My Trip to Aurora College, Yellowknife NT Ann Hanna

     Aurora College has 3 campuses in Yellowknife, Fort Smith and Inuvik. Although Yellowknife has a much larger population, Fort Smith is the main campus.  There are also community learning centres throughout the territory.  The college does not have on line studies.  Anyone who wants to learn on line has to go through Hay River where they use resources from Alberta.

     Yellowknife has a downtown campus and a community learning centre for First Nations students.  The community centre is self-paced and programs are connected to the workplace. When I passed by the small building, I noticed there were two doors.  One door said “Outreach Literacy” and the other said something like “Trades and Technology”.  I thought the building represented much of where we want to go in CEFL at Bow Valley College!  I wrote a letter asking to visit the Diloh First Nations community centre in Yellowknife, but unfortunately I did not get permission to go there. 

     Essential skills are integrated into the curriculum at Aurora College.  The college plans to do more work on essential skills in the future.  I visited Suzanne Robinson, a teacher in the Developmental Studies Program (same as our CEFL program) at the downtown campus.  The campus occupies three floors of a large building.  When I entered the building the first thing I saw was a small lounge.  There was a bookcase full of books for a student book exchange.  I thought this was a great idea that Bow Valley College might implement.  

     I met Suzanne at her office on the second floor.  She told me that the college had a LINC and a business department as well as the Developmental Studies department.  In the Developmental Studies department, they work at keeping good connections or ladders between levels of the academic program and the career programs.  Mostly they teach up to grade 12, but students can take nursing and teaching degrees at the college as they are affiliated with the University of Regina.  For other programs, students travel south to study at the universities that have an agreement with Aurora College.  These change from time to time.   Most of the courses taught at the downtown campus are paced with the exception of the self-paced math program for the lower levels.

In their math program,

     Math 1-10 is K-3 math

     Math 1-20 is Grade 4-6 math

     Math 1-30 is Grade 7-8 math

     I was excited to find out that they are currently working on a new math curriculum, so most of our conversation revolved around this and the materials they use for the rest of the visit.

      The students in the self-paced math program used several resources.  As in BVC, different instructors preferred different textbooks. 1.      Foundations for Success in College Math, the text we use for Basic Math 1 was also used at Aurora College.  When you order this book, you can choose the sections you need and make a personalized text.  This book was more widely used in their program than in ours.

2.            They also used a set of self-study modules that I thought would be useful for us to take a look at.   They were called Fundamental Level Math 2 and they were from the Province of British Columbia.  I looked at the whole numbers module (ISBN 077189383-3) and the fractions module.  The modules come with tests and answer keys.

The website is www.publications.gov.bc.ca

Aurora College orders them from the Queens Printer Government Publication Services

QPPublications@gems5.gov.bc.ca

250-387-6409

1-800-663-6105

They can also be ordered from Grassroots Press.

     I also investigated some other places where students can work on literacy skills in Yellowknife.

1.       Tree of Peace Friendship Centre

 I had a phone interview with this centre.  It teaches 1-10 and 1-20 courses which are the lower grades.  The students work at their own pace.  The lady I spoke to on the phone was not sure how long they could take to finish a course.  The students arrange for their own funding.  Apparently the funding is very complicated as students get funded by the federal and territorial governments, and different treaties have different funding rules.  I was told that although they use Aurora College materials, the centre is not connected to the college in any other way.  The centre uses a holistic approach and if students have social, personal or other issues, they have access to help.

2.      Native Women’s Association of the Northwest Territories

This organization has an adult learning centre as well as well as many other services.  Their mission statement is as follows.

“Provide training and educational programs for Native Women in the Western Arctic, so they can function most effectively in areas that affect our lives economically, socially, educationally, emotionally, culturally and politically.”

They provide training in English, math, and computers.  They are self-paced and run from 9-2, Monday to Friday.

     Yellowknife is a unique and interesting city to visit.  I put some photos on the P drive for anyone who would like to take a look.

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