All learners need to see themselves reflected in the content, discussions and topics explored within their learning environment. Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) need to be central to all curricula and guide the decisions teachers make when designing and delivering learning experiences in and out of the classroom. Students need to have the opportunity to “reflect on the information they receive through observation, experience, and other forms of communication to solve problems, design products, understand events, and address issues” (Ministry of Education, Thinking Competency). Students should also be engaged in metacognition of their personal and social competencies, with a focus on cultural identity and personal responsibility. I design learning experiences that provide students with the opportunity to reflect on the notion of identity and its role in societal interactions, providing students with an “understanding [of] the connections between personal and social behaviour” while encouraging them to “make constructive and ethical decisions and act on them.” This extends to the notion of identity in our “pluralistic society” and the need for both the learning environment and society to be “welcoming and inclusive communities, where people feel safe and have a sense of belonging” (BC Ministry of Education, Personal and Social Competencies).
Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity (SOGI) in the Classroom
While positive steps have been taken at the provincial level to include sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI)-related competencies within curriculum (i.e. BC’s recently redesigned English Language Arts (ELA)), there is a lack of tangible supports available for teachers to meaningfully interpret and address these competencies within their classrooms. Furthermore, learners need to cultivate a critical, SOGI-inclusive lens in their formative years.
As a project for my study into Curriculum Issues in Cultural and New Media Studies, I worked in a team of MET grad students at UBC to develop a multi-modular resource for learners and educators to explore sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) content within the New Media 10 (BC) curriculum.
Our learning resource is intended to support teachers with a toolkit to engage learners with Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the context of the current British Columbia (BC) Grade 10 New Media curriculum. Our focus was on designing interactive online learning modules to engage teachers and learners in guided inquiry to enhance critical, creative, and reflective thinking.
This toolkit will facilitate inclusive teaching and learning opportunities by:
- Supporting teachers in accessing the New Media 10 curriculum from a critical media literacy lens.
- Supporting teachers in exploring the ‘Big Ideas’ and curricular competencies of New Media 10 through the lens of inclusivity.
- Arming teachers with historical background, language, lessons, and resources related to SOGI.
The main goal of this teaching and learning resource is to support both teachers and students by providing tools to meaningfully interpret and explore SOGI-related texts, while enhancing New Media 10 competencies on the topics of identity and representation.
Teaching ‘Transformatively’: SOGI in the Classroom Extension
As a SOGI lead in schools since I began teaching in 2004, my focus has been on supporting youth in seeing themselves in curricular content, providing a space for acceptance, and spreading awareness of the 2SLGBTQIA community. The success of this project has led to my current work to develop a digital toolkit through a grant from UBC’s Edith Lando Virtual Learning Center (ELVLC).
With the help of the Edith Lando VLC, I am currently collaborating with a team to develop a digital toolkit intended to support educators in creating more critical and culturally sustaining classrooms that center on intersectional, IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, People of Colour), and 2SLGBTQIA+ (Two Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, and other) identities. In doing so, this project will contribute towards a broader commitment of advancing equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonization, and anti-racism (EDIDA) by providing practical tools for educators and administrators to transform their practice.
Teaching ‘Transformatively’ Through Making: Interactive Storytelling to Foster Change
This living collaboration has moved beyond the boundaries of my master’s studies as my team and I connect with local Indigenous authors and create professional development workshops to support educators in inclusive teaching practices. Most recently, we presented an interactive workshop at UBC’s MET Inclusive Makerspace Conference (May 2023), through which we explored the potential of games and digital media to “foster change through empathy and compassion” (Gray & Leonard, 2018, p. 19). Our provocation for making centered the interactive web series Downtown Browns, which combines art activism with social encounters to highlight the daily decisions faced by 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals and women of colour (Beglari et al., 2016). A powerful tool for dialogue around equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonization, and anti-racism (EDIDA), this open-source text enables learners to explore how identity and lived experiences are shaped by privilege, power, and oppression.
MET Anti-Racism Series Call to Action
The Master in Educational Technology program at the University of British Columbia is currently (2022) running a speaker series “to acknowledge the commitment that every individual and our organizations have to inclusivity and to addressing systemic racism. With a focus on anti-indigenous, anti-black, and anti-people-of-colour (IBPOC) racism, this series seeks to identify the responsibility educators have to facilitating and supporting anti-racist approaches and strategies within their practice to enhance and transform learning environments and learning cultures. Presenters have been asked to focus on education, racism, and anti-racism in our digital age” (MET Speaker Series, 2022).
As part of the MET Anti-Racism in the EdTechnosphere Speaker Series, they have a “Call to Action” to create an online resource of anti-racism lesson plans to support k-12, undergraduate, and graduate students and instructors. As a reflection of my commitment to inclusive education, and in response to the following talks, I have answered this call to action with lesson plans focused on the BC ELA grade 10 and 11 Curriculum:
- Representation
- Identity & Power Unit Plan: Story, Identity, Privilege, Oppression & Equity (New Media 10/11)
- Historic Trauma: Peoplehood, Two-Eyed Seeing & Reconciliation (New Media 10/11)
Unit Plan: Story, Identity, Privilege, Oppression & Equity
I designed the following lesson plans in response to Dr. Carl James’s lecture: Race Matters – Costs of Equity, Inclusion, Diversity and Allyship. In his lecture, Dr. James emphasized that race is a social construct tied to history, geography, politics, and economics. It is important to help learners understand the impact society and stories have on identity and interactions. He stated that “race determines how people are invited and accepted into a country” (James, 2022) and I would extend this to include all kinds of social invitations and acceptances. This is where significant learning is needed to understand how aspects of our identity play a role in these interactions and how we can shift power, privilege, and oppression through awareness and equity.
Unit Plan: Historic Trauma: Peoplehood, Two-Eyed Seeing & Reconciliation
I designed the following lesson plans in response to Dr Patricia Makokis’s lecture: Understanding and Coming to Terms with Historic Trauma – It’s a Lifelong Journey! In her MET Anti-Racism talk, Dr. Makokis expressed that racism is a social construct and we need to learn about our privilege to make space for those who are “othered” and the best way to do this is through community, connection, and understanding. First Peoples ways of knowing support the importance of connection and community as we deconstruct and think about the intergenerational impact of colonization and how we can move toward healing. Makokis shared the symbolism of the colours red, yellow, black, and white to emphasize that we are all family, that all people are related. This notion connects with Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall’s teachings about etuaptmumk, two-eyed seeing, and how we need to work together to form a shared understanding because, if we don’t, we are only seeing and understanding part of the whole.
GOALS | PHILOSOPHY | E-LEARNING | INCLUSIVE EDUCATION | GAMES & LEARNING | NEW MEDIA
References
Beglari, T., Comrie, A., Garcia, J., Yang, E., Chamorro, L. (2016). Downtown Browns [Interactive Web Series]. http://downtownbrowns.weebly.com/
British Columbia Ministry of Education (2021). Core competencies. Retrieved from BC’s Curriculum website: http://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies
Gray, K. & Leonard, J. (2018). Not a post-racism and post-misogyny promised land: Video games as instruments of (in)justice. In Woke gaming: Digital challenges to oppression and social injustice. University of Washington Press.