On this page you can explore some of the work emerging from the JJPChair. Each project has its own dedicated page.

Moving Achievement Together Holistically (MATH): This project has focused on working with Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey (MK) schools and public schools serving MK communities to improve mathematics achievement through the implementation of a framework for transforming mathematics that emerged as part of a research project in Mi’kmaw communities (Lunney Borden 2010). Known as the Mawikinutimatimk (coming together to learn together) Framework, this approach is rooted in Mi’kmaw ways of knowing, being, and doing, referred to in Mi’kmaq as L’nui’ta’simk (our people’s ways of knowing). The projects aimed to deliver professional learning opportunities and classroom based supports to help teachers transform their mathematics classrooms into learning spaces that reflect the research findings including increased spatial reasoning, verbing, integration of play for learning mathematics, and the centring of Indigenous knowledges to connect mathematics to community practice. 

Holistic Math Assessments: Developing holistic math assessment tools for early learners is an on-going project in partnership with Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey and Sprig Learning. A key focus of this work is the development of a holistic mathematics assessment and pedagogical program called Aliet Discovers her Numbers. Building from a previously developed holistic oral language assessment, Antle Discovers His Voice, the Aliet program is focused on assessing student thinking in terms of processes rather than content with an app that collects not only performance data but also funds of knowledge data that help the teacher learn about children’s interests and activities outside of school. An online portal of activities and a kit of materials help teachers to build culturally enabling mathematical experiences for children that are rooted in Mi’kmaw ways of knowing, being and doing. A pre-school program called Sprig Explorers has been designed to build from the Aliet program and focus on supporting Black and Latine students as well as students living in poverty. We continue to work on piloting these tools and refining them based on these pilots.

Decolonizing Mathematics assessments: The overall purpose of this research is to explore the ways diagnostic assessments enable or disable growth in mathematics understanding for children most impacted by colonialism, in particular Black and Mi’kmaw children in Mi’kma’ki or what we now call Nova Scotia. This research stems from ongoing collaborative relationships in local Mi’kmaw and Black communities that have focused on strategies for decolonizing pedagogy and content in mathematics classrooms. Yet, we recognize the disabling and dehumanizing power of current diagnostic assessment practices that contribute to the opportunity gap (otherwise referred to as an achievement gap) for students in mathematics achievement, resulting in higher rates of individualized program plans (IPPs), streaming into nonacademic courses and lowered expectations for Black and Mi’kmaw children. Much has been written about how these mathematics assessments are not culturally relevant or enabling, yet there is limited literature on how to create more appropriate diagnostic tools. Diagnostic assessments should be useful for educators, students, and their families to understand the underlying reasons for mathematics difficulties and create plans to support student learning. Thus, we are interested in determining a process for designing better tools for assessment. We seek to address these inherent inequities in diagnostic assessments by elevating Indigenous and Black epistemological perspectives to create frameworks for critically analysing these assessments, and imaging new possibilities for examining growth in mathematics understanding.

“What does it look like in the classroom?”: Locally meaningful STEM teaching and learning in Indigenous K-12 contexts: This project engages with the question: What might locally meaningful K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning (T&L) look like in Indigenous contexts? The project was to have 3 locations (with one or more school sites in each), where case studies of locally meaningful STEM would be developed, but COVID has prevented us from doing the case studies and we have shifted our focus to work with Indigenous graduate students and educational leaders who are working in the areas of decolonizing math and science to come to answer our questions in new ways. An Elder is part of our team to guide our work and keep us focused in a good way. We frame this work in ethical relationality to open a space where Indigenous and Western knowledges might co-exist (Donald, 2012), attending to ongoing tensions in the work between ways of knowing, being, and doing of different people and peoples/Nations, between perspectives and experiences of Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants, between languages, while still creating spaces where we might move closer together through iterative processes of collective learning (Donald, 2009).