Dr. Leisa Desmoulins (Associate Professor, Orillia) and Dr. Don McCaskill (Professor Emeritus, Trent University) have been awarded an NIB Trust Fund Grant for their research project, titled Infusion of Anishinaabe Cultural Ways of Knowing and Doing into Public School Classrooms. 

Their project involves the development of culturally based Anishinaabe pedagogy and curricula, to be created in partnership with Elders, Knowledge holders, and educators from the Simcoe County District School Board and Beausoleil First Nation.

Leisa explains that “this project connects to TRC Calls to Action 62, 63, 64, specifically to develop culturally grounded curricula and resources, support teacher training needs, and ultimately, to build student capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect that will foster reconciliation.”

Over the next year, Leisa and Don will work with First Nations partners to explore the underlying features of Anishinaabe pedagogy (ways of knowing and doing), to in turn develop a culturally based curriculum for high school students within the Simcoe County District School Board.

“Based on the research into the broader Anishinaabe culturally based curriculum from the Elders and Knowledge holders, we will work with partners to develop local Anishinaabe geography curricula for secondary students, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students alike,” Leisa says.

The NIB Trust Fund grants support education programs aimed at healing, reconciliation, and knowledge building, to help First Nations and Métis people, organizations, and communities address the long-lasting impacts of the residential school system.

Pictured below: Dr. Dr. Leisa Desmoulins and Dr. Don McCaskill.

PhD student Claudia Flores Moreno, along with her supervisors Dr. Sonia Mastrangelo and Dr. Meridith Lovell-Johnston (Orillia campus), have authored a research chapter titled “A Self-Regulation Framework to Support the Mental Health and Wellbeing of International Female Graduate Students.”

Maclean’s has included Lakehead University among Canada’s top 20-ranking schools for Education programs in Canada. The annual survey reviewed Education programs’ reputation for quality and research strength, with both areas contributing equally to the final rankings.

Dr. Wayne Melville, Faculty of Education Dean, notes that this ranking is “a testament to the work each of us has been doing within the faculty… including our commitments to each other, our programs, and our students.”

You can view Maclean’s 2023 list of “Canada’s Best Education Programs” here.

Contract Lecturer James (Jimmy) Steele has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers (CASLT).

As noted on the CASLT website, the Association’s goal is to foster and advance professional excellence in language teaching in Canada, “by creating opportunities for professional development, by initiating and disseminating research, and by facilitating the exchange of information and ideas among language educators.”

Jimmy has worked in second language education for nearly 20 years. He has taught secondary Spanish, German, French Immersion, Core French, ESL, and Portuguese over his career in the Toronto District School Board in Toronto. At the Faculty of Education, he is currently course instructor for the “French as a Second Language” course in the Intermediate/Senior division. He also worked for three years as a secondee to York University's Faculty of Education, where he delivered 10 undergraduate and BEd courses in French and English. He continues to facilitate Continuing Education courses for teachers at both Nipissing University and OISE/University of Toronto.

“Professional development is at the heart of lifelong learning for classroom teachers and education workers,” he says. “I truly believe that learning from experts and peers alike has a measurable, meaningful impact on our teaching, programming, and assessment. Because of this, I have been involved with several provincial organizations throughout my teaching career, including ten years with the Ontario Modern Language Teachers’ Association and nine years as president of the Ontario Association of Teachers of German. When the call for interested candidates for the CASLT Board of Directors came out, I was encouraged to apply, and now, as part of the national team, having the chance to support teachers across Canada and help impact policy development in second language teaching is a very special experience.”

Congratulations on this appointment, Jimmy!

Dr. Pauline Sameshima (Professor and Canada Research Chair in Arts Integrated Studies) has received a 2022 Teaching Innovation Award from Lakehead University’s Senate Teaching and Learning Committee.

The Committee highlighted Pauline’s implementation of the “the Slides Strategy,” a teaching technique that “stimulates high levels of engagement in students, allowing them to understand each other’s perspectives well and affording much more creativity and the ability to participate in reading assignments to a greater depth than existing alternatives.”

The Teaching Innovation Award recognizes the development and/or implementation of innovative pedagogical practices and technologies.

For an explanation of “the Slides Strategy,” please see the publication by Pauline Sameshima and Tashya Orasi, “What’s better than the asynchronous discussion post?”

Congratulations, Pauline!

The Lake Superior Living Lab Network's (LSLLN) Climate Action Field School was awarded the 2022 Teaching Innovation Award by the Lakehead University's Senate Teaching and Learning Committee. A number of Education folks were involved with the Field School, including full-time faculty members Dr. Paul Berger, Dr. David Greenwood, and Dr. Connie Russell, adjunct faculty member Dr. Charles Levkoe, PhD student and contract lecturer Devon Lee, MEd student Gavin Shields, and alumni Sue Hamel, Aynsley Klassen, Darrel Makin, and Ledah McKellar.

More information on the field school can be found on the LSLLN website.

Two recently published books, featuring contributions by Faculty of Education members Dr. Michael Hoechsmann, Dr. Ellen Field, Dr. Connie Russell, and Dr. Gerald Walton have won 2022 American Educational Studies Association (AESA) Critics’ Choice Awards.

The three-volume, 125-chapter book, The SAGE Handbook of Critical Pedagogies (S. Steinberg & B. Down, editors) features a chapter by Connie Russell ("Fat Pedagogy and the Disruption of Weight-Based Oppression: Toward the Flourishing of All Bodies") and a chapter by Gerald Walton ("In a Rape Culture, Can Boys Actually Be Boys?"). Michael Hoechsmann edited the 10-chapter section on "Communication and Media." For more information on this book, see this link.

Education for Democracy 2.0: Changing Frames of Media Literacy, co-edited by Dr. Michael Hoechsmann, Gina Thésée (Université du Québec à Montréal), and Paul R. Carr (Université du Québec en Outaouais) has also won an AESA Critics' Choice Award. The book features a chapter by Ellen Field ("Is It All Just Emojis and LOL, or Can Social Media Foster Environmental Literacy and Activism?"). For more information on this book, see this link.

Maria Vasanelli (Former Director of Strategic Initiatives and Professional Learning, Faculty of Education) began her new role as the Chair of Lakehead University’s Board of Governors. The appointment has a term of two years.

Maria joined Lakehead's Board of Governors in 2015 and has served on several of its standing committees, including Finance and Operations, Governance and Nominating, and Learning and Liaison.

Maria's experience in senior administration in education includes Superintendent of Education at the Durham Catholic District School Board and Superintendent at the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board. She is currently the Director of Education at the Superior North Catholic District School Board and a member of the Ontario College of Teachers Council.

After earning her B.A. in Philosophy and a Bachelor of Education from Lakehead University, Maria received a Master in Religious Education degree from Saint Paul University, and a Master of Business Administration from Cape Breton University.

Among other accreditations, she holds a certificate in Canadian Aboriginal Relations from Confederation College, and recently completed a certificate in Executive Leadership at the Rotman School of Business.

Her professional interests include leadership development, board governance, and education equity.

Dr. Ruth Beatty (Associate Professor, Orillia) and Colinda Clyne (Coordinating Principal of Indigenous Education, Upper Grand District School Board) have been awarded a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant for their research project, titled “Researching a Comprehensive Culturally Responsive Indigenous Mathematics Program.”

Ruth describes the creation of culturally responsive Indigenous math educational opportunities for students as “the first step towards responding to the needs of Indigenous students with respect to math education.”

There are three main goals of their research:

(a) to work with community partners to establish protocols for engagement that brings together community members and classroom educators to create respectful, reciprocal relationships;

(b) to study the effects of integrating cultural knowledge, values, and perspectives on participating students’ cultural knowledge and mathematical achievement; and

(c) to assess levels of teacher confidence in co-planning and co-teaching with Indigenous community partners to incorporate holistic approaches of Indigenous pedagogy in mathematics education.

Ruth has been working with Indigenous artists and Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators in the Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB) for the past four years, exploring short-term, culturally based mathematics investigations in classrooms. The SHHRC Partnership Engage Award enables this work to continue in further depth through the implementation of year-long investigations in four participating UGDSB classrooms.

In 2021/22, Lakehead University received nearly $2 million in assistance from the Research Support Fund to support the indirect costs of research, which includes costs for supporting the management of intellectual property, research and administration, ethics and regulatory compliance, research resources, and research facilities.

Pictured below: Colinda Clyne (left) and Ruth Beatty (right)

The Faculty of Education's September 2022 Education Exchange newsletter is now published.

This issue features articles on the "Operation Happy to Be Here" research project, the digitization of program archives from the Native and Indigenous Language Instructors' Programs, faculty news, alumni profiles, and more.

To access the Education Exchange newsletter, click here.