Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies (JCACS)
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Using Home Language as a Pedagogical Resource: Working Collaboratively with Ontario Educators to Support English Language Learners in the Classroom
Get PDFCoherent policies to address the implications of linguistic diversity for instruction are lacking at all levels of schooling in Canada (Cummins, 2014; Volante et al., 2020). Many English language learners (ELLs)—often refugees or those of lower socioeconomic status—experience academic difficulties (Volante et al., 2017). Teachers report low self-efficacy and a lack of preparedness to meet the professional challenges of continually rising numbers of ELLs in their classrooms (Faez, 2012). Numerous studies demonstrate that students who have the opportunity to maintain and develop their Home Language (L1) at school outperform their peers in English-only programs, achieve better academic outcomes, and experience lower drop-out rates (Baker, 2011; Genesee et al., 2006; Thomas & Collier, 2002). This is because the academic language and literacy skills that students acquire in their L1 readily transfer to English (Cummins, 2017). Additionally, when L1 is validated as a valuable resource for learning, students experience an affirmation of self that contributes to positive identity formation. By joining forces with educators in collaborative professional learning teams, this study connects what we know (an extensive knowledge base that argues that the use of students’ L1 is essential to their success) and what we do (instructional practice that predominantly excludes students’ L1) in the classroom. It asks: in what ways and to what extent can collaborative professional development assist educators in providing more equitable educational opportunities for English language learners in Ontario schools
Composing Together II: The Development of Musical Ideas with Teachers and Students
Get PDFContemporary Canadian pieces are uncommonly performed and studied in school music programs due to their complex nature. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Canadian Music Centre commissioned composers to write a piece of educational music in a multi-year, multi-site research project entitled Making Music: Composing with Young Musicians. The musical pieces were written in collaboration with teachers and students. The following research question was addressed: How can musical ideas be conceptualized and developed with students and teachers? Through composition reports, the composers indicated the importance of listening to students. Listening enabled them to know with what the young musicians were familiar and helped the composers discern the students’ instrumental abilities. Musical ideas were also developed when students worked individually and in groups. Furthermore, composer-teacher feedback as well as teacher facilitation spawned a healthy flow of musical ideas. The findings will be of interest to music teachers, post-secondary music educators, composers and Canadian music publishers
Experiences From the Field: Transforming Teaching and Learning Through Child Rights Education
Get PDFChildren are not just the future; they are the present. Their voices must be heard and their rights fully implemented in the here and now. Empty promises for future actions do not build communities but destroy momentum. It is therefore essential that children learn about their rights, and for these rights to be at the core of teaching. Through reflective writing, I explore my personal and professional experiences as an educator, course lecturer, researcher and Child Rights Education (CRE) consultant in learning and teaching about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) while working in Canada and abroad for over a decade. Personal reflections from workshops, trainings and desk research have led to the understanding that it is essential for children to learn about their rights and for teachers to be trained in CRE to transfer this knowledge. This process of knowledge transfer can help educators and learners transform the CRC from a symbolic text to a living document, ensuring that child rights are lived (experienced) and living (contextualized and adapted to present and emerging needs), ultimately bridging diversities, leading to equitable practices and fostering understanding, respect and inclusion in and beyond the classroom walls. Informing the research findings are a conversation about child rights, an understanding of the constructed nature of childhood, and the role of creative drama as a pedagogical approach in transferring knowledge and opening the path for creative and collaborative practices and forms of inquiry in CRE
Environmental Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Implication for Science Teacher Education
Get PDFAlthough environmental issues we face have changed over time, the need for environmental education has only intensified. Unfortunately, most schools do not offer a stand-alone environmental course. Subject teachers, particularly science teachers, have the responsibility to integrate environmental education in their daily teaching. Responding to the wide call for environmental education, teacher education programs usually offer a series of workshops or an elective course to develop teachers’ knowledge and skills in environmental education. However, given its hybrid nature, the environment-related pedagogical content knowledge cannot be effectively developed through such a quick-fix approach. The author proposes a conceptual framework to promote the relevant discussion among researchers and educators: Environmental Pedagogical Content Knowledge (EPACK). EPACK requires teachers to be able to answer what environmental issues, why such issues and how to teach these issues in school classes. To address the need of teacher development in EPACK, teacher education programs need to consider an integration approach. Such approach calls for the integration of environmental issues with teacher education courses besides a possible standalone environmental education course. For example, science methods courses provide a meaningful context where learning to teach environmental issues can be pedagogically situated in the teaching of subject matters. This paper will draw evidence from the literature and, as well, from the author’s teaching and research experience to advocate a blended model of teacher development for environmental education proficiency, which ensures that environmental education becomes one of the fundamental components for the design of teacher education curriculum
Parlons sciences ensemble : la place du dialogue dans l’enseignement des sciences au secondaire en contexte minoritaire
Get PDFCette communication propose de caractériser la place de l’oral, et plus précisément du dialogue, dans des cours de sciences dans une école secondaire de langue française en milieu francophone minoritaire. Les résultats découlent d’une recherche collaborative entreprise avec trois enseignants de sciences chevronnés qui cherchaient à mieux comprendre le rôle et le potentiel du dialogue exploratoire dans leur enseignement. Les activités analysées par l’équipe révèlent une variété de postures empruntées par les élèves et l’enseignant selon le type d’activité, le but de l’activité et l’ergonomie de la salle de classe. Une discussion sur la place (et l’absence) du dialogue exploratoire et des pistes pour favoriser son utilisation contribue au répertoire d’approches pédagogiques adaptées au milieu minoritaire francophone canadien dans le domaine de l’enseignement des sciences
The Journey to Becoming an English Academic Writing Instructor as a Non-Native English-Speaking Teacher
Get PDFThis presentation is an autoethnography that explores my identity as a non-native English-speaking writing instructor. The presentation narrates my feelings, opinions and observations about my educational journey from when I was an undergraduate student in the English department and first introduced to academic writing in English, to becoming a non-native English-speaking teacher (NNEST), until I became an English academic writing instructor. Throughout my years of teaching English to non-native speakers and teaching English academic writing, being foreign to the English language has always had a presence either in the way I identified myself or in the way my society labeled me. Society focused mainly on my non-nativeness to English. However, I was able to self-consciously see my strength of understanding and comparing the writing norms of my first culture with those of the target culture, which was reflected on my teaching in the classroom. Much of the research on NNESTs has focused on issues such as their pronunciation, vocabulary, students’ perceptions, but this study focuses on how I negotiated my identity in teaching writing
“No Face Can Be Approached With Empty Hands and Closed Home”: Literacy in the Post-Truth Era
Get PDFEducation has a responsibility to respond to the threat of deteriorating democracies (DeLuca & Christou, 2016; Peters, 2017). The post-truth era is marked by an erosion of trust in public institutions and conflict in online spaces. The broad purpose of this research is to examine the ways in which the evolving post-truth era has the potential to redefine how people consume information and make decisions, and to explore the implications for democracy. A more specific purpose is to draw attention to the limits of current literacy pedagogy and to propose a literacy education that engages deeply with questions of intersubjectivity. I begin with a discussion of the evolution of literacy education policy and curriculum, looking at disjunction between research and practice. I demonstrate the ways current literacy and media literacy education is not simply outmoded, but also limited by neoliberal conceptions of rationality and individualism. Offering a counterpoint to the status quo, I work with Levinas’ (1969, 1989) conception of ethics to consider the importance of three affective dimensions of literacy. I illustrate the tensions between affective reactionism and non-intentional affectivity, enjoyment and its disruption as a premise for intersubjectivity and two manifestations of anger—moral and defensive. I conclude with a proposal for literacy education that furnishes a space for the intersubjective relation to emerge. This approach comprises an intentional focus on relationality, responsibility and affect
Computational and Mathematics Thinking Workshops for Elementary School Children and Their Parents
Get PDFThis qualitative study explores the nature of engagement of students in Mathematics Thinking (MT) activities in the context of Computational Thinking (CT) integration. It specifically investigates the ways that students interact during CT and MT activities. This study uses a constructionist framework of learning by making and is situated in literature on integration of CT in the mathematics curriculum. In this case study, observations, interviews and reflection data were collected from ten students during CT and MT workshops. The data were analyzed to determine the ways in which CT activities enrich mathematical concepts. All children found that the CT activities (Symmetry, Sphero and Scratch) enriched their understanding of mathematical concepts. Several of the children were excited about what they referred to as a more interesting and interactive way of learning math and code. This study was limited to Grade 3 to Grade 6 students in a private school. For future research, the researchers suggest conducting a study in public schools that will involve specific tools of CT. The researchers also recommend conducting CT workshops over a three-day period so that children do one activity each day rather than all three activities in one session
Exploring the Impact of Place-Conscious Pedagogy on Science Education
Get PDFOur research explores the impact of place-conscious pedagogy on science education in the context of small seaport and prairie communities in Canada. Place-conscious pedagogy offers hands-on opportunities for students to become active participants in understanding and applying scientific knowledge and methods in local environmental contexts. Our study is guided by two interrelated questions: what practices do place-conscious teachers offer science students and how do these teachers understand the impact of place-conscious pedagogy on science education? We explore these questions through in-depth teacher interviews and photographic documentation of related classroom practices and outcomes. This information is used to generate case studies that further our understanding of place-conscious pedagogy as a practical means of enhancing science education—a core curricular expectation—and as a support for fostering social transformation and environmental sustainability. Our presentation focuses on two such cases. One case enlisted high school students in a population count of the invasive green crab. The second case engaged elementary students in field observations of owls. A theme we explored in our case studies was the relationship between place-conscious pedagogy and transformative student agency. Our research indicates that when students actively participate in understanding and shaping the world around them, they learn to recognize themselves as transformative agents of change (Kelly & Pelech, 2019; Pelech & Kelly, 2020). These cases offer practical illustrations of teaching that can enhance prospects for making science meaningful to students and that promote long-term environmental and social transformation
History Education in the Anthropocene
Get PDFAs much as history education is supposed to be about the past, it is oriented towards the future. History teachers are guided by a variety of purposes, such as cultural inheritance, critical and disciplinary thinking, identity formation and personal development, or activism and social change. Each of these purposes is imbued with particular notions of memory, citizenship and other values relevant to preparing young people for the future. While it may not always be explicit, a prevailing assumption in history education, as with Canadian curriculum, generally speaking, is that the future is a place and time to which we should look forward, as it will improve upon the past. But as we are coming to know, that may not be a responsible or accurate frame to pass on to the next generation. What theoretical and practical supports can help history educators renew their teaching in light of the Anthropocene, and particularly the climate crisis? In seeking to attune history education to a relational, ecological and ethical future orientation, we turned to the fields of Indigenous studies, environmental history and climate change education. We suggest some new, and even radical, directions we might look as a community of history educators. In doing so, we hope to nurture solidarity in navigating uncertainty together. With a set of common questions, assumptions and goals to guide us, we may find ways of teaching and learning that respond more meaningfully to the precarity of our times