Stephanie West explains the origins and meaning of the Native Voices framework, which helps educators find congruency in the apparent disconnect between western and Indigenous pedagogies and values through awareness, reflection, and learning from Native voices.

Brenda Beyal, NACI Program Coordinator, and Emily Soderborg, NACI Project Manager, discuss reasons why the popular fourth-grade song "Utah Indians" may need to be set aside. Emily shares two alternate Native-approved songs that can be sung by anyone, including the appropriate cultural context for each song and a paragraph that teachers can read in their classrooms before singing.

Brenda Beyal, NACI Project Coordinator, discusses one of the NACI guiding principles with Stephanie West and shares why multiple perspectives are important in teaching history and understanding the lived experiences of Native Americans.

Brenda Beyal, NACI Program Coordinator, describes the ways the Native American Curriculum Initiative is valuable to teachers, the importance of tribal approval on our educational materials, and makes distinguishes among different types of authentic, Native voices.

Brenda Beyal, NACI Program Coordinator, and other members of our team reflect on indigenous pedagogy and its relationship to the arts in education.

Terry Goedel, World Champion Hoop Dancer and retired Math Educator shares how he sees mathematical patterns in the hoop dance, the importance of this Native tradition to his family, the story he performs with his hoops, and his individual journey to hoop dancing.

In this episode, Emily Soderborg shares her experiences attending the Bear Dance with her family on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. Emily shares what she learned about the White Mesa Community and their Bear Dance stories and traditions.

In this episode, Brenda Beyal and members of the Native American Curriculum Initiative team offer ideas for supporting Native families' connection to schools. This conversation responds to several questions submitted by a teacher who desires to help Native families find a cultural space in their school district.

Brenda Beyal and members of the Native American Curriculum Initiative team answer teachers questions about Native content in the classroom. In this episode, the question is "I want to teach Native American art projects but don’t want to appropriate. Any tips on this? Also, do you know of any Native Americans near Utah county that would be willing to come to my classroom?"

This final episode captures three of the teachers participating in the STEM and Arts Think Tank as they share their experience of integrating arts into science lessons to produce diverse educational experiences.

Marie Mattinson shares stories of how the arts in classrooms create 100% student engagement, support struggling learners, educate the whole child, and open the door to teach students empathy and social-emotional awareness.

Mr. Dance’s dance background began as a carpool dad for his daughter’s dance classes where he sat on the sidelines and graded papers. Eventually, he saw dance as essential for his own students to engage creatively in embodied learning. With encouragement from strong female dance teachers he took advantage of additional dance workshops until he became a requested professional development dance teacher himself.

This series was produced as part of a research practice partnership project facilitated by Dr. Heather Leary and Tina McCulloch. It describes how BYU’s Instructional Psychology Department and the Provo City School District are working together to assist elementary school teachers with Utah SEEd standards and the project’s inquiry-based pedagogy by using arts integration. This design-based research project is an iterative process of academic research with school district support to build teacher capacity.

Tina McCulloch discusses how arts integration with STEM and inquiry-based learning supports teachers who are overwhelmed. Student-based inquiry forms the basis of the new Utah SEEd standards, and Tina shares strategies for using Visual Thinking Strategies in the classroom to help students and teachers learn to be comfortable with struggle, exploration, questions, discovery, and making connections. Teaching SEEd phenomena is made clearer by using local, real-life examples. This episode also offers practical tips for teaching SEEd through the arts, including a number of specific resources and examples are offered for teachers to immediately implement in their classrooms.

By chance, Bob Smith attended BYU’s Arts Academy where he “found [his] people.” In this episode, this District Elementary Arts Coach witnesses how arts integration brings out students’ creativity, problem solving and collaboration skills, and encourages teachers to jump in and return to play and fun in the classroom.

Listen to Dovie Thomason retell the story “Frog’s Teeth.” Dovie Thomason is a Native American storyteller and author. She is a keynote speaker at the Arts Express Summer Conference, June 7-8, 2022.

Jennifer Purdy interviews Connor Chee, Navajo pianist and composer about his journey from a young piano student in Page, Arizona to his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 12, to becoming an award winning composer and recording artist. Woven throughout the interview is an opportunity to hear excerpts of Connor's work and how his compositions reflect his life experience and Navajo heritage.

Instructional Designers, Heather Francis & Stephanie West, discuss the release of a new online course for teachers titled "Amplify Native Voices in the Classroom". There are six modules spanning the topics of cultural identity, US tribal relations, the formation of Utah's reservations, guiding principles for culturally responsive teaching and choosing accurate and authentic sources for the classroom.

Heather Francis and Brenda Beyal speak with two artists from the Turtle Island Art Collective, Crystal Begay and Alan Groves. Crystal is an artist who specializes in Plains Indian-style moccasins. Alan is a teacher and artist who works with quilt work and beadwork. The Turtle Island Art Collective’s mission is to empower Indigenous artists, showcase Indigenous artists, and inspire Indigenous youth. They will be presenting a series of special workshops at Arts Express this summer facilitated by artists in their collective. Turtle Island Art Collective https://turtleislandartcollective.square.site/ https://www.instagram.com/turtle_island_art_collective/?hl=en https://www.facebook.com/TurtleIslandArtCollective/ Native American Curriculum Initiative Website: www.advancingartsleadership.com/naci