Exploring the Use of Sensory Assessments: Reclaiming Indigenous Pedagogy Through ʻŌiwi Edge
ʻŌiwi Artisan Special Interest Group
The ʻŌiwi Artisan Special Interest Group’s project, “Exploring the Use of Sensory Assessments,” investigates how Indigenous arts-based pedagogy can foster critical literacies by moving beyond the limitations of standardized testing. Grounded in ʻŌiwi Edge principles, this cast of innovative educators developed and piloted a suite of sensory assessment tools designed to retrain learners to engage with the world through an Indigenous epistemology. By emphasizing deep, embodied engagement—where haumāna respond with visceral, multisensory awareness—educators honor holistic knowing. In doing so, they validate experiences that traditional metrics often overlook.
In classrooms that foreground Indigenous epistemologies such as Hoʻomana a Mana and Hōʻike a ʻIke, student artifacts become living expressions of cultural identity and relational reciprocity rather than mere evidence of cognitive mastery. Effectiveness of ʻŌiwi Edge for E Ola! is measured not only by student products, but by how learners feel, relate, and embody their learning in service of community and ʻāina.
Visual Sensory Assessment
Directions: Draw/color/write your interpretation of how you felt during the ha‘awina.
Sensory Experience Rubric
Kupu (Sprouting) | Liko (Blossoming) | Hua (Blooming) | |
Sensing | This haʻawina or experience did not make me feel any sort of way. | I have some kind of feeling about this haʻawina or experience. I am not sure what this feeling is or how to name it. | I can name and describe how this haʻawina or experience makes me feel. |
Connecting | This haʻawina or experience did not make me feel or strengthen a connection inside of me or with the space around or above me. | This haʻawina or experience has made me feel a sense of connection or pilina, but I am unsure how to name that connection. | This haʻawina or experience strengthened or grew a connection inside of me and with my surroundings. I can name and describe this connection. |
Knowing | I feel like this haʻawina or experience lives inside of school and does not relate to my outside life. | The feelings from this haʻawina or experience inspire me to explore further in the future, both inside and outside of school. | The feelings from this haʻawina or experience have inspired me to think or do things beyond my time at school (share with others, create something, think differently, take action). |
To illuminate this expanded understanding of impact, the group identified five key indicators: (1) Embodied, Multisensory Engagement—evidenced when learners articulate “naʻau-level” reactions in conferences or through art-making; (2) Centering Indigenous Epistemologies—where student work integrates meaningful symbols reflecting personal and cultural identity; (3) Naʻau-Centered Cognition, also known as affective coherence—gut-level knowing—is legitimized as valid evidence; (4) Alternative, Multimodal Metrics—demonstrated through sensory-infused portfolios that triangulate traditional mastery data with affective and sensory annotations; and (5) Longitudinal Integration of Sensory and Cultural Data—as teachers track patterns of embodied learning alongside academic outcomes over time.
By weaving these indicators together, the project redefines “effectiveness” through an ʻŌiwi lens—capturing both the depth of students’ visceral connections and their capacity to enact ʻŌiwi intelligence in learning. In doing so, it offers a compelling model for assessment that is not only rigorous, but relational, rooted, and resonant.
