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<\/a>Camosun students are currently offered several alternative placement assessments designed specifically with different populations in mind. However, Niwa says that there has yet to be an assessment developed for Indigenous students, expressing Indigenous worldviews.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe have all these different assessments and assessment tools for our different populations, but nothing yet for Indigenous students. So we were really seeking for an assessment tool that reflected Indigenous worldviews and that is something that would be engaging and that would be friendly and comfortable and familiar for Indigenous students as they transition into postsecondary, given that assessment can be a nerve-wracking experience for some. And, of course, we want students to show what they know and to do the best they can,\u201d she says. \u201cSo making a tool that is appropriate, culturally appropriate, and works for them is our goal.\u201d<\/p>\n Placement assessments prepare students by evaluating where strengths and weaknesses lie. Niwa says assessment tools allow students to be accurately introduced to the postsecondary school education level, inspiring confidence and success, whereas being improperly prepared can lead to emotional and financial discouragement.<\/p>\n \u201c[Indigenous students] can internalize that sense of not being prepared and not being ready, get really discouraged and drop out,\u201d says Niwa. \u201cThe education ends. But the debt that they\u2019ve incurred for not being placed in a good way doesn\u2019t go away. And so you may be stuck, you know, working minimum wage to try to pay off maybe a student loan or a debt, and you\u2019ve got nothing to show for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Niwa feels a personally reflective design in postsecondary education is important for Indigenous students to share honest and sincere writing in a comfortable environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve all been in that position where we possibly confront a question, let\u2019s say, on a midterm or for an interview, and we don\u2019t really know what to say,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re not sure because we don\u2019t have that lived experience\u2014we just don\u2019t have that inner knowledge, and so we\u2019re forced to respond very inauthentically. We\u2019re trying to make it up, impersonate someone or something that we\u2019re not. And that\u2019s a very uncomfortable position to be in. And so that\u2019s why it\u2019s so important for students and Indigenous students to see their worldview reflected, that they know that they can share who they are and what they know.\u201d<\/p>\n Niwa says the standard English placement assessment currently available to students is American-based\u2014lacking Indigenous reading passages and writing prompts, and featuring a heavy bias toward materialistic, individualistic, and capitalistic topics. The current tool also contains potentially harmful language, putting Indigenous students in an unsafe position.<\/p>\n \u201cThe American-based tool also has not been looked at with an Indigenous lens. So much of the language can be very triggering, offensive, potentially, and there are no choices,\u201d she says. \u201cSo the triggering language and the lack of choice is, again, something that we would like to decolonize. So really, making sure that all the language that we use in the process and the tool is sensitive to intergenerational trauma, that\u2019s very important that choices be built into the assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n Retired Camosun Indigenous advisor, instructional assistant, and program leader Wendy McDonald is another founding member of the IEPA project. McDonald, who says the idea behind IEPA has been in the works for around 30 years, looks forward to seeing how the Indigenized assessment will better include Indigenous peoples and values.<\/p>\n \u201cMy hope is that [Indigenous students] can do an assessment like this, see themselves in it, and then just tell their story in a good way without just struggling with it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n McDonald says the addition of Indigenous-focused content in BC\u2019s high-school education curriculum is not reflected in the assessment for postsecondary. She says this is more reason to develop IEPA.<\/p>\n \u201cThe BC government has done all this work in creating programs like First Peoples English 10, First Peoples English 11, First Peoples English 12… They\u2019ve been working on those programs, the curriculum for that… for years and years,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd so if you think about all the work that\u2019s been done on that, so when a student takes those courses, for them to come to the college and not see any of that curriculum reflect[ed] in the assessment, it just seems so weird.\u201d<\/p>\n McDonald believes course assessments to be no different than physical assessments\u2014training and exercising to ensure a capable student. She hopes to remove the stigma students have about assessments that may cause resistance to the resource.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I always tell students,\u201d says McDonald, \u201cis that the assessment is your friend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Born out of an idea conceived in 2019, Camosun College faculty, staff, and a steering committee of 15 members are working together to decolonize English placement assessments. With input from the college community and support from eight Canadian institutions, the Indigenizing English Placement Assessment (IEPA) project aims to create an inclusive and equitable environment to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,312],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-june-5-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25478,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25477\/revisions\/25478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}