Kate Rozendaal recently completed her master’s degree in counselling psychology and, before she embarks on her doctoral studies, she and fellow doctoral student Chelsea Hobbs are taking a little side trip. Later this month they’re off to the Tokyo Paralympic Games as assistant coaches for the Canadian Women’s Sitting Volleyball Team.

Preservice teachers will get a preview of what anti-oppression education looks like through a pilot course this fall, the precursor to a required course launching in 2022 as part of a package of undergraduate program renewal changes.

Second language education professor Bill Dunn was looking for a way to enliven an online class he was teaching during the pandemic. By taking advantage of a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program with the University of Paderborn in Germany, he was able to create a more enriching learning experience, but it turned out to be a worthwhile professional development experience for him as well.

Michelle Lavoie wanted to find new ways to mentor 2SLGBTQ+ youth and young adults through art practice. Her research using narrative inquiry methodology yielded hundreds of creative works and new insights into co-created, dialogic, non-hierarchical ways of thinking and knowing. It also earned Lavoie one of the most prestigious academic awards a Canadian student can receive.

Profound thanks and warmest well-wishes to Dr. André P. Grace, who is retiring from the Faculty of Education’s Department of Educational Psychology at the end of June. Dr. Grace joined the Faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies in 1999.

It’s hard not to feel discouraged by where we find ourselves more than a year into the coronavirus pandemic here in Alberta. Soaring infection rates and the corresponding public health measures recently introduced to bring them under control make it seem like we’ve made little progress in emerging from the conditions that have constrained our activities and kept us apart from colleagues, friends and loved ones.

We had a wonderful response to our recent Teacher's Contest with over 1800 entries. The following prizes have been awarded:

Christina Boisvert - First Prize $125.00 Gift Certificate from Audreys Books + Swag Package
Kari Odegard - Second Prize $75.00 Gift Certificate from Audreys Books
Christel Hennig - Third Prize $50.00 Gift Certificate from Audreys Books

Carol Ann Page says she always had a love of learning and dreamed of becoming a teacher. She was the first person in her extended family to attend university. While relying on student loans and working part time, her determination and strong work ethic resulted in a superior academic standing in her first year, and she was selected as a candidate for a foreign exchange scholarship. The opportunity was dismissed at home.

The Faculty of Education has a proud tradition not only of producing great educators, psychologists and information studies professionals, but great research. Here are some recent stories you may have missed about UAlberta education researchers and the important work they do to improve teaching, learning, policy and professional practice in Alberta, in Canada and around the world.

Educators seeking effective, authentic ways to incorporate more First Nations, Metis and Inuit (FNMI) ways of knowing, being and doing in their teaching will find the support they’re looking for at the Faculty of Education’s Summer Institute.

The 2021 Summer Institute, which takes place July 5-23 on the U of A’s North Campus, comprises two courses designed to deepen understanding of Indigenous foundational knowledge and knowing, and how those understandings might be expressed in institutional settings for the benefit of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students alike.