Werklund School of Education

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https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/100120

The work of the Werklund School of Education is learning. Research is an engaging way of learning what is not already yet known, or probing what is already known but in new ways. Within the Werklund School of Education, the research conducted by our professors and students is incredibly diverse.

Werklund School of Education

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Browsing Werklund School of Education by Department "Office of Teaching & Learning"

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    Audio-walks: Moving digital learning off-screen and into balance
    (2022-07-19) Poitras Pratt, Yvonne
    As an Indigenous scholar who teaches undergraduate and graduate-level Indigenous education courses, I often challenge myself to bring Indigenous pedagogy and practices, both theoretical and praxis-based, into my classes (see Louie et al., 2017; Poitras Pratt, 2020). In the context of what has been life-altering physical, emotional, and psychological challenges over the past several years, I have placed an increased focus on the collective wellbeing of students as a requisite priority. With public health restrictions as a factor in how and where we teach, educators and students alike have had to face not only hours of screentime but also any lingering anxieties they might have had in using digital technologies. In this vignette, I share my own attempt at bringing a greater sense of wellbeing and balance into my online teaching and learning spaces by introducing you to my emerging practice of audio-walks. My hope is that you will see how Indigenizing principles can support the use of digital technologies to achieve a more balanced learning environment.
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    Using a student-centered online professional learning approach to support preservice teacher development in digital assessment practices
    (2022-07-19) Delanoy, Nadia; Walz, Jodie
    This vignette describes the collaboration between the Werklund School of Education (WSE) and an urban school district to offer a student-centered digital assessment professional learning series aimed at preservice teachers. Specifically, by prioritizing preservice teacher assessment development, the collaboration between an adjunct assistant professor and education consultant in educational technology resulted in a rich design of online professional learning. The core intentions were to support preservice teachers’ learning about assessment practices within the digital age, while connecting the learned theories to their practice. In this vignette, we will outline our considerations in the design focus of student centeredness related to the professional learning, how this work supported technology-enhanced practice in a highly interactive learning series, as well as some participant feedback collected at the end of the series.
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    Virtual Exchange for Future Teachers: A Project-based Learning Design
    (2022-08-02) Dressler, Roswita; Jardine, Lyliam
    Virtual Exchange (VE) has received more attention recently, due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Although VE is not new (O’Dowd, 2020), its home is usually in second language programs, rather than education faculties where the focus is less on language learning and more on expanding pedagogical content knowledge (Rets et al., 2020). However, instructors of pre-service teachers still see a need to support language learning while designing for learning around second language teaching (Tedick & Lyster, 2020). During Feb. - Mar. 2021, future language teachers from Spain and Canada took part in a VE that provided experiential learning about second language pedagogy in different cultural contexts while working on improving their Spanish and English respectively. Students in Canada studying to become Spanish as Foreign Language teachers were partnered with students in Spain who were becoming English as Foreign Language teachers. Embedded in a course in both countries, student partners met during an overlapping portion of their respective semesters, both synchronously and asynchronously through a combined course shell. A bilingual TA was hired to support the VE and students had language practice, as the Zoom sessions alternated between using Spanish and English. The design for the courses were built around project-based learning (Stoller, 2006) all modelled around a Choiceboard. Project-based learning allowed students to follow their interests through choices in how to demonstrate their learning in the form of final products. Classwork and partner projects resulted in a meaningful global learning experience. The VE projects involved researching and sharing specific topics of L2 pedagogy and language use (e.g., common teaching approaches; the role of other languages in the classroom; dialect awareness), including one multi-modal assignment. As a result, this VE addressed an ongoing goal of internationalizing this introductory teaching specialization course. The VE also provided intercultural communication and language practice for the students and a design partnership among the Canadian instructor and TA with the Spanish partner instructors.