{"id":20991,"date":"2022-05-19T18:36:37","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T22:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nearpod.com\/blog\/?p=20991"},"modified":"2023-06-26T14:01:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T18:01:36","slug":"my-nearpod-experience-teaching-lakota-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nearpod.com\/blog\/my-nearpod-experience-teaching-lakota-language\/","title":{"rendered":"My Nearpod Experience: Teaching Lakota Language"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The educators at Red Cloud Indian School who are teaching the Lakota language have been using Nearpod daily to develop lessons that range from kindergarten curriculum to adult Lakota language classes. The Lakota language is the indigenous language of the Lakota people. Since the boarding school<\/a> era (the 1860s to the 1970s), the Lakota language has been in danger of going extinct. Drastic measures had to be taken in recent years to revitalize the language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakota language immersion means that our students are completely immersed in the Lakota language while at school. They learn math, social studies, science, reading, and writing all in Lakota<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearpod allows Lakota immersion educators the freedom to develop lessons in the language through entertaining activities for all our students. Nearpod also provides a variety of lessons that educators can save and translate into the Lakota language. Students of all ages access our Nearpod lessons almost every day of the week. Each Lakota language immersion educator has created hundreds of Nearpod lessons over a few years, and we continue to make more every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learn how to create Nearpod lessons<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The importance of teaching Lakota language<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The history of education and Indigenous peoples must be understood to fully grasp the importance of teaching the Lakota language and teaching Lakota language immersion. Indigenous peoples\u2019 first introduction to the education system was boarding schools<\/a> built in the late 1800s. Colonel Richard H. Pratt stated the mission of these schools and infamously said, \u201cKill the Indian, save the man.\u201d Such a short and straightforward statement molded the foundation of the education system society continues to use to this day. Indigenous knowledge systems<\/strong><\/a> and languages were silenced due to the education system working to industrialize and assimilate Indigenous peoples.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effects of that era, which ended in the \u201980s, are still prominent in tribal communities. There are only a few thousand fluent Lakota language speakers today. This is a small number compared to over 40,000 Lakota enrolled tribal members. Reimagining the education system through language revitalization has proven successful for all students and educators involved. The Lakota language immersion curriculum is entirely a culture-based education implementing culturally sustaining pedagogy. Through this program, we are working towards guiding this young generation and the ones to follow to be fluent in the Lakota language and knowledgeable of cultural teachings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Nearpod<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Nearpod<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

How Nearpod helped us jumpstart the curriculum<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We, the Lakota immersion educators of Red Cloud Indian School, discovered Nearpod around the summer of 2020, the pandemic’s beginning. The only Lakota immersion curriculum we had developed up to that point was not accessible online. At first, educators were told that this would only last some weeks, so we printed out as much work as possible for students to take home. Since it was so early on in the pandemic, society did not yet know how COVID-19<\/a> was transmitted, so continuing to pass out workbooks and activities for families to pick up was not an option. We began searching for online-friendly lessons that could be created and manipulated to use Lakota language words with the goal of developing a virtual curriculum solely in the language. Educators could access interactive sites in English, but finding sites that would allow Lakota language immersion educators to manipulate and create lessons proved to be more difficult.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When discovering Nearpod, our school held meetings online for educators to learn more and help each other become familiar with developing lessons on the platform. At the time of March 2020, I was teaching kindergarten, so my biggest concern was keeping my students engaged<\/a> while successfully teaching them new concepts. I would share videos I made of myself discussing our worksheets and teaching the curriculum. Eventually, the school required that all teachers host video meetings with their students every day. We were slowly improving as a school and adjusting to online learning. However, teaching the Lakota language and teaching within the language remained a huge obstacle for parents as many did not know the language. A radical change quickly became necessary for students to continue learning and staying in the immersion program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We decided to develop our curriculum from scratch for better accessibility. My colleagues and I have since developed lessons for kindergarten through fifth grade in all subjects, including language arts, math, social studies, and science. We also developed Nearpod lessons for teaching Lakota language oral proficiency for grades K-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red Cloud Indian School remained virtual for most of the school year of 2021-2022. All educators were required to teach during regular school hours, developing multiple interactive lessons<\/a> five days a week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nearpod<\/figure>
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As young as five years old, students learned how to access and navigate Nearpod through school tablets safely distributed before school. Nearpod provides a variety of activities, which helped maintain their focus and curiosity. All the activities are child-friendly, so telling them to press \u201cthe big blue button\u201d to submit their work was quickly learned.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Interactive slides, videos, and formative assessment activities<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Lakota language immersion educators could introduce a new topic through interactive videos<\/a> and slides and check for understanding using interactive activities<\/a>. Nearpod serves as formative assessments, sometimes asynchronous lessons, and teacher-led lessons for our students. Here\u2019s how we formatted our lessons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n