Wayne Martino – Article in the Ottawa Citizen

Wayne Martino wrote an article for the October 29th edition of the Ottawa Citizen, “All boys aren’t the same: Lumping boys together for gender-based education ignores the differences among boys, and can reinforce potentially harmful stereotypes”

See http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/boys+aren+same/2157168/story.html

O’Sullivan Interviews on Literacy Report

Dr. Julia O’Sullivan, Dean, Faculty of Education, will be interviewed by Wei Chen on CBC Radio One tomorrow morning at 7:15 am. (93.5 FM in the London area).

Dr. O’Sullivan has been interviewed and broadcast across the country in response to the News Release and her report: “Key Factors to Support Literacy Success in School-aged Populations,” written for the Canadian Education Statistics Council. Andy Barrie (CBC Toronto) interviewed Dr. O’Sullivan this morning. Tomorrow, after the Wei Chen interview in the morning, she will be taped by CBC Toronto television for broadcast at 6 pm.

A related  Western web page story is at “She’s going back to school but can she read?”

Narrative Inquiry Portal Launched

The University of Western Ontario’s Faculty of Education has launched one of the first portals for graduate students who are learning to be narrative researchers (www.narrativeinquiry.ca).

“Narrative inquiry is growing, not only in education, but across the social sciences,” says Dr. Cornelia Hoogland, who supervised the development of the portal. “Since there are many different ways to approach it, there is a need to provide support for students learning to do it.”

The portal offers a FAQ, bibliography, and links to interdisciplinary narrative research centres internationally. What’s innovative is that the site was both constructed for, and by, graduate students. Since 2007,  Hoogland and research assistant Natasha Wiebe have worked with students from the online M.Ed. course, 9576 Narrative Inquiry, as well as a narrative discussion group, to develop content. The questions in the FAQ were not only asked, but also answered, by students. The suggested readings include texts by respected experts in the field, as well as student assignments and publications.

Future plans include adding interactive components so that students can revise the FAQ (a la Wikipedia), as well as discuss each other’s research-in-progress.

Faculty in the Media

Alan Leschied was interviewed by Free Press reporter, Kathy Rumleski on March 9 on the subject of violence and girls.

Katina Pollock was featured in a Western News article on March 9: “Teaching students through experiential learning.”

 Alan Edmunds participated in a series of interviews with the Kansas City Star newspaper, March 2 – 4, on the topics of highly precocious students and the schooling of profoundly gifted children and adolescents. The State of Kansas is revisiting all educational policies regarding students who are gifted and talented with a view toward allowing for more curriculum/student acceleration options.

Wayne Martino named Faculty Scholar

Faculty of Education Professor Wayne Martino has been recognized as one of Western’s Faculty Scholars. The award was established “to honour and celebrate outstanding scholarly achievements at a critical point in the career of a faculty member at Western.” Criteria for the award include: excellence in research, teaching and service.

Congratulations!

More on the award at http://www.edu.uwo.ca/stories/martino.html

Our Researchers – Talks and Papers in November

Peter Jaffe and Ray Hughes published an article in the Fall issue of the OSSTF Forum, Preventing Violence Against Girls, Vol. 34, Issue 3, Fall 2008.  

Peter Jaffe was widely quoted on the issue of Ontario Government’s proposed reforms to protect women affected by domestic abuse. Peter was interviewed and quoted in the London Free Press, the Globe & Mail and on CBC Radio on November 25.

Shelley Taylor presented a paper: Learning to crack the code: Strategies developed by minority language children for second and third language learning in a school setting, at the TESL Ontario Conference “Strategies for Language Learning and Teaching” in Toronto on November 14.  

Maureen Smith is quoted in the December, 2008 edition of Professionally Speaking. The article, The Core of the Matter, by Michael Salvatori is Part 1 of “Change is the constant for French as a Second Language in Ontario.”

Allan Pitman travelled to Singapore to attend the final planning session of the World Education Research Association (WERA) on November 24 and 25. The newly formed WERA will link to education associations around the world and will support the establishment of a group of education researchers where infrastructure does not exist. From Singapore, Allan flew off to South Korea on the 26th to deliver the keynote speech at the Asia Pacific Research Association Conference. His topic was Capacity Building in South East Asian Universities: International Challenges. 

Ron Hansen attended the 5th Biennial International Conference on Technology Education Research in Queensland, Australia from November 26-29 presenting his paper entitled Technical Innovation Research Project.

Rebecca Coulter gave an invited presentation, Where the Boys Are: Learning from Young Men, to the Canadian Safe Schools Network conference on November 25 in Toronto.

Centre Assists in Production of Film

The Centre for Research and Education on Violence against Women and Children helped to produce a film, tentatively titled Respect: Western, on the treatment of minority groups on campus. (See page 3 of Western News, September 4, 2008)

“The film includes selections from interviews conducted with 25 faculty, students, administrators and support services staff at Western, as well as focus group sessions.”

Adult Learning in Aboriginal Community-based Inner-city Organizations

Dr. Jason Brown of the Faculty of Education, UWO, is the lead author of a report featured on the Canadian Council on Learning web site.

“The study was a participatory research project on the nature and experience of informal adult learning within community-based inner-city human service organizations from the perspectives of Aboriginal volunteers and staff members who are residents of the local community.”