Special Event
for local teachers,
faculty and students

GO GREEN

Due to our commitment to
the environment we will not be supplying styro foam cups, bags or any other environmentally unsustainable products!

Everyone will receive a travel mug with registration.

Go to WestCAST 2010

For more information on WestCAST go to www.westcast.ca

Welcome to beautiful Victoria and WestCAST 2009.  The conference this year will be held at the University of Victoria with accommodation downtown at the fabulous Fairmont Empress Hotel.

WestCAST (Western Canadian Association for Student Teaching) is a unique conference held annually in one of the four western provinces. It attracts a diverse audience of teacher educators, university instructors and administrators, and student teachers.

The University of Victoria’s Faculty of Education is pleased to host WestCAST 2009 and invites those involved in teacher education to join us in Victoria for this exciting event.

This year’s theme, Wcistenek : Pedagogies of Places and Spaces, brings together several critical elements of contemporary understandings about the contexts and conditions for learning, integrating the complexity of educational thought with the social, cultural, and historical situatedness of our work.

First, it offers the notion of space as a feature of learning environments.

Spaces for learning can be conceptualized as physically and temporally located, but also as pedagogical opportunity, an inclusive orientation with and/or for others, or the potential for action and/or agency.

An orientation towards place invites discussion of the ways in which we are situated as learners: in schools, in communities, in ‘virtual’ environments, social networks, in diverse cultures and societies, as well as within local or global contexts.

Finally, “Wcistenek ”, the Coast Salish word for teacher, invites us to remember the cultural location of the educator, and explore the ways in which teaching is an act of relationship building, centered in multiple ways of knowing, processes of knowledge production, reciprocity and meaning making. It offers a space from which to problematize how our educational practices are historically rooted and how such histories enable and constrain the ways in which we work with culturally and racially diverse learners, families and communities.

Our theme seeks to create a mosaic of experiences and interpretations…representations of learning, teaching, and pedagogy in interesting, rich, complex and non-traditional ways. Papers, panels, posters, workshops and/or symposia and aesthetic representations which address these themes and others related to pedagogies and practices of education students and teacher education practitioners of interest to Western Canadian Education students and teachers are sought.

Questions can be emailed to wstcst09@uvic.ca.

News

Online registration for this conference is now closed. If you would like to register, please visit our registration table at the Fairmont Empress Upper Lobby (Feb. 18 from 12 noon to 7 pm) or at the University of Victoria, MacLaurin Building Foyer (Feb. 19 & 20 from 8 am - 4 pm).

Opening Spaces

The 29th Annual Art Education Faculty Exhibition will be held concurrent with WestCAST. Exhibits will be located in the Wilfred Johns' Gallery (MacLaurin Building) and McPherson Library Gallery.

WestCAST Art Scholarship Catalogue

Design a Tee Contest

Your design could be here!

Put your creativity to work! For your chance to win a
FREE 4-DAY REGISTRATION
to WestCAST, visit:

Design a Tee Entry Form

We are pleased to announce a t-shirt design contest for our conference. WestCAST Volunteers will showcase this commemorative design that is reflective of our theme.

Think you have the perfect design? We want to see it!

Contest closes: 4:30 pm, Monday, February 2, 2009
WINNER
CARMEN LALONDE

This year we will have keynote addresses and panel discussions around the areas of Aboriginal Education and Sustainability. We are hosting a ticket lunch on Saturday in hopes that delegates will stay and enjoy an extra day and night in beautiful Victoria.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
NOW CLOSED

The University of Victoria’s Teacher Education welcomes proposals for WestCAST 2009. To ensure full consideration, proposals must be received by the November 15, 2008 deadline.  Primary, first authors or presenters will be notified of their acceptance by December 4, 2008.

Proposal questions can be directed to Lisa Starr at ljstarr@uvic.ca.