PRISM :: Browsing by Author "McDermott, Mairi"

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Browsing by Author "McDermott, Mairi"

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Open Access
Action research for graduate program improvements: A response to curriculum mapping and review
(Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education, 2018) Jacobsen, Michele; Eaton, Sarah Elaine; Brown, Barb; Simmons, Marlon; McDermott, Mairi
There is a global trend toward improving programs and student experiences in higher education through curriculum review and mapping of degree programs. This paper describes an action research approach to program improvement for a course-based MEd degree. The driver for continual program improvement came from actions and recommendations that arose from an institutionally mandated, year-long, faculty led curriculum review of professional graduate programs in education. Study findings reveal instructors’ perceptions about how they enacted the recommendations for program improvement, including (1) developing a visual conceptualization of the program; (2) improved connections between the courses; (3) articulation of coherence in goals and expectations for students and instructors; (4) an increased focus on action research; (5) increased ethics support and scaffolding for students; and (6) the fostering of communities of practice. Study findings highlight strengths of the current program and course designs, action items, and research needed for continual program improvement.
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always.in.bits.
(2023-06-13) Ladhani, Sheliza; Sitter, Kathleen; McDermott, Mairi; Este, David; Gabor, Peter; Adams, Jennifer; Banahene Adjei, Paul
The mo(ve)ments gathered, held, and offered to you here, are connected to institutional life yet breach its hold. This multi-voiced autoethnographic representation of (re)memberings and (re)imaginings, draws upon critical race theory, anti-racism, and settler colonialism as analytics to attune to the reproduction of parallel projects of domination and how particular violences are thrust on / against our bodies, Black, Indigenous, and racialized bodies. Here, we consider how our (re)memberings of racism and colonial violence within higher education feed our (re)imaginings and desires for more than what is. In working in relation to / with memory as an intimate and rebellious methodology, we draw upon our distinct historical and ancestral inheritances and asymmetrically interconnected knowledges of living amidst porous worlds of haunting and abundance, held by and preserved within the corporeal vessel, as a form of collective labour for livability, for shared futures that might yet be. These orientations and analytics open up decolonial possibilities for this work, spaces to travel in / through to make sense of the distinct yet linked experiences across our differences. This vessel carefully holds layered curations of bodily affect(ion)s through various fragmented forms of representation. In bringing together these fragments in fragile connectivity, this work traces and follows how bodies, voices, and affects find one another here, in an institutional space that continually deploys its racial and colonial machinations for our containment, erasure and extraction. Through membranous seeping, border crossing, and portal jumping to reclaim our bodies (of knowledge), our (re)memberings and (re)imaginings illuminate desires and yearnings for belonging in this world together, alongside world-making practices made possible by inheritance, kinship, and the alchemy of imagination.
Open Access
Emotional experiences of non-Indigenous educators teaching Indigenous curricula: Reconciliation through narrative inquiry
(2023-08) Miles, Teresa Marie; McDermott, Mairi; Friesen, Sharon; Spring, Erin; Scott, David; Cardinal, Trudy
Non-Indigenous educators are required to teach Indigenous curricula according to Alberta Education (2018b) Teaching Quality Standards (TQS). This requirement hopes to contribute to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015) (TRCC) calls to action regarding education in Canada. My research focuses on the calls to action which ask educators to teach Indigenous curricula with “intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect” (TRCC, 2015). By asking the research question, what are the emotional experiences of non-Indigenous educators in Alberta who are teaching Indigenous curriculum, my purpose was to examine the emotional experiences as we work individually and collectively towards reconciliation in education. In this emotional journey that you are joining me on, the reader will encounter writing surrounding the Papal apology, situating myself in the research, situating the research in governing literature, approach to research and design, findings and discussion of the data. This thesis includes my design of Research in a Medicine Wheel which provides a conceptual and theoretical framework. In addition, the reader will encounter a Findings in a Medicine Wheel Word Cloud, and sweetgrass braid drawings which I created to show how my research is woven with research partners and the seven sacred teachings. Through a Narrative Inquiry approach, the findings present the stories of my three research partners and myself. In conducting an emotive analysis of these stories as data gathering, I created categories which represent themes found in each of the research partner’s stories. Susie presents the role of empathy in teaching Indigenous curricula; Elsi presents a story of growth, authenticity, and humility; and Quinn presents the perspective of moving past shock: a journey towards understanding. Each of the research partner’s stories are followed by my reaction and reflection which created the opportunity for me to become the fourth researcher in this research. This emotional journey includes a research process which became one of creating new relationships, the renewal of existing friendships, and changing relationships,. The research and writing which follows are centered on concepts found in the ever-changing processes of reconciliation.
Open Access
Excursions in Latinx-Canadian Music: A Critical Appreciation Inquiry to Envision Transcultural Identities Among Language Learners and Teachers
(2024-12-20) Moreau, Eve; Zaidi, Rahat; McDermott, Mairi; Spring, Erin
Beyond curricular content, teaching in Canada calls educators to address Indigeneity while being culturally responsive to the diasporic community of learners in their classrooms. Increasingly globalized classrooms and commitments to teach Indigenous ways of knowing present a complex environment. For language teachers, beyond teaching a language, this environment challenges them to design learning that weaves in Indigenous knowledge while leveraging students’ intricate assemblage of relations to languages, lands, peoples, and materials that connect them to various places on the globe. This study explored two questions: (a) How might a Spanish language teacher consider Latinx Canadian music as a pedagogical agent in developing transcultural literacies of youth? (b) How can pedagogical experiences with Latinx Canadian music engage adolescent learners in the exploration and expression of their transcultural identities? It took place at Legados Latin American Institute for the Transmission of Language and Culture (herein Legados) in Montréal, Canada, whose vision is to sustain the language and culture of Spanish-speaking communities and to provide courses in Spanish as a foreign language. By marrying new materialism with a transcultural literacies approach, I analyzed how the material relations produced the teaching and learning assemblage and shaped students’ exploration and expression. Furthermore, I took an active role in supporting the cocreation of learning experiences that fostered the discovery of the heterogenous ways in which students are interconnected. Methodologically, I applied critical appreciative inquiry to contribute to the professional growth of a Spanish language teacher at a school in Montréal and to expand Legados’s curricular resources. Through internet research, the teacher participant and I selected songs based on themes and representations of Indigeneity, migration, and transcultural identities across North and South America and designed lessons to explore how a Spanish language classroom could be retrofitted to become a musical ecosystem, inclusive of the diverse voices of Latinx Canadian diasporic communities. I examine the findings in relation to the two research questions, noting the relationships and affects that emerged through the research assemblage. Finally, I highlight the capacities that were produced from the material relations and consider their significance for Spanish language education and transcultural literacies research.
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Glitched: A Novel and the Perpetual Posthuman Performance of Never-Becoming
(2024-01-15) Grue, Janelle; Mayr, Suzette; Forlini, Stefania; McDermott, Mairi
This thesis aims to illuminate the nuanced ways posthuman manipulation, coupled with the allure of hope, becomes a potent force for dominant systems to extinguish individual autonomy. The narrative in Glitched unfolds against the backdrop of a collapsing Canadian society, with citizens eventually falling under the rule of the Regime. Through this storyline, the fictional narrative and subsequent research intend to unravel the complexities of human agency within speculative fiction, particularly dystopian literature, by focusing on a narrative that emphasizes the absence of hope and revolution. While dystopian stories predominantly center on rebellion-centric narratives, this thesis investigates the implications of autonomy under authoritarian rule without the catalyst of revolution by drawing on the theoretical framework of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s assemblages and the impossible act of becoming. Through close readings and thematic analyses of other novels and counterrevolutionaries, the thesis illustrates a complex interplay between the Regime’s control through nanotechnology, individual identity, and the blurred boundaries between conscious and unconscious states. Glitched contributes a distinctive perspective to speculative fiction, presenting an alternative to conceptual frameworks surrounding autonomy in dystopian societies and re-evaluating the role of hope and rebellion in shaping narratives of human agency.
Open Access
Graduate students' research-based learning experiences in an online Master of Education program
(University of Wollongong, 2018) Jacobsen, Michele; McDermott, Mairi; Brown, Barbara; Eaton, Sarah Elaine; Simmons, Marlon
The purpose of this research was to better understand graduate students' learning experiences in a researchintensive, online Master of Education (MEd) program. In alignment with the program goal for graduate scholars of the profession, this course-based program adopted an inquiry-based signature pedagogy grounded in the innovative practice of research-based learning. As part of this study, we explored broader program structures, including the cohort-based model, course sequencing and research ethics approval processes, which situate the research-based learning experiences. Several research questions framed our investigation into the experiences of online students who are engaged in a research-active MEd program. Analysis of survey and focus group information contributes to this mixed-methods case study and provides insights into implications for research-based learning in online course-based graduate programs.
Open Access
How can school systems weave together Indigenous ways of knowing and response-tointervention to reduce chronic absenteeism in Alberta?
(University of Calgary : Werklund School of Education, 2020-06-24) Fowler, Teresa Anne; McDermott, Mairi
It is well documented that students who demonstrate high levels of absenteeism are at an increased risk for a number of negative outcomes (e.g., see Fuhs et al., 2018). What is becoming increasingly evident, however, is that students who experience chronic stressors, such as socioeconomic disadvantage, mental health challenges, or cultural marginalization are at an increased risk for school absenteeism and represent specific populations who would greatly benefit from innovative proactive and reactive intervention techniques (Wimmer, 2013). Current Rocky View Schools (RVS) data suggests that of the nearly 800 students who identify as Indigenous within the district, 30% can be considered chronically absent. Data analyzed from September 2017 to April 2018 revealed that on-reserve students who attend an RVS school demonstrated the highest percentage of chronic absenteeism – an alarming 80%. Additionally, these on-reserve students have missed an average of 32 days of school to date this year (representing close to 23% of the school year). Based on the results of the internal data analysis, this study examines the experiences in a public school of First Nations students, who reside on reserve. Interviews were conducted with parents and students and surveys were responded to by staff and what was revealed as a barrier to attendance was a form of cross-cultural anxiety.
Open Access
Imagining and Moving Towards Nurturing Queer Identities in Alberta Schools: A Narrative Inquiry
(2020-04-15) Maine, Emilie; McDermott, Mairi; Burwell, Catherine; Sumara, Dennis J.
Alberta Education states that they operate within a way of thinking and acting that demonstrates universal acceptance of, and belonging for, all children and students. Despite this statement, recent evidence shows that within Alberta schools, queer identities are excluded, homogenized, or simply tolerated within educational institutions. The discrepancy across the province of treatment and commitment to queer education impacts if and how topics surrounding queer identities are taught. Given that Albertan educational institutions are not equally committed to teaching queerness, the present study asks the question: how can schools move towards nurturance of queer identities? Using the language in the Riddle Scale (1994), this study employs narrative inquiry and queer theory to interrogate, trouble, and queer educational institutions to ask how various educational actors can embody the core of nurturance, where queer people are seen as indispensable in society. Data collected from two primary data sets—publicly sourced information on queer educational programming, and semi-structured interviews with queer educational specialists—revealed various dynamics that contribute to lack of nurturing queer educational programs in Alberta schools. From data analysis, two resonant threads (themes) emerged: (1) the unique context of queer identities in Alberta; and, (2) misconceptions surrounding age, sex, and the subsequent complications of teaching queerness. While nurturance cannot be defined in one particular way, this thesis seeks to queer what education could be, and with the narratives of queer educational providers, imagines a future in which queer identities are nurtured across the province.
Open Access
Leading for Indigenous Learning: Research Brief
(2020-10-22) McDermott, Mairi; Brown, Barbara; Friesen, Sharon; Markides, Jennifer; MacDonald, Jennifer; Holden, Michael
This research partnership project explored participant experiences navigating the terrain of weaving First Nations, Métis, and Inuit foundational knowledges into their educational practices. Participants were invited from those who participated in the Leading for Indigenous Learning design-based professional learning series.
Open Access
“Let Them Play”: Embodied Literacy Learning Through Play in the Early Years Classroom
(2024-04-22) Hanzel, Stacey; Lenters, Kimberly; Mosher, Ronna; McDermott, Mairi
Literacy programs and curricula define literacy primarily through cognition, and this privileges an assumption that all learning is situated in the brain, separate from the body. Early-years classrooms are being filled with literacy programs designed with this definition in mind, and as a result, play is diminishing from these classrooms. Posthumanist theoretical perspectives identify the role of the body in learning, identifying play as an example of embodied learning. This study considers the role of the mind and body in embodied literacy-learning through play. The literature review considers posthumanist theories and literacy while also identifying research surrounding playful literacy learning in the 21st century. The context of this study is a Grade 1 classroom in an urban centre that borders a large city in Western Canada. The observations occurred over four months during the daily 45-minute free playtime. The data collection consisted of unstructured interviews, images, videos, and observational notes. Rhizoanalysis was used to identify the emergent nature of embodied literacy practices through play by mapping entities of humans, materials, and language in the play assemblages. Additionally, writing was used as a method of analysis through the creation of data stories, which are shared in the findings chapters. This case study research thinks with posthumanist concepts as the Grade 1 play stories were explored. In identifying embodied literacy practices through play, the findings of this study challenge traditional notions of play and literacy-supporting play as a generative means for literacy learning in the early years classroom.
Open Access
Promoting the Social Inclusion of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder via Mobile Technologies
(2021-10) Pira, Rahim; Lund, Darren; Brown, Barbara; McDermott, Mairi
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the most commonly diagnosed neurodevelopment disorder in Canada, and approximately 1 out of 66 children is identified with ASD in Canada. Children with autism demonstrate impairments in language, communication skills, and social interactions; hence, these children have difficulties with communicating and interacting socially with their peers, educators, and parents. One of the latest interventions is the use of mobile technologies in assisting children with ASD in developing their social, communication, language, and other educational skills required for their academic success. However, social inclusion of these students in the classroom is still challenging. Hence, there is a need to determine effective ways of integrating mobile technologies in the classroom in order to promote the social inclusion of students with ASD. Using case study research, this mixed method study explored how students with ASD are socially included in the learning activities using mobile technologies and the impact on educators and parents. Educators, other education professionals, and parents participated in surveys and one-on-one interviews to provide further insights about their experiences in meeting students’ communication, social, language, and educational needs via mobile technologies. Analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data resulted into four emerging themes: (a) a balanced learning model where social inclusion of students with ASD is supported through the balance between mobile technologies and personal interaction; (b) resources and supports such as open educational resources, funding to support mobile technologies, evidence-based knowledge on mobile technologies, and training for all stakeholders are necessary in creating a socially inclusive environment for students with ASD; (c) goal oriented and needs-based usage where mobile technologies are used for addressing the needs of students with ASD and for achieving a particular goal or purpose in education; and (d) a team oriented approach that involves collaboration among students, parents, school administrators, educators, other education professionals, and various stakeholders in promoting the social inclusion via mobile technologies. The findings from this research study indicated various aspects (promoters) that are important in promoting the social inclusion of students with ASD via mobile technologies. Through these promoters, effective levels of social inclusion can be achieved where students’ communication, social, language, and educational needs are addressed sufficiently.
Open Access
Re-Storying the Past: Transforming the White Settler Colonial Stories that Formed Us
(2022-06) Bensler, Heather; Friesen, Sharon; Markides, Jennifer; McDermott, Mairi
In this study, I explore the ways Settler nurse educators understand their identity within the context of Canada’s colonial narrative. I provide a generative space for critical reflectivity on my own social location through creative, embodied explorations of my Settler-colonial story and experiences, Indigenous historical accounts, and dialogical engagement with Canada’s socio-historical configuration as a Settler nation-state. I consider the ways Whiteness , (DiAngelo, 2018a), Settler identity (Tuck & Yang, 2012; Wolfe, 2006), and Settler colonial logics act as barriers to transforming Settler understanding of Canada’s Settler colonial history and Indigenous sovereignty (Donald, 2009). Using Indigenous Métissage as a research sensibility, I engage in narrative and embodied practices to better understand and transform my relationship to self, land, and Canada’s colonial history. Through braided stories of place, practices, and historical perspectives, I examine the impact that Camp Chief Hector had on my White settler formation and its exclusionary and exploitative relationship with the Stoney Nakoda Nation. I consider a path towards reconciliation; one created by attending to respect and reverence, reciprocity, kinship relationality, and treaty responsibility. By thinking through my lived experiences as an entry point to engage Settler identity, I tell a more truthful account of Canadian history and of the current state of how Settler colonial logics influence the relationship between Settlers and Indigenous people.
Open Access
Remembering Msit No'kmaq: Self-in-Relation Métissage
(2023-04-21) Scott, Michelle Elizabeth; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; McDermott, Mairi; Donald, Dwayne
In the spirit of relationship renewal and repair, I ask the question: How can we begin to enact our responsibilities to learn how to be good relatives to each other, the Land, and our other-than-human kin that is outside of the settler-colonial violence that Canada is built on? I suggest a necessary first step is to take our own self-reflective journey(s) of self-in-relation (Graveline, 1998) to locate our unique kinship networks of relationality and responsibility across time and space. In my research, I centred my embodied personal theory-making (Simpson, 2017), kinship relationality (Donald, 2021) and relationships to Land (Simpson, 2014, 2017; Styres, 2011, 2017, 2019) as a Mi’kmaw and Irish/English woman who has lived in Moh’kins’tsis for twenty-two years, was born and raised in Oniatari:io, and has ancestral and kinship ties to my Mi’kmaw relatives in Ktaqmkuk. Through the process of creating my métissage, I came to know and conceptualize colonial shrapnel as the ways in which colonial violence is embedded within our bodies through generations of spiritual, emotional, and blood and bone memory, and Elemental Kinship as a way to repair and heal through direct relationship with the elements – water, fire, earth, and air. I offer these concepts as curricular apertures with an invitation to others who are interested in moving beyond a fractured identity (personally, and collectively) toward a curriculum of remembering msit no’kmaq (all my [their] relations) at their own sacred fire.
Open Access
Riding the Waves of Flux: Newcomer Narratives on Their Lived Experiences Inside and Out of the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) Program
(2024-07-18) Vergara, Oscar Michael; Guo, Shibao; Okoko, Janet; Zaidi, Rahat; McDermott, Mairi; Scott, Shelleyann
Abstract This research was aimed at studying the stories of nine former newcomers in the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program which is offered across Canada. The study of multiple individual stories is naturally qualitative in scope. It set out to explore nine individual stories and to learn from the perceptions of former newcomers previously in the LINC program and its effects/influences on their lives inside and out of language instruction classes. The study employed Narrative Inquiry to ensure a holistic picture of each individual’s life’s story was included as part of the data. The sources of data include (a) focus groups sessions, (b) semi-structured interviews, and (c) manual coding with reflective notes. The findings indicated several influences on the nine individuals of coming to Canada including the overall satisfaction with LINC, and its effect on their future pathways. In addition, this study’s newcomer-participants point to a variety of feedback that could be applied to future LINC participants’ learning and general programming. The various stakeholders, including policy makers, administrators, practitioners, and researchers, that work with LINC programs, may find the findings and recommendations particularly useful in extending and expanding on the flexibility that existing LINC programming already offers. Keywords: LINC, PBLA, multiculturalism, newcomers, narratives, flux
Open Access
The Role of Reflection in Action Research: Towards Enhanced Understandings of Curriculum Improvement
(2019-04-05) Simmons, Marlon; McDermott, Mairi; Eaton, Sarah Elaine; Brown, Barbara; Jacobsen, Michele
In this paper we draw upon our reflections from an ongoing action research project on student research in course-based, professional graduate programs. We broach our considerations to delineate the complexity of improving curriculum by tracing how the iterative process of action research informed the core findings from the research. The broad framework informing our action research approach includes: (1) planning; (2) observing and acting; (3) critical reflection; and (4) engaging in continuous iterations of this process. Specifically, our collective inquiry takes up the role of reflection within action research cycles to support us in better understanding curriculum review and improvement.
Open Access
School-Based Leader Stories of Field Experiences Constituting the Teaching Profession
(2021-07) Crawford, Kathryn; Burns, Amy; Gereluk, Dianne; McDermott, Mairi; Brown, Barbara; Cherkowski, Sabre
While there is a significant body of research on teacher preparation field experience, there are few studies that include the school-based leader stories. The purpose of this qualitative study was to use Critical Narrative Inquiry to draw on school-based leader experiences to provide insight into how they perceive preservice teacher preparation in their own school community. A secondary purpose was to identify communicative processes that shape the teaching profession at the point of preservice teacher field experiences using Bourdieu’s social theory to reveal practices and dispositions that are valued and reproduced. I applied a communicative flows model to examine how communication constitutes an organization, a method of critical narrative inquiry. I conducted two semi-structured interviews of ten school-based leaders who regularly participate in field experiences. Using a constant comparative analysis, I identified communicative acts that revealed ways in which the teaching profession is organized and reproduced through field experiences. The findings revealed that school communities use a variety of communicative acts including collaboration, questioning, and reflection to engage in sense-making of explicit and implicit knowledge of teaching practices and dispositions. Consequently, contextual knowledge and partner teachers as role models are positioned as authorities in preservice teacher preparation. School-based leaders also indicated preservice teachers were expected to be more prepared for teaching than they are. Yet, they viewed preservice teachers as emerging teachers when they enacted the dispositions and language of their field experience community. The communicative flows revealed that school-based leaders view field experience as a social location of knowledge transmission through which local and collective practices develop. This study also highlighted the tension between socializing preservice teachers to the field experience community and a desire for preservice teachers to be well-prepared for all contexts. I recommend opportunities to increase collaboration between school-based leaders and school communities to facilitate a broader view of field experience contexts. I also provide recommendations for increased reflection and disruption of the idealized partner teacher and preservice teacher.
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sîpîwan (it becomes a river): Becoming otâcimow (storyteller)
(2024-09-09) Tyler, Stephanie; Bodor, Ralph Colin; Makokis, Leona (Red Eagle Woman); McDermott, Mairi; Nicholas, David Bruce; Loveless, Natalie Suzanne
In refusal of the division and limitations inherent within both the authoritative, passive voice of conventional writing and the boundaries of western academic disciplines and knowledge production, this storied and relational work explores interconnections between identity, language, land, and story through the processes and methods of nehiyaw kehte kiskeyitamowin nitotisakewin (cree wisdom-seeking) or Indigenous wisdom-seeking. Drawing upon the trailblazing work of four Indigenous scholars from across kânata (Canada), the roles and responsibilities of good storytelling and storylistening are shared and demonstrated through mâmawapiwin (circle process), illuminating how theory, method, and practice are naturally braided together through âcimowin (story) within Indigenous research methodology. Through the sacred wisdom-seeking and story pathways of nehiyawewin (the cree language), nehiyaw kiskinohamakewina (the cree worldview), isihcikewin (ceremony), wâhkôhtowin (all my relations), wahkomitowin (relational accountability to the natural world), and miyo opihkinawâsowin (growing children well), this (re)stor(y)ing work creatively weaves together and preserves individual and collective stories of decolonizing, healing, and becoming. By absencing (hu)mankind while still presencing the impact of colonial systems that were never designed with most of us in mind, this (re)imagined reality seeks to instead center the teachers and teachings of kâwînaw askiy (mother earth) embedded within the storied and layered wisdom-seeking journey of sîpîwan (it becomes a river), as well as the before-during-continuing âcimowina (life stories) of five wisdom-seekers. Ultimately, this work hopes to inspire a collective commitment to healing justice and cultivating spaces where stories and beings can thrive and live miyo pimâtisiwin (the good life).
Open Access
Stories of Empowered Alberta Teachers: Enacting Responsibilities in Indigenous Education
(2023-04-30) Meade, Sarah M.; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; McDermott, Mairi; Alonso-Yanez, Gabriela
Teachers in Alberta are tasked with adhering to the Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action (2015b) and the Teaching Quality Standard (Alberta Education, 2018) related to Indigenous education, despite having little formal Indigenous education in their formal schooling. In this action-based qualitative study, I employed a decolonizing methodology, grounded in the principles of participatory action research and oriented by critical pedagogy to explore how teachers are enacting their responsibilities as champions of Indigenous education. Using Photovoice and sharing circles as methods, the findings that surfaced in the data revealed that, in enacting their responsibilities in Indigenous education, Alberta teachers in this study are: encountering resistance and racism, embracing a pedagogy of discomfort (Boler & Zembylas, 2003), engaging in critical reflection and navigating oppressive structures in the education system. The methodology employed in this study can be replicated in future studies and could be used to develop professional learning for teachers in Indigenous education.
Open Access
Using Integral Theory to Study the Effectiveness of HeartMath Biofeedback and Social-Emotional Learning in Adolescent Emotion Regulation
(2024-12-19) McLeod, Carolyn Joan; Bohac Clarke, Veronika Elizabeth; Burns, Amy; McDermott, Mairi
This purpose of this study was to address the effectiveness of teaching social-emotional learning (SEL) and mindfulness with biofeedback to help Grade-9 students manage and regulate stress and anxiety. As a classroom teacher, I had been noticing a recent uptick in internalizing (withdrawal and avoidance) and externalizing (outbursts and aggression) student behaviours within the classroom and hallways. Students were discussing being stressed, uncertain, with many lacking self-confidence and emotional regulation skills. Students have recently faced large-scale disruptions to their daily lives, including the threat of illness, social isolation, loss of important milestones, school disruptions, and other related stressors. In response to this current state of adolescent emotional dysregulation, I was tasked with designing a targeted positive psychology option class to provide students with opportunities to calm down through focussed attention on the breath. HeartMath¬ sensors provide biofeedback in the form of heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of autonomic nervous system control and regulation. Integral Theory informed the methodological framework to study these phenomena through four irreducible ontological perspectives. An empirical study using surveys found that students in the experimental group (EG) increased social awareness, focused attention, positive affect, and coping self-efficacy, while decreasing feelings of anxiety in a variety of situations over time and compared to a control group. Through sustained heart focused breathing practice with sensor and app, the EG significantly increased HRV over the 12-week time period. A phenomenological approach using semi-structured interviews found that students are experiencing anxiety and stress, however practicing mindfulness breathing every day helped them feel calmer, more emotionally regulated, focused, and better able to handle the stressors in their life. A structuralist approach using a perspectives study found that the EG were mainly operating at an ego/ethnocentric (red/orange) level of development, whereas the alumni students had shifted towards a worldcentric (green) level, meaning they were more attuned to diversity, exceptions, and tolerance for differences than the Grade 9s. Focus groups provided insight into the coherent classroom culture and shared meanings between students and allowed them to engage in an authentic and commensurate way. An in-depth analysis of existing educational policies and practices found that infusing SEL in the curriculum and creating inclusive classrooms are expected, however, the means and resources to implement these elements are not always available and accessible to schools and teachers. Adding social and emotional literacy instruction to the playbook of numerical, read/write, and physical literacy is essential to the effective development of the whole child, particularly during these times of uncertainty and elevated levels of stress.
Open Access
Voices of Refugee Youth
(2020-08) Trussler, Patricia; Zaidi, Rahat; Burwell, Catherine; McDermott, Mairi
Using PhotoVoice, a participatory visual methodology, this research explored the settlement experiences of refugee youth who have exited high school and a program designed by a school board in Alberta to support their language and academic needs. Newcomer youth encounter profound academic and social stresses as they attempt to create a new identity and sense of belonging in their new home. By engaging the notion of place as a framework, this project examined what it means for refugee youth to recuperate a place of belonging. Gruenewald (2003) suggests that understanding our relationship to place can be profoundly pedagogical. The youth began by capturing their perspectives on belonging with photos; they collaboratively analyzed them for common themes, audio recorded narratives to accompany key images and then shared this assembled digital product with recently arrived newcomer youth. By focusing on the notion of belonging rather than barriers to settlement, the youth reflected on the actions that were instrumental in their effort to inhabit their new home. The findings revealed that at the core of the youth’s efforts, connecting to people, especially in school, in addition to connecting to the natural world, fostered feelings of well-being and belonging. Educational implications include recommendations for schools and teachers supporting newcomer youth. Schools that offer welcoming and focused language programs with teachers who have trauma sensitive training provide a foundation for older newcomer youth. Meaningful relationships among teachers, students and families generate trust that in turn creates safe places for student needs and voices to be understood. Giving experienced youth opportunities to reflect on and share their perspectives with other youth fosters confidence and awareness for both groups.