Learning, Teaching, and Assessment Approaches

NWIC is striving to create an environment where students are learning and being assessed using:

• meaningful, relevant, and contextualized experiences
• approaches traditionally used by tribal people, such as apprenticeships, observations, and practice (case studies, capstone projects, journals, apprenticeships, self-evaluation, portfolios)
• an integrated curriculum
• an experientially grounded curriculum
• a “place-based” curriculum
• authentic approaches (e.g., self-reflecting and self-assessing, applying concepts to a relevant context, teaching material to peers, writing about a subject, asking essential questions)
• a curriculum founded on traditional culture and knowledge
• formative classroom assessment techniques (short, frequent, ungraded attempts to assess student learning) to provide immediate in-class feedback from students.

Different forums have been used for engaging faculty in dialogue about innovative teaching, learning, and assessment approaches, such as Friday sessions, spring breaks, pre-service workshops, other workshops, faculty meetings, VP-faculty meetings, weekly/monthly emails to all faculty, etc.