ABSTRACT
Ongoing discoveries of mass graves at the former sites of Indian Residential Schools are tragic reminders that the work of advancing truth and reconciliation in Canada must continue. Although the imperative is clear for teacher educators to include Indigenous perspectives in classrooms, many complexities exist that stem from the legacy of colonization. Postsecondary structures and pedagogies are dominated by Western epistemology, and steps must be taken to avoid incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing and coming to know into assimilative frameworks. This chapter presents a collaborative action research design used to work towards decolonizing assessment practices in a fully online teacher-education course. The design drew upon decolonizing principles of storytelling and negotiation to inform shifts in the learning tasks, the formative assessment, and the determination of grades. The challenges encountered and the pedagogical decisions made are discussed with the aim of inviting readers into an ongoing journey of seeking to decolonize assessment practices. The authors are Indigenous and non-Indigenous instructors in a Bachelor of Education after-degree program located in the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut’ina Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda Nations.
