Four Elements Indigenous Framework shapes nursing education at UCalgary

Everyone can find a way to better understand themselves, says Dr. Michelle Scott Paul.

“Depending on your cultural inheritances and your stories, it’s a lifelong journey of knowing, and we all have a story,” says Scott Paul, EdD’23, associate dean, Indigenous Education, in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Nursing. 

She explains that these stories are shaped by place, lived experience, family, and one’s relationship to systems of power, privilege and settler colonialism. 

This understanding underpins Scott Paul’s work with UCalgary Nursing, where she has been instrumental in implementing an Indigenous curriculum framework, linking Indigenous ways of knowing, being, connecting and doing, while enlivening ii’ taa’poh’to’p, the university’s Indigenous Strategy. 

It’s also the basis of the Faculty of Nursing’s Indigenous Health Studies course, co-developed by Scott Paul; Lakota Dakota Elder Evelyn Good Striker; and nursing colleague, settler-ally Dr. Heather Bensler, BN’97, EdD’22. First offered in Fall 2024, the course is required for all first-year students in the new Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, ensuring the four elements are integrated into the nursing curriculum.

For Scott Paul, the element of “Air: Self-in-Relation” is the foundational starting point. 

The other three elements, while not necessarily sequential, are: “Fire: Service & Reciprocity”; “Earth: Relationships to Land”; and “Water: Anti-Indigenous Racism.”

For National Indigenous History Month, Scott Paul reflected on the impact of this course, where it’s headed, and the broader contributions she and her colleagues are making. 

Learning through the Four Elements

UCalgary prides itself on innovation and on thinking beyond the four walls of the classroom, and that spirit is reflected in the Faculty of Nursing’s Indigenous Health Studies course. 

While similar courses are available at other nursing schools, UCalgary’s course offers a distinctive approach to Indigenous health education. 

A unique feature of the course is its Story Robe assessment, inspired by Buffalo Robe teachings and adapted from conversations with Papaschase Cree scholar Dr. Dwayne Donald, BEd’92, PhD, about transformative assessments. Students create visual symbols to represent their learning, supported by a short reflection and an oral presentation. Through this process, they are assessed on meaning-making and their understanding of course concepts, including the Four Elements Indigenous Framework.

Students also complete a land photo journal and group assignments connected to the Four Elements, encouraging reflection on how the teachings apply to their future nursing practice and everyday lives.

Scott Paul says the course is offered to non-nursing students as well and, for the photo journal assignment, they’re asked to reflect instead on “how to be a good human.” 

The feedback from students has been positive, says Scott Paul, and attributes a lot of this to Good Striker. 

“Getting to learn directly from an Elder and hear stories is phenomenal, which I remind (students) of all the time. Even folks who’ve taken other Indigenous studies classes have said they learned more in this class, which always blows me away,” says Scott Paul. 

She also points to feedback from students across diverse backgrounds, including Indigenous and international students, who have reflected on how the course helps them understand colonial systems and relate them to their own experiences.

“We’ve had students come up and say, ‘My mom bought me traditional clothing from my country, and I wouldn’t wear them before, but now I feel empowered, so I’m going to wear them proudly to school next week.’ And you’re like, awesome,” she says.

The course continues to evolve as a space for reflection, relational learning and understanding the impacts of colonial systems, while centring Indigenous ways of knowing, being and teaching. 

Taking the Four Elements beyond the classroom

Beyond the classroom, work is being done internationally, as well. Scott Paul and additional faculty members travelled to New Zealand this past fall to share knowledge at the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference in Education and the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Conversations there highlighted the importance of Elder voices in shaping Indigenous-focused curriculums. Participants reflected on how Elders contribute essential knowledge systems that deepen students’ learning and ground courses like Indigenous Health Studies in lived experience, story and relational teaching.

This work is also starting to move in new scholarly directions. Bensler recently approached Scott Paul to discuss collaborating on a potential book. What started as a fairly informal “are you interested?” conversation quickly turned into something more concrete, including a meeting with a scholarly editor.

At this stage, the project is still embryonic, with a book proposal being drafted. The concept being explored is a textbook or resource based on the Four Elements Indigenous Framework, with the goal of sharing this work more broadly beyond the classroom and into teaching and learning contexts.

Looking ahead, the work continues to grow. The focus being on developing a new course that brings the Four Elements framework into practice for practitioners, with the goal of making it more widely usable beyond the classroom. Longer term, Scott Paul also sees the potential for a graduate-level certificate grounded in the framework.

And it won’t just stop there. 

“There’s still so much more we want to build,” says Scott Paul. 

If you want to learn more about what motivates Scott Paul, take a look at her recent “60 Second Interview.”