Donna DesBiens

Hi Meg-nolia! 

I'm so happy to connect again here :-). I really enjoyed our conversations in FLO last year, especially your thoughts on how we can 'forget' technical expertise if well-learned and get into the imaginative part of exploring alt approaches, media, and unknown outcomes. 

Your graphic speaks to me. It's hard to balance creativity and clock even just as one person. As a member of a few collaborative teams, I might need to add several more scribbles, colours, and squares to the pic! 

And I agree, forget perfection, and enjoy relaxing into creative flow for the next five days, forget the demands of the data square and focus on the scribble.  I'm into exploring the Heard, Seen, Respected liberating structure myself :)

 Affectionately, Donna  

Hi everyone, 

One big question - What are some liberating structures I can adapt for synchronous online / self-paced faculty dev courses on culturally responsive teaching & learning?    

I hope to share a draft learning activity for an upcoming course & would greatly appreciate feedback and suggestions from the group.  I'm looking forward to learning from others' activities and hopefully being able to offer useful feedback too.  

Kind regards, Donna 

Please see annotation on your post! Best, Donna

Hi Bonnie, 

I get the challenge of maybe overwhelming listeners with too many names, especially newcomers who speak English as a second or additional language. My 'positionality' is that we want to engage minds and hearts, not lose or confuse them.  

I think U of A did well on making a clear, brief statement of Treaty 6 as a traditional gathering place for (so many) diverse Nations. Yet, I wonder, could this statement be made even more brief if the focus is only on larger Nation affiliations? 

Would it be fair to say just Cree and Assiniboine peoples in your acknowledgement? And maybe show maps/info on the diverse First Nations in later learning activities. E.g.: Where I am on Vancouver Island, the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council includes 14 unique First Nation communities who work together for good, but in fact have diverse community needs, values, and aims. 

Try not to worry too much about making mistakes. No doubt, we all will do that!  Just remember resources are at hand:  E.g. Ask local Indigenous elders; use the resources in this microcourse; and please do stay in touch about how you're implementing the ideas from this course.  Still here, Donna   

Hello everyone,

In case you haven't logged in since Friday, we'd like to mention that we have added some more responses to your land acknowledgement statements. We'd also like to remind you that you will have ongoing access to the course indefinitely, although the posting ability will be turned off in a week or so as Sylvia noted in the Open Forum.  

It has truly been a pleasure working and learning with you over this past week!  

Till our paths cross again, 

Your facilitators, Donna and Dianne