Indigenous Culture-Based School Mathematics in Action: Part I: Professional Development for Creating Teaching Materials

Abstract

This first of a pair of articles describes a professional development project that prepared four non-Indigenous mathematics teachers (Grades 5–12) to implement Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC, 2016) notion of reconciliation: cross-cultural respect through mutual understanding. The researchers collaboratively mentored the teachers to enhance their mathematics teaching with Indigenous mathematizing3. The teachers’ focus was on developing and revising lesson plans for other teachers to teach. This process explicitly and implicitly revealed precise supports that need to be in place for a teacher to succeed at innovating with this Indigenous culture-based school mathematics (ICBSM). Part I is a template for scaling up the development of much needed Indigenous resources for mathematics teachers. Part II reports on the research results of this year-long research project.