This pathfinder presents resources for educators of Native
American students in tribal colleges on the topic of “Indigenous
Learning Research.” Sources included are only Web-based and consist
of educational organizations, Native American sources of information,
and research articles in the area of Native American learning styles.
The pathfinder is restricted to Web-based resources due to the lack of
print resources available to tribal college communities and educators.
Native American educational history has had many changes
and growing pains. Current statistics label Native American students as
“at-risk.” The research sources presented in this pathfinder
indicate the reasoning behind learning research regarding indigenous populations
and the educational theories that apply. Furthermore, educational and
learning research provides not only new ideas but suggestions for implementation.
Most of the research available in indigenous education
pertains to K-12 students or pertains to indigenous students in public
education environments. However, the need for improvement of indigenous
educational philosophy can easily be informed by educational research
from many of these sources.
Many questions can be answered through the use of this
pathfinder:
· What do I need to know about indigenous cultures
in order to teach in these environments?
· Is there any research that is currently being
done?
· Why is it necessary to understand learning skills
and strategies of indigenous peoples in order to effectively teach?
· Is the nature of an indigenous learning environment
substantially different from education in other environments?
· Once I understand and have seen the research
that is available, how do I implement what I have learned into my teaching
of indigenous people?
· Are there resources available for assessing the
learning styles of my students?
Following the introduction, an annotated bibliography
will list pertinent sources of learning research and indigenous educational
research. The annotations are provided to make the usefulness of the sources
evident. An educator to indigenous college age students will gain from
the pathfinder a better sense of the sources available to them in educational
research areas. Specific articles regarding learning styles of indigenous
students are provided as well.
Search Strategy for Pathfinder
Although searching for information appears to be quite
non-linear, the searching executed to create this pathfinder can be described
in terms of resources and search terms used. First of all, the Web search
engine called “Google” was consulted for preliminary searching.
The search terms used were in the following combinations: “indigenous
education” and “learning;” “Native American”
and “education” and “research;” and “indian”
and “learning.” These searches led me to the major organizations
concerned with indigenous education.
Second of all, ERIC resources were consulted. A search
was done in the ERIC free database to determine the sources of information
for Native American Education. Third of all, many organizations concerned
with Native Americans contained links. These link collections were explored
thoroughly. Finally, in searching for research articles, I found that
many articles were not availabe freely on the Web. I noted the authors
of the research and searched for other material on the Web by the same
authors.
Information resources were sought which were sponsored
or offered by governmental and educational organizations. When research
articles were found, I noted the biographical information regarding the
authors and the types of references cited in the articles. Attention was
paid to the URL’s to determine the organization responsible for the
information found. Web resources were selected based on the subject: whether
it pertained closely to education research rather than teaching tools
and whether the information was useful for Native educators. Finally,
Web resources were selected based on their currency. This was a hard task,
due to the lack of new information. Many research articles found were
written in the early-90s.