Living Curricula: Developing a participatory action research process for curricular evaluation and evergreening via a learning management system
Researcher: Jenna O’Connor (Distance Learning Centre)
Project Summary:
The Saskatchewan Teachers’ Perspective on Curriculum Renewal (2016) calls on teachers to advocate for curricula that must reflect and be responsive to the unique and ever-changing realities of Saskatchewan’s classrooms. Curricula that are developed, understood, and implemented by the profession are positioned to center the foundational goals of being rich, high quality, and context sensitive to support student learning and achievement.
My objective is to design, implement, and assess a participatory action research (PAR) process that reimagines curricula as living documents – responsive to emerging knowledge, societal growth, regional issues, and cultural diversity. Working against assumptions of neutrality and objectivity in qualitative inquiry, PAR establishes systematic, collaborative, critical, and self-reflective problem solving with insiders in their own settings to understand problems and co-construct knowledge that improves practice. An aim of PAR is to helps people live well and change history (Anderson et al., 2007; Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005; Miskovic & Hoop, 2006; Roulston & Shelton, 2015). I see PAR as a pathway to helping students cultivate mitho-pimātisiwin/ hotiyé ʔeghena/ the good life.
My approach will explore “the what” (i.e., curricular foundations) and “the how” (i.e., process) of curriculum renewal to create a dynamic, iterative method for curriculum evaluation and evergreening. The observational case study—rooted in my research commitment to northern Indigenous education—will invite high school English language arts teachers from Northern Saskatchewan to participate. Through self-paced, online modules on Canvas learning management system, teachers will learn about curricular foundations, curriculum renewal practices, and a de/colonizing theory of truth and reconciliation education. They will be asked to reflect on their teaching experience, review the preliminary secondary ELA curricula for alignment with the aims of education for reconciliation, and revise it by collaboratively completing the Ministry of Education’s curriculum feedback form.
A professionally led online model could prioritize demographically representative teacher participation in the province and efficiently support:
updating outdated curricula like Geography 30 (1969),
adapting to emergent technologies like AI,
applying evidence-based methods like structured literacy, or
responding to unmet policy mandates like the provincial audit’s call to strengthen implementation of Inspiring Success (Clemett, 2025).
The Core Curriculum Policy(1987) “set the policy framework for curriculum revision and development (i.e., the ‘Evergreen Curriculum’)” (STF, 2016; Robinson, 2006); curriculum evaluation and maintenance are established, but underserved, priorities. The empty “versioning history” columns of newer curricula suggest a ministry-recognized need waiting to be actualized. Learning from teacher-participants’ recommendations about my study’s PAR process could help establish an innovative, quality-driven, and affordable approach to curriculum renewal in Saskatchewan.