Education for life: Promoting healthy living in the middle years classroom
Daniel Camaclang and Jamie House, University of Manitoba

The emergence of childhood obesity in Canada has been well documented.  Educators are increasingly being looked upon to help rectify the problem.  However, what share of the responsibility should we as educators accept?  What steps can we take in or outside our classrooms to rectify this problem?

Middle years educators are in a unique position to teach children healthy lifestyle habits.  By incorporating the promotion of healthy living within the curriculum, it is possible to for children to develop a healthy approach to living and learning that can last a lifetime.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation
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Historically rooted student teachers' perceptions of teaching physical education ignore diversity
Nancy Elizabeth Melnychuk, University of Alberta

Most secondary school physical education student teachers are able-bodied Caucasians who possess similar attributes that they perceive as contributing to becoming an effective teacher. The purpose of this study was to examine the student teachers’ perceptions of these attributes in relation to their expectations for their physical education teacher education program. Findings indicated that student teachers over the past three decades are concerned with the acquisition of performance skills and the technical skills of teaching with little regard for socio-cultural knowledge and understanding of their students who live within a global society. Significant insights highlighted concerns for program reform.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Videogames: new spaces and places for valuing student diversity
Kathy Sanford, Liz Merkel, James Freeman, Ali Donnelly and Alicia Ralph, University of Victoria

The semiotic domain of video games continues to become more complex and sophisticated in its language and social practices as the world continues to develop more sophisticated game play and effects. We see the development and use of such language and culture in the group of adolescent male participants with which we work in an ongoing research project.

By looking at individuals as unique beings, we hope to shed light on the mass media stereotyping and subsequent fear promotion that limits our conversation about and understanding of the learning that takes place in video game communities.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Students’ views of field experiences: Perspectives from three disciplines
Randolph Wimmer, University of Alberta

The purpose of this session is to discuss our belief that educators, administrators, policy makers, and practitioners across the disciplines need to engage in collaborative conversations regarding their respective pre-service programs in order to learn from one another. Part of this collaboration must include the voice of students who have gained valuable insights with respect to the day to day operation of the field experience. In this session, I examine the views of students regarding their recently completed field experience. 

This session will present findings from a research study that employed a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative data analysis. There were 546 post field experience students, from 3 different professional disciplines, who participated in the study.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Alternative programs at Edmonton public school board
Greg Patrick Wondga, University of Alberta

Each student has his or her own unique learning style, motivation for learning, and environmental requirements for success. Edmonton Public Schools has responded to the demands for individualized instruction by offering over 30 specialized alternative programs at various locations across the district. This interactive workshop will discuss the various programs offered as well as the potential effects that these programs may have on teacher education. Prospective teachers will find this workshop highly relevant as they embark on new careers.

Workshop and/or symposium
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In teacher we trust: Creating and promoting positive educative environments to mitigate and prevent school violence
Erica T. Pflug and Laura Saydak, University of Manitoba

We will analyze physical spaces for learning, as well as the nature and importance of teacher-student relationships. We will investigate “space as a feature of learning” by analyzing fundamental aspects of classrooms, such as seating plans and classroom set-ups and décor. We will examine the architecture of schools to argue that physical spaces have a profound effect on the people within the structure. Moreover, we will argue that teachers can create and foster safe, engaging, and educative environments by developing and nurturing a climate of care. We will recommend strategies that can be implemented in Canadian schools.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Making space for "at risk" students
Jason M.C. Price, University of Victoria

The paper presentation will explore some of the findings emerging from a two year national SSHRC funded research project involving elementary and high school students, educators, administrators, support staff, and parents in Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia. This presentation will be based on the data from over a thousand surveys, and dozens of focus group and individual interviews with elementary and high school students. Specifically this presentation focuses on the views of students identified by the their schools as academically “at risk”, on the conditions essential to their learning

Single and/or multiple paper presentation
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Queering Straight Spaces
Jennifer Arko, University of Calgary

This workshop will address reasons why non-hetero-normative sexualities need to be addressed in schools, as well as prompt thinking and further discussion on various ways to expand activities both inside the classroom and the school to include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer (LGBTQ) diversity.

Workshop and/or Symposium

Genuine youth participation as co-researchers: Conceptions of leadership and emerging practices in youth, community & university collaborations
Katie Shaw and Catherine McGregor, University of Victoria

Creating genuine opportunities for the legitimate co-creation, participation and analysis of research through youth-university partnerships is complex and exciting. Harnessing and cultivating the unique perspectives of youth around important issues such as civic leadership is an opportunity for Universities and communities to genuinely collaborate and build capacity among young people. This paper will consider a current youth-adult research project between young members of the City of Victoria Youth Council and a legal literacy research initiative operated through a partnership between the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University, a project designed to explore youth engagement and civic/legal education.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Tell me a story: New teachers and reflective practice in a multi-textual and loosely-coupled professional community
David Bruce Jorgensen, Black Gold Regional Schools (Alberta)

New and pre-service teachers will do well to embrace reflective practice, not only for the betterment of their students’ academic and social well-being, but to create a safe and caring collegial and professional space.

Many new teachers say that they would like to tailor their students’ practice in such a fashion so as to not only encourage critical thinking, but to foster facility with diverse media. Further, they would like to invite their students to come to some notion of citizenship as well. These landscapes – academic, virtual, societal, and personal - are so vast and ultimately so malleable that these new teachers may need to begin with the notion that their students’ vistas will be multiversal – a view that will help students to transform the world into something that will become uniquely theirs. With that in mind, new teachers may want to consider the relational nature of the societies they are inviting those youngsters to build; if a culture of writing and reflectivity is ultimately to be of use to new teachers, they might be wise to put priority on developing professional communities with a view to enhancing the recursive, the consensual, and the linguistic. For if we exist in language, then perhaps all teachers have a responsibility to chart a multiplicity of languagings that enhance students’ integrity, authenticity, and drive for relationship.

Based on Michael Fullan’s ideas of collaborative community and transformational change, the presentation will be of particular interest to new and pre-service teachers intent on formulating their own praxis, and to school administrators interested in building a culture of dynamic reflection.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Attention teachers: School should 'not' be this much fun! Using digital media & technology to create actively engaging spaces for learning
PJ Rusnak, Peter Halim, Monica Strimbold and Tyler Yost, University of British Columbia

This workshop explores the affordances of digital media and technology for pedagogical opportunity and active engagement. From the perspectives of secondary education students and one instructor from the University of British Columbia’s Technology Studies program, we will demonstrate how teachers can translate students' love of technology into multifaceted, massively engaging spaces and places for meaningful learning. Participants will walk away with new pedagogical strategies to challenge and motivate learners, as well as practical information and guidance for determining the appropriate use of technology in classroom settings. We hope this will be a thought-provoking, energizing and humorous hands-on hour together!

Panel presentation

A safe learning space
Amy Evans Blanchette, Nanaimo School District

Exploring the contributing factors that create a safe learning environment for students with neuro-developmental disabilities.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation
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Fluency instruction can make a difference!
Heather Baptie and Terry Dobson, Central Okanagan School District

This interactive and highly practical workshop will showcase the importance of developing reading fluency to enhance overall student success. The presenters will share strategies for effectively developing this skill at school and at home and highlight the positive results of their successful fluency development program.

Workshop and/or symposium

The three R’s of curriculum through the four R’s of Aboriginal protocol: Learning how to access resources to work with Aboriginal people
Myla Marks and Carmen Rodriguez de France, University of Victoria

The most common worries and concerns of student teachers with regard to Aboriginal education refer to the how-to’s: How to teach culture without being disrespectful?, How to access resources?, How to know it all? This presentation invites us to think beyond the three R’s of school curriculum -Reading, (W)Riting, and (A)Rithmetic, in order to explore and appreciate the paths that ensure positive relationships with Indigenous communities through the understanding of the four R’s of Aboriginal protocol: Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity, and Responsibility.  We can learn to create classroom environments that allow for the appreciation of all cultures and through this creation of space teaching becomes a task of going beyond the content. Being a teacher is a profession of caring, meaning making, service, responsibility, and learning. By using Aboriginal pedagogy and education students benefit beyond just learning about Aboriginal education, and teachers gain better teaching practices, and overall a more successful classroom. Further, by developing an awareness of the resources that are available in the Aboriginal communities in which we work we will be better prepared to demonstrate respect to our Aboriginal students, facilitate their learning, and hopefully, advance our own knowledge in all realms of the students’ education.

Workshops and/or symposium

"Its all about relations": A curriculum and pedagogy of place
Dwayne Donald, Cynthia Maude Chambers, and Ramona L. Big Head, University of Lethbridge

In the midst of unsustainable economic practices and unprecedented global climate change, education about ecology is urgent. Indigenous peoples have knowledge (curriculum) and pedagogy (knowledge practices) to contribute to such an education. This knowledge can be shared across local contexts through stories. In this session, the presenters are two teacher educators, one college instructor, and two high school teachers from two different First Nations, one working in fine arts and the other in math, will use stories to offer concrete examples of how they have taken up this critical challenge with students in their locales of practice.

Workshop and/or symposium

Drama: a site-specific space for learning
Carole S. Miller, University of Victoria

In this interactive workshop, participants will work with a language stimulus through the strategy of tableau that will, in turn, generate further language.  Through the physicalization of our shared meanings, we will have an opportunity to reflect on the deeper understandings and how words affect our actions.

Workshop and/or symposium