Birdtail Sioux and Integrated Planning

On February 5 and 6, teachers and educational assistants at Chan Kagha Otina Dakota Wayawa School participated in the Integrated Planning professional development program. This program leads teachers through elder stories, land-based activities, and lesson-planning models for teachers to develop new plans to incorporate language and land-based activities into their classrooms and to bolster lessons across subjects. The first day of the professional development session involved getting acquainted with land-based resources in the community, such as viewing the community animals and buffalo, snowshoeing through the field, and stories from elders to provide historical context for land-based learning. The second day of the session involved indoor lessons from MFNSS facilitators demonstrating the effectiveness of integrating First Nations language and cultures into diverse subject matter, followed by teachers and educational assistants brainstorming their own ideas for cultural integration. Working in teams, five unique integration models were completed during the session.