Provincial Project Funding Announcement

Posted: July 14, 2009

Provincial Funding Announcement

ONLC submitted a number of project funding proposals for the 2009-10 fiscal year and has received funding approval for six of these ideas.

Here is a brief description of the projects ONLC will be involved with this year, taken from the project summaries.

Adult Literacy Curriculum - Phase 2: Native Stream Participation on Provincial Project Work Team

The Ontario Native Literacy Coalition (ONLC) will provide a member of a Project Work Team, drawn from the Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) delivery sectors and four delivery streams and led by a project-manager. The accountability for the work and products of the work team member is shared between the project manager and the respective sponsoring organization according to a matrix structure.

This team will develop a draft adult literacy curriculum for Ontario based on the HRSDC Essential Skills, adapted to the streams and sectors.

ALC in the Native Stream: Supportive Research, Resources, Training & Piloting

ONLC will support and inform the development of a draft Adult Literacy Curriculum, incorporating the work of the Learner Skill Attainment initiative and based on the HRSDC Essential Skills, to be developed for the deliverers of literacy services of Employment Ontario.

In support of this initiative ONLC will undertake an initial research stage during which existing materials suitable for an Aboriginal Adult Literacy Curriculum will be reviewed and evaluated and ONLC will support the development of a complete ALC suitable for use in the Native LBS Stream.

Training will be developed to provide orientation for selected field test agencies and be delivered to pilot site staff.

Feedback will be provided to the provincial Project Work Team to allow the final curriculum materials to be developed.

A Journey of Learning: 2009 ONLC Provincial Practitioner Training Conference

ONLC proposes to provide 2½ days of quality, culturally-appropriate P.D. training designed to meet the needs of practitioners in the Native literacy field and the ministry. Training content is based on the Practitioner Training Action Plan (PTAP), developed from grass roots input collected during the ministry-funded project ‘Culturally Specific Native Literacy Programming’ with input from the field, and on current ministry initiatives.

This event will build on the success of the last conference by addressing more of the traditional and cultural training ideas outlined in the PTAP, which proved so effective in 2008. It will provide basic training for new and less experienced practitioners as well as more challenging and stimulating training for experienced staff. In response to feedback from the field, more outdoor session options will be offered. These will be lead by local Elders and traditional people to take advantage of their knowledge and wisdom. This return to traditional knowledge will enable practitioners to gather teachings that may otherwise be lost to future generations and develop them into valid LBS training curricula to enhance the cultural relevance of the ALC.

During the conference practitioners will have the opportunity to reinforce their core skills in areas including preparing for the new Adult Literacy Curriculum, developing effective teaching and assessment strategies for Native learners. EO personnel will be invited to attend both to develop a better understanding of the Native culture and to strengthen mutual understanding of the relevance of literacy training.

ArrowMite Literacy Programming: A Pilot Project

The ONLC will pilot the ArrowMite Literacy program material with learners from two Native communities where LBS programs are present. The program is community-based and the primary support resource for learners will be a Community Facilitator chosen from the local community who has a set of characteristics, traits and skills that have been pre-determined as necessary.

Once trained, these Community Facilitators will be the people responsible for recruiting and assessing potential learner candidates for the program. Tentative sites for this project could include a remote northern location and one in a more urban south/central part of Ontario.

The concept of running a community-based program is a unique one in which one person would be the target learner but other members of the extended family unit would be exposed to the materials. Learning using in this type of program is learner driven because the materials are set up to be self-directed and the Community Facilitators trained to help learners answer their own questions.

The Native Stream: Discovery, Definition, and Documentation through Community-based Research

With the coming of an Adult Literacy Curriculum, and the move towards acknowledging that cultural relevance is important and needed in literacy and essential skills programs, it is in the best interest of both the ministry and ONLC to try to document the variety of current delivery models being used in the Native stream properly. Before Aboriginal literacy training can be redefined to determine what it is going to look like in the future we need to know what makes it unique,where it is now and we need to clearly understand the successes, as well as the challenges, current programs are experiencing.

ONLC will hire a qualified and accredited outside academic to research all the LBS programs in the Native stream looking at the current delivery models, challenges that are unique to individual sites, best practices that have been developed, the outcomes that learners are experiencing and whether, or how, those outcomes were related to the delivery model being used. This would have to include quantitative as well as qualitative data collection and include elements of community-based research as well as evaluating IMS data from program Activity Reports. To ensure credibility, the researcher who takes on this project will be asked to work in conjunction with a recognized organization like OISE.

Rekindling the Spirit- Reclaiming our Identity: Curriculum Development in the Native Stream

ONLC will work with a group of experienced Native practitioners, Elders, and outside experts in Aboriginal curriculum and the Essential Skills to develop culturally relevant LBS curriculum related to traditional knowledge, teachings, and Native culture.

During a six month curriculum development phase three separate curriculum components will be created. Materials for lower level will be based on the basic teachings of the 7 Grandfathers, Medicine Wheel and Tree of Life. Mid level materials will focus on the traditional Moon Calendar and higher level materials will be built around an Essential Skills template that supports personal growth and development through self-directed exploration of one’s culture, traditions and history.

Draft materials will be piloted before they are printed and distributed to the field. Practitioners will receive on-line training on how to use these new materials so all practitioners can develop a comfort level with the concepts, content and delivery options.

This project allows the Native stream to begin to develop the capacity to create and implement literacy curriculum that is culturally relevant of Aboriginal learners which includes preparing practitioners to work with the new Adult Literacy Curriculum when it is implemented.