Opening doors to literacy in Canada's multicultural classrooms
Rahat Naqvi, University of Calgary

The increasing linguistic and cultural diversity of newcomers to Canada has generated unique challenges in K-12 education, where mainstream generalist teachers are encountering students and families with increasingly diverse backgrounds, expectations and needs. This challenge is pronounced for primary teachers entrusted with helping children negotiate the juncture from home to school environments. Dr. Naqvi's presentation will describe a variety of research initiatives currently in progress in several schools in North East Calgary.  The study examines the efficacy of dual language books in supporting the literacy, socio-cultural adaptation, and achievement of minority and mainstream students at the primary level.

Dual language books offer multimodal texts with the potential to develop multilingual and multiliteracy skills in readers (Cummins, 2001.) As texts, not only do they provide the same approximate narrative in two languages (L1 and L2), but there are illustrations to link visual with textual literacy. Furthermore, they invite social literacy practices in that they encourage multiple readers using the text simultaneously. The use of dual language books in mainstream (not bilingual) classes offer a way to enhance the multilingual and intercultural awareness of the broader class and community while addressing the cultural and linguistic sustainability of minority families.

Single and/or multiple paper presentations

Revitalizing my culture, revitalizing my self: Cultural understanding through ceremony
Shannon Taylor Pite, Vancouver Island University and Carmen Rodriguez de France, University of Victoria

Some months ago my now two-year-old daughter was presented in the longhouse in Kingcome Inlet. The ceremony was special and emotional not only because it was my daughter who was being acknowledged within the community but also because this was only the second ceremony of its kind that had been celebrated in Kingcome in more than 100 years. Through scholarly research and informal explorations in the form of interviews and consultations, one of my uncles re-introduced this ceremony in our community where people have participated and accepted it as a legitimate celebration that is part of our Dzawada'enuxw Tribe of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations.

In this presentation, I will describe the ceremony and share the value that ceremonies like this one have for the Dzawada'enuxw people, the community, my family, and ultimately myself. As a teacher in progress, I firmly believe that by immersing one self in cultural participation one can develop appreciation and awareness of culture and cultural values and hopefully, an understanding of some cultural norms and protocol which are paramount to our teaching practice.

Single paper and/or multiple paper presentations

The challenges of merging method and message in undergraduate assessment coursework
Paige Fisher, Vancouver Island University and
Kim Franklin, Trinity Western University

This collaborative presentation will focus on the lived experience of two teacher educators from different institutions in British Columbia and their efforts to model effective ‘assessment for learning’ practices, as well as provide leadership for change within their respective institutions with regard to assessment and evaluation practices and policies. It will also include the voices of pre-service teachers, who will speak to their experience of these efforts and to the influence of participation in formative assessment practices on their own perceptions of assessment. ‘The presentation will focus on the complexity of change and change leadership in particular pedagogical spaces with particular historical barriers.’

Panel presentation

Transformative learning from the elders in the homelands of Indigenous Peoples to walking in the land of my ancestors
Brian Donald Rice, University of Winnipeg

Included in my workshop will be my Traditional Knowledge Doctoral Program; the Indigenous elders and teachers who taught us; residencies we did in the lands of other Indigenous Peoples; journeys I have made in the lands of Indigenous Peoples; my seven hundred mile walk in the lands of my ancestors; my traditional sanction by elders for writing my dissertation; and finally bringing community members, elders, and educators back to the homelands of my people. I would require a slide projector in order to show some of my journeys that have occurred over the last several years. Based on the work that I have done as a graduate of a Traditional Knowledge Doctoral Program, I want to build on some of the foundations that I acquired as a student and now professor. I am a strong advocate of traditional land based learning towards character building and in developing leadership skills that includes a strong component of culture. Dr. Rice believes that with the advent towards community development many Native Studies oriented programs have been co-opted by management and western legal perspectives at the expense of traditional knowledge and land based skills.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Decolonizing post-secondary education: The Community-based Aboriginal Teacher Education Program – CATEP
Kristine Guilbault, Lance Guilbault and Kris Stevenson, University of Winnipeg

The Community-based Aboriginal Teacher Education Program is a partnership between the University of Winnipeg Integrated BEd/BA Program, Seven Oaks School Division and Winnipeg School Division.

This program provides Aboriginal Teacher Assistants with the opportunity to complete the requirements of the integrated BEd/BA, while working on a full or part-time basis in a school.

Candidates must be of Aboriginal descent (First Nations, Metis, Inuit) and employed as a Teacher Assistant by their respective school division.

Candidates will work in their school division from September -April, while attending classes part-time.  From May - July they will be released from the school to attend university classes and student teach on a full-time basis.

The program will take a minimum of 6 years to complete and students will graduate with a Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor of Arts degree.  The teaching major will be English and students will focus on Early and Middle Years (K-8) education.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Creating connections: Sharing stories to become transformative teachers
Liz Merkel, Lara White, Gina Wilson, Michelle Whittier, Jeremy Hall, Ros Penty, Jasmine Bajwa, Hayley Cocar, Becky Baines and Diana Fearn, University of Victoria

This collaborative video shares a “mosaic of experiences and interpretations” as nine students and one instructor collaborate in a PDPP (Post-Degree Professional Program) Seminar class. Through the course we have explored and shared our own diverse experiences that have focused on a shared goal, developing our identity as future teachers. We magnify the diversity in a small class by sharing individual stories, investigate the coming-together process of the seminar class, and question the crossroads of education today and how our conversations might move us from these crossroads into different directions as transformative teachers.

Workshop and/or symposium

The professional journal and the first-time teacher
Carolyn Joy Creed, Brandon University

As the Editor in Chief of CLASSMATE (Manitoba Association of Teachers of English), I recognize the connection between student teachers, new teachers, and a publication that reaches schools across Manitoba thrice yearly. By tailoring articles and reviews to the classroom-teaching beginner, such a journal can place emphasis on lessening the anxiety that besets most of those who try to stay on top of first-year demands. I offer a checklist of the elements present in a professional publication geared to the learning teacher, to reach an audience that includes new teachers. co-operating teachers, and mentors who facilitate new teachers’ classroom success.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Where are we and what could we be? An analysis of the present and possible future system of teacher education in western Canada
Bev Parslow and cohort, University of British Columbia

Too often the Teacher Candidates have minimal input into their own professional programs. This hour workshop for students will include a discussion of the present variety of teacher candidate programs in Western Canada and then a focus on a new program based on their needs.

For many students the only input into a program is at the end of their courses. We propose that student input for their professional courses is an important direction for future changes in our program and should be given equal weight with government, universities and other professional agencies.

Using a group decision-making process, time will be spent with groups from each province making the others aware as to what is happening in Western Canada. Then, we will use multi provincial groups to make recommendations as to a course of studies that reflect their needs as well as other interested parties. These recommendations could be examined for possible changes in university programs and could have implications for teacher educators.

Workshops and/or symposium

First impressions on the first day of school; putting students and ourselves at ease from day one
Anne-Marie Pamela Reilander, University of Calgary

Teachers and students alike are always nervous of the first day of school. New faces, new routines, new ideas...a new beginning. What little things can we as educators do to ease children into their new school year?  This presentation will give practical strategies for welcoming children into our classrooms, be it grade one or grade six. Strategies that show caring, compassion, begin to establish trust and of course ease the discomfort of the first time meeting in perhaps a new environment. It is the little things that count and it is the little things we do that can make all the difference.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Negotiating the landscape of teaching: Beginning teachers' stories
Alyson Worrall, University of Lethbridge

The process of becoming a teacher includes not only learning how to teach but also how to be a teacher. This paper addresses the experiences of two beginning teachers and how they came to understand their position in the landscape of the teaching profession. The implications for teacher education and entry into the profession are derived from an analysis of the narrative portraits of these teachers created from their first-hand accounts of their teacher education program and the beginning years of their careers.

Single Paper and/or Multiple Presentation

Preparing preservice teacher education candidates to effectively meet the needs of students with congenital heart disease
Sheryl MacMath, OISE-University of Toronto and Jillian Roberts, University of Victoria

Using data gathered from interviews with parents, students, and teachers working and living with congenital heart disease (N = 73), we identify the key assumptions and fears that lead to miscommunication and increased anxiety in the school classroom. By constructing conversations that address issues related to competence, compassion, consistency, confidentiality, and communication, this presentation focuses on providing pre-service teacher candidates with the tools to create a school environment that supports both teachers and families living and working with congenital heart disease.

Single and/or multiple paper presentation

Technology and the possibilities it has in today’s physical education classroom
David William Chorney, University of Alberta

Technology use in today’s schools continues to evolve and amaze both students and teachers alike. Technology can assist any teacher by reducing paperwork and help improve the quality of instruction as well as increase student motivation towards learning. Once a school acquires different types of technology, its applications for physical education are limited only by the imagination of the user. This presentation is designed to focus on the ever-changing landscape of technology and its uses in physical education as well as to highlight the research findings of one particular type of technology, heart rate monitors, as they are being used for research purposes in two Alberta schools.

Single and/or multiple paper presentations