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A focus on hands-on, practical learning Nunavut Arctic College rolls out improved adult basic education programming
Miranda Scotland
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 30, 2013
NUNAVUT
Arctic College has overhauled its Adult Basic Education (ABE) programming.
With the changes have come a greater emphasis on the Nunavut perspective, hands on learning and course integration.
Lizzie Aliqatuqtuq, co-ordinator of community programs for Arctic College, and Daniel Page, the college's manager of Adult Basic Education programs, show off the materials for Arctic College's new Inuktitut curriculum. - Miranda Scotland/NNSL photo |
The initiative was spurred by the Canadian Northern Development Agency's commitment to invest $27 million over five years to ABE programs in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.
Arctic College has been allotted $11 million.
"We had to take a hard look at what our ABE program was like," said Daniel Page, the college's manager of ABE programs. "A lot of areas needed improvement and hadn't really been looked at and hadn't been made more specific to Nunavut. We've been using the ABE curriculum stuff from the NWT."
The college's main focus was to improve its Inuktitut curriculum.
Pirurvik Centre founder Leena Evic took on the task and created a set of materials for adult educators.
The new curriculum is based on four themes: Inuit cultural skills, family and relationships, environment, as well as community, leadership and work.
"There is a lot of rich, rich, rich material. More than probably the adult educators need, but that allows them to actually ... follow the interest of the students in terms of that community, in terms of that year, in terms of age," said Page, adding the Inuktitut program is designed to work with other Inuit-based courses.
The hope is to use the material to teach students in a way that engages all five senses, added Lizzie Aliqatuqtuq, co-ordinator of community programs for Arctic College.
"We're told we learn best by doing things, feeling things, touching things and hearing things," she said. "We like to get out there and do more hands on activities, cultural activities."
There is also a healing aspect in the curriculum to help participants recognize who they are, where they belong in the community and what they can do to create and maintain a relationship with the community.
It's an important area, said Aliqatuqtuq, because if a person isn't healthy then it makes it harder for them to function in the real world.
With the funds from the federal government, Nunavut Arctic College has also created the ABE Essential Skills program, which launched about two weeks ago in 18 communities.
The program is designed to teach Nunavummiut skills needed in the work place and for living in the territory, said Page.
"One of the college instructors that I know, he works at the trade school - he said the first day of class he talks about survival skills on the land because he knew a student who went out and actually never came back. He says to me, 'that's an essential skill in Nunavut'."
The students are also encouraged to connect with the community through projects in the program.
For instance, during the pilot phase, students in Iglulik ran a food and clothing bank for the community as part of their poverty reduction project.
The group not only learned from the experience, but received plenty of recognition for their work, said Page.
It gave the students a sense of pride and made learning more engaging for them.
"We're hoping this makes a difference with retention," he said.
Continuing with the theme of practical, hands on learning, the college cut out English and math and replaced it with numeracy and communication, which will be taught together.
Instead of reading novels, students will be working with documents collected from around the territory.
"You're still learning math, you're still learning English, but it's in a totally different context that more represents what people need when they go to work," said Page.
"At work in Nunavut, people don't say, 'OK, I'm going to do math now.' No, the numbers are mixed in with the writing. When you fill out a form, you're doing a bit of math and a bit of reading."
The college's next steps toward improving adult education in the territory will be to get Pirurvik to create a Inuinnaqtun version of the Inuit language curriculum.
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