Rosado-May, F. J., Urrieta, Jr, L., Dayton, A., & Rogoff, B. (2020). Innovation as a key feature of Indigenous ways of learning. In N. S. Nasir, C. D. Lee, R. Pea, & M. McKinney de Royston (Eds.), Handbook of the cultural foundations of learning (pp. 155–180). Routledge.
Indigenous ways of learning offer lessons for all communities in processes of learning and the co-creation of knowledge. Indigenous ways of learning foster not only learning existing skills/knowledge, but also the creation of new knowledge, both of which are and have been crucial for Indigenous communities’ survival and sustainability. This chapter discusses key concepts and philosophies involved in Indigenous ways of learning, especially in the Americas. We make use of a framework that articulates Indigenous ways of learning that have been explicitly and implicitly described in scholarship on Indigenous Knowledge Systems: Learning by Observing and Pitching In to family and community endeavors (LOPI, Rogoff, 2014). To focus on the generation of knowledge in Indigenous ways of learning, we discuss a Yucatec Maya system for passing on and creating knowledge, iknal, which has been successfully adapted to incorporate Indigenous ways of learning in a university setting. Indigenous ways of learning and innovating can be a resource for instruction and learning in Western institutions, with Indigenous and Western practices building on each other.