strategies and Resources for Responsible Engagement: Wednesday Dec 11th from 1-3pm