Yesterday I (Gisela Wajskop) shared with Monica McGlynn-Stewart an important moment 
in her professional and personal life as well as in the lives of her students at George Brown College (Toronto, Ontario). I attended the Second Annual Bachelor of Early Childhood Leadership Research Symposium organized jointly with Fanshawe College (London, Ontario) and Sheridan College (Oakville, Ontario). The event celebrated the innovative early childhood education (ECE) program. This four-year program prepares students to be educators and to become leaders in curriculum and pedagogy development for Ontario’s early childhood settings. These include: childcare centers, nursery schools, family drop-in programs (including Ontario Early Years Centres, family resource centers and parenting programs), family support programs, and early intervention services.
I was quite excited by the students’ serious and enthusiastic research presentations that were based on their practice/placements in schools and community centres. The program believes the field of ECE requires critical thinkers and practitioners who have vision, a professional demeanour, and in-depth knowledge. The ECE program wants to prepare future leaders and educators; they hope to empower students by using a variety of pedagogical strategies (e.g., research on practice). Overall they aim to raise expectations for their students; the new standards for the profession raise the accountability bar.
Attending the Symposium reminded me of my Brazilian students and the practices we developed together the last 12 years. As a teacher educator I was committed to empowering my students to have a critical voice in the field just as those three Colleges aim to do.
Participating in this very special event reminded me that we are entering Passover: I am grateful to Monica who opened her door to me … and I wish her students all the best. Under her supervision and leadership may they develop and become better people and excellent professionals.
Chag Sameach for all!
Category Archives: Conferences
Teacher Educators, Literacy Educators, and Digital Technology Experts Working Together
I (Clare) am pleased to share some good news. We submitted a proposal to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to fund the project Rethinking Literacy Teacher Education for the Digital Era: Teacher Educators, Literacy Educators, and Digital Technology Experts Working Together. One of the main activities of the project will be bringing together 16 experts from three fields and 4 countries (Canada, US, UK, and Australia) to address the following questions.
- How is our understanding of literacy evolving in light of the new ways we communicate?
- How can literacy/English teacher educators (LTEs) prepare student teachers to develop and implement literacy programs that capitalize on digital technology (DT)?
- What teacher education curriculum changes are required to better prepare future teachers to integrate technology in their own teaching?
- What professional learning support do LTEs need to develop courses that will integrate and make greater use of DT?
As a team we are going to work together to:
- develop a statement on literacy teacher education that offers direction on how to integrate digital technology into teacher education literacy courses;
- extend our website http://www.literacyteaching.net to include video interviews of all the participants discussing their views and current research and their course outlines and supplementary course materials;
- produce an edited book Crossing Boundaries: Literacy/English Teacher Educators Incorporating Digital Technology in Their Courses
Click here to read the summary of the proposal. Final Summary of Proposal
As academics we tend to work in our “silo” which although allows us to specialize it has 
limitations. The symposium will provide an opportunity to work in an inter-disciplinary manner which may help us move forward the field of literacy teacher education. My co-applicants for the proposal are Lin Goodwin (Teachers College), Simone White (Monash University), Bethan Marshall (King’s College UK), Jean Murray (University of East London), and Clive Beck (University of Toronto). I will continue to provide updates on our work.
AERA
To All of Our Blog Followers,
Our team will be at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) for the next few days. So we will not be doing daily posts. If you are attending AERA please stop by one of our sessions and say hello. We will be back to our regularly posting next week.
Clare Kosnik, Clive Beck, Pooja Dharamshi, Cathy Miyata, Lydia Menna, and Yiola Cleovoulou
Presentations
On Saturday a number of us from our research teams presented at the Ontario Teachers’ Federation/Ontario Association of Deans of Education conference. We did two papers:
· Teaching Student teachers How to Teach for Relevance, Integrating Curriculum around Big Ideas and Key Values
Clive Beck, Clare Kosnik, Shelley Murphy, and Elizabeth Rosales
· On-going Learning for Literacy/English Teacher Educators: Examining Four Spheres of Knowledge
Clare Kosnik, Pooja Dharamshi, Cathy Miyata, Lydia Menna, and Yiola Cleovoulou
Click on the link Publications and Presentations to see our powerpoint presentations. (Clare’s ppt can be found under Clare’s presentations; Clive’s ppt can be found under Clive’s presentations.)
Family Literacy Day
Today is Family Literacy Day in Canada. http://abclifeliteracy.ca/fld/family-literacy-day
It is a day that recognizes the importance of families building literacy skills together. Looking back, what did family literacy look like in your household? In what capacity did 
literacy development occur? In my home I (Yiola) taught my parents the language of English and my parents taught me the value of English.
I find Family Literacy Day to be a very well intentioned initiative. The ideas presented in the link on family literacy are interesting. As a Teacher Educator who teaches from a critical perspective I cannot help but ask, how can the concept of family literacy be made accessible for all families? How do we make the concept more inclusive? When thinking about ‘Daily Literacy Activities’ I wonder, what can we add to the list found on the website?
See: http://abclifeliteracy.ca/files/Daily_literacy_activities.pdf
I plan to share this list with my student teachers and ask them for additional activities to include that may draw in a variety of families. I’m thinking of multilingual processes, digital opportunities, oral traditions.
Happy Family Literacy Day!
Yiola
AERA Division K New Faculty Preconference
Attention Division K New Faculty! Only a few spots remaining for the New Faculty Preconference.The deadline for applications is January 31, 2014!
The pre conference starts on Wednesday, April 2 at 4:00. We meet again on Thursday, April 3 from 9:00 – 12:00. This Division K New Faculty Seminar is an exciting opportunity to dialogue, socialize, and share with other new faculty and the facilitators and is designed to:
• Provide support for new teaching and teacher education faculty,
• Engage Division members with each other and with the Division’s activities,
• Examine various methodological approaches to research,
• Create professional networks that will last a lifetime, and
• Make important scholarly connections that create a community of new scholars.
The preconference organizers are established scholars who will discuss ways to thrive in your career. Our division is committed to supporting new faculty! There is a maximum of 25 participants.
To apply for the pre-conference submit a two-page letter of application that includes a description of: (a) applicant’s background; (b) the applicant’s current position and years of service; (c) research interested and methodological approaches to research; and (d) one or two problems of issues in transitioning from being a graduate student to the role of faculty member.
Send your application and questions to Clare Kosnik at ckosnik@oise.utoronto.ca
The Pre-conference Facilitators are:
Renée T. Clift, University of Arizona
Tom Dana, University of Florida
Valerie Kinloch, The Ohio State University
Clare Kosnik, University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Rich Milner, University of Pittsburgh,
Attention AERA Division K New Faculty!
The deadline for Applications for the Division K New Faculty Preconference has been extended to January 31, 2014!
The pre conference starts on Wednesday, April 2 at 4:00. We meet again on Thursday, April 3 from 9:00 – 12:00.
This Division K New Faculty Seminar is an exciting opportunity to dialogue, socialize, and share with other new faculty and the facilitators and is designed to:
• Provide support for new teaching and teacher education faculty,
• Engage Division members with each other and with the Division’s activities,
• Examine various methodological approaches to research,
• Create professional networks that will last a lifetime, and
• Make important scholarly connections that create a community of new scholars.
The preconference organizers are established scholars who will discuss ways to thrive in your career. Our division is committed to supporting new faculty! There is a maximum of 25 participants.
To apply for the pre-conference submit a two-page letter of application that includes a description of: (a) applicant’s background; (b) the applicant’s current position and years of service; (c) research interested and methodological approaches to research; and (d) one or two problems of issues in transitioning from being a graduate student to the role of faculty member.
Send your application and questions to Clare Kosnik at ckosnik@oise.utoronto.ca
The Pre-conference Facilitators are:
Renée T. Clift, University of Arizona
Tom Dana, University of Florida
Valerie Kinloch, The Ohio State University
Clare Kosnik, University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Rich Milner, University of Pittsburgh
Upcoming Conference in Toronto
For those in Ontario you might be interested in the upcoming conference sponsored by the Ontario Deans of Education/Ontario Teaching Federation. This is a low-key conference which addresses issues facing Ontario teacher educators and teachers. I have found it to be interesting because there is lots of opportunities for discussion with fellow faculty. Here is the website for the conference: https://event-wizard.com/2014TeacherEdConf/0/welcome/
Conference will be held at York University. It begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, February 21, 2014, and runs from 8:30 am to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 22, 2014.
Proposals are due December 10th. They also produce an e-book of papers from the conference.
Clare
AERA Here we come
Clare and Clive’s research teams submitted 21 proposals to AERA. Our success rate was outstanding – 16 were accepted! The two research teams will be well represented in Philadelphia.
Literacy Teaching and Teacher Education 