University of Regina Open Journals
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Educators’ Perceptions of Uses, Constraints, and Successful Practices of Backchanneling
No full textThis qualitative study sought to explore participants’ perceptions of the impact of web-based backchanneling conversations in a variety of learning environments. Backchannels, forms of instant message conversations, take place during synchronous learning sessions. Online interviews with educators from Canada and the United States revealed their perceptions of the uses, constraints, and successful practices of backchanneling. Educators in the study saw backchanneling as a non-disruptive, non-subversive, collaborative activity that expanded participation and interactions; an approach applied with intentionality to enhance learning. Six themes emerged from the data: backchanneling for professional development and networking; backchanneling for engagement; constraints of backchanneling; changes in teacher and/or learner perspectives; examples of backchanneling in educational settings; and suggestions for successful backchanneling.Keywords: web-based backchanneling; learning environments; professional development; networkin
Finding Points of Resonance: Nunavut Students’ Perspectives on Science
No full textStill largely based on EuroCanadian knowledge and Western teachings, Education in Nunavut remains a negative experience for many Nunavut youth as the result of culturally inappropriate schooling and worldview mismatch. Mismatch occurs as the schooling experiences of Nunavut youth, both Inuit and non-Inuit, do not align with the character, values, and traditions of Nunavut. Divergence is especially pronounced within science education. This paper explores Nunavut students’ perceptions of the nature of science and school science education in order to explore the possibilities and problematics involved in shifting towards a cross-cultural science curriculum that is reflective of Nunavut.Keywords: Nunavut; Inuit traditions; science education; cross-cultural science curriculu
Disrupting Ignorance and Settler Identities: The Challenges of Preparing Beginning Teachers for Treaty Education
No full textIn the fall of 2008, the Provincial Government of Saskatchewan announced mandatory treaty education for all students in K-12 schooling. Given the foundational importance of treaties and the treaty relationship to Canada, and ongoing reconciliation efforts with First Nations people, this initiative is to be celebrated. However, a central concern exists regarding the implementation of treaty education in Saskatchewan schools. To that end, this paper discusses research, with 348 predominately white, teacher education candidates at the University of Regina, regarding their knowledge, (mis)understandings, and experiences with treaty education, in both grade school and university contexts. Using critical race theory as a lens through which to conceptualize and make sense of the research, along with theories of ignorance as an epistemological exercise, the paper illustrates the imperative of enacting treaty education given (white) settler students struggles(and refusals) to connect their own social and economic privileges to treaties.Keywords: Treaty education; critical race theory; curriculu
Integral Development and Educational Renewal in Saskatchewan: A Visionary Process
No full text“We must educate to survive, critique and create.” (Berry, as cited in O’Sullivan, 1999, p. 8) Transformative educators such as Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, and Edmund O’Sullivan believe that the time has come for a shift away from the dominant Western educational ideology that focuses on achievement, individualism, and material success. They propose that education must become more than a system of banking information and standardized testing, and educators must be prepared to operate out of a much larger integrated worldview. They suggest that schools must provide balanced non-dualistic education that values students more for who they are than what they can achieve. In June 2008, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education published a document which addresses similar concerns to those raised by Berry, Swimme, and O’Sullivan. The document entitled Renewed Objectives for the Common Essential Learning of Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) and Personal and Social Development (PSD) recommends a number of key changes to existing educational policy in the areas of emotional, social and spiritual formation. The recommendations place emphasis on spiritual development, environmental awareness, ecological principles, human diversity, creative-ability development, and community-based achievement. This paper analyzes the educational need for renewal of current Western ideology and it supports the revamping of policy as proposed by the 2008 Ministry of Education document. It also discusses how the three principles of O’Sullivan’s (1999) integral development theory towards transformative education may be helpful for enhancing the effective implementation of the 2008 CCT and PSD Ministry of Education document.Keywords: integrated education; transformative educatio
A Review of On Reflection: An Essay on Technology, Education, and the Status of Thought in the Twenty-First Century by Ellen Rose
No full textA Review of On Reflection: An Essay on Technology, Education, and the Status of Thought in the Twenty-First Century by Ellen Ros
Digital Scholarship Considered: How New Technologies Could Transform Academic Work
No full textNew digital and web-based technologies are spurring rapid and radical changes across all media industries. These newer models take advantage of the infinite reproducibility of digital media at zero marginal cost. There is an argument to be made that the sort of changes we have seen in other industries will be forced upon higher education, either as the result of external economic factors (the need to be more efficient, responsive, etc.) or by a need to stay relevant to the so-called "net generation" of students (Prensky, 2001; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Tapscott & Williams, 2010).This article discusses the impact of digital technologies on each of Boyer’s dimensions of scholarship: discovery, integration, application and teaching. In each case the use of new technologies brings with it the possibility of new, more open ways of working,although this is not inevitable. The implications of the adoption of new technologies on scholarship are then discussed.Keywords: internet; digital technology; technology in education; social media; higher education; Web 2.
Where the Boys Are—Contemporary Research Responds to the “Boys Problem” in Reading: A Review of Hammett & Sanford’s (2008), Boys, Girls & the Myths of Literacies and Learning
No full textA review of Roberta Hammett and Kathy Sanford’s (2008) Boys, Girls & the Myths of Literacies and Learning. Toronto: Canadian Scholars\u27 Press
Responsibility as the Welcoming of Difference: Thoughts on Levinas and a Teacher’s Experience
No full textThis work interweaves a discussion of the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and the experience of an educator working in a cross-cultural context, to provide an opportunity for the reader to reconceive the idea of responsibility. Through this article, I develop the idea that responsibility can be understood as a welcoming of difference where a “language” of interruption, vulnerability, hospitality, and learning from the other exists. The notion of welcoming is offered as complimentary approach to other arguments advocating the necessity for educators to attend to anti-racist and social justice issues and perhaps offers another answer to doubts concerning the involvement of educators.Keywords: Levinas; responsibility; difference; social justice; anti-racis