Author: Editor Ed News

New theory for the teaching and learning of mathematics | New release

Dr. Gale Russell is the author of a new book released in summer entitled Transreform Radical Humanism: A Mathematics and Teaching Philosophy (Sense Publishers).

The book is based upon Gale’s doctoral dissertation in which a methodological collage of auto/ethnography, Gadamerian hermeneutics, and grounded theory was used to analyze a diverse collection of data related to mathematics and the teaching and learning of mathematics. Data consider in the book includes the author’s evolving relationship with mathematics; the philosophies of mathematics; the “math wars”; the achievement gap for Indigenous students in mathematics; some of the lessons learned from ethnomathematics; and risk education (as an emerging topic within mathematics curricula).

Foundational to this analysis is a new theoretical framework proposed and implemented by Gale that encompasses an Indigenous worldview and the Traditional Western worldview, acting as a pair of voices (and lenses) that speak to the points of tension, conflict, and possibility found throughout the data. The analysis of the data sets results in the emergence of a new theory, the “Transreform Approach” to the teaching and learning of mathematics, as well as the transreform radical humanistic philosophy of mathematics and teaching.

Within the book mathematics, the teaching and learning of mathematics, hegemony, and the valuing of different kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing collide, sometimes merge, and most frequently become transformed in ways that hold promise for students, teachers, society, and even mathematics itself. Throughout, the incommensurability of the two worldviews is challenged, and new possibilities emerge. It is hoped that readers will not just read this work, but engage with it, exploring the kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing that they value within mathematics and the teaching and learning of mathematics and why.

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Listening Lab Loft Event

The 4th Loft Event of the Listening Lab!

October 8, 7 PM – Whenever
#302 – 1255 Broad St

Paul Henrik Borup-Jørgensen – Poetry Reader
Natasha Urkow and Traci Foster – Poetry Reader
Scott Anthony – Singer/Songwriter
Kelly Jo Burke – Playwright/Performer
Terry Sefton – Cellist
Kathryn Ricketts – Dancer
Gale Russell – Pipes
Paxton Ricketts and Madoka Kariya – Exhibition

Bring a beverage – Snacks are provided

Please RSVP to rickettk@uregina.ca as space is limited

The stories of Windsor through carto elicitation exhibit

The stories of Windsor through carto elicitation exhibit

Terry Sefton and Kathryn Ricketts

October 21, 2017 – January 28, 2018

The Art Gallery of Windsor

Downtown/s: Urban Renewal Today for Tomorrow, The 2017 Art Gallery of Windsor Triennial of Contemporary Art

This project investigates experimental spaces with dance/music/story/place.

Terry Sefton from Windsor (cellist) and Kathryn Ricketts from Regina (dancer) have been experimenting through residencies in the Listening Lab at the University of Regina with a term we are calling “carto-elicitation.”

We propose these stories are underpinned by specificity of place and plan to extend the artefact provocation of Anthropology of the Discard with cartographic elicitations to test if this is true.

We will request that the participants of this exhibition target a place that holds a potent memory, perhaps the first time or the last time something happened. Maps are provided in the gallery space where brief poetics are combined with cartographic identifiers. This is combined with an online mapping which captures the mapped and verbal stories and this collective map is projected with sound files of the stories running throughout the visiting hours of the exhibition. This virtual addition to the exhibition will be facilitated by an app that can be easily accessed on or off site.

Finally, Kathryn and Terry will perform the Windsor Stories live with live cello and dance/theatre improvisations based on the improvisations systems they have defined throughout their residencies together. This work together will be an unfolding narrative of the stories that linger in the place of Windsor.

This work is part of an upcoming exhibition at the Windsor Art Gallery titled Downtown/s Urban Renewal: Today for Tomorrow, the 2017Art Gallery of Windsor’s Triennial of Contemporary Art.

The exhibit runs form October 21, 2017 – January 28, 2018 and will accumulate public stories of Windsor through video and performances over this period.

For more information please contact
Kathryn Ricketts at 604-788-4022 or rickettk@uregina.ca

Bios:

Terry Sefton began playing professionally with the Regina Symphony while still in her teens, and worked with the BBC Welsh Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, and Orchestra London Canada for over 30 years. She has performed as a chamber musician in Canada, the US, Britain, and France. Over many years, she has worked with contemporary composers, developing and performing new works, at a number of new music venues including Concerts de Musique Contemporaine in Montreal, the Music Gallery in Toronto, and Aeolian Hall and Museum London in London, Ontario, and the Listening Lab in Regina, Saskatchewan. Terry most recently commissioned new works by composers Martin Kutnowski (St. Thomas University, 2016) and Bentley Jarvis (Ontario College of Art and Design University, 2015), and developed improvised performances of carto-elicitation with Kathryn Ricketts (University of Regina, 2016; University of Windsor, 2017). Terry Sefton holds a Bachelor of Music in Performance from McGill University, a Master of Education from University of Western Ontario, and a PhD from University of Toronto. Dr. Sefton is Associate Professor at the University of Windsor.

Kathryn Ricketts has been working for the past 35 years in the field of movement, theatre and visual arts, presenting throughout Europe, South America, Africa and Canada. Her work in schools, galleries and community centers focuses on social /political issues with movement, theatre, creative writing and visual art as the languages. Her Doctoral research furthered this into areas of literacy, embodiment and cultural studies with a method she has coined Embodied Poetic Narrative.  She is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education in the University of Regina as the chair of the Dance area. She runs The Listening Lab, a visual and performing arts ‘incubator’ and presents exhibitions and performances in her loft in the John Deere Tractor Building.

Read description of project

President’s Distinguished Graduate Student Award Recipient

President Vianne Timmons and Sylvia Smith at fall 2017 convocation. Photo credit: U of R Photography

Sylvia Smith, Founder of Project of Heart, received the President’s Distinguished Graduate Student Award at the fall 2017 convocation. This award recognizes outstanding academic performance and is granted to a student whose graduating thesis, exhibition, or performance and the corresponding defense was deemed meritorious by the examining committee.

In an earlier issue of Education News, Sylvia discussed the obstacles she had faced that had delayed the completion of her Master’s degree. She had started her degree in 2011 and was interested in finding out about teachers’ perceptions of Project of Heart, an inquiry-based learning project that examines the history and legacy of Indian residential schools in Canada and commemorates the lives of former students who died while attending Indian residential schools. The project had grown out of students’ demands for more information on this neglected aspect of Canadian history. Sylvia had finished interviewing her participants when, she says, “we had an illness in the family and I became very over-stressed. My work suffered.” Sylvia had to put her thesis work on hold, and by the time she came back to it, Sylvia said, “the landscape had changed so much. When I’d started, materials on Indian residential schools were almost nil…And Project of Heart had grown exponentially!” Her initial vision which was to be a “snapshot in time” had become much more, and she had to face the challenge of figuring out how it would all come together.

Not only did she work through these challenges, Sylvia was the recipient of this prestigious award.

Sylvia says it feels great to be finished. “I can’t believe it’s actually finished. I’ve never really thought of myself as an academic and certainly, with ‘life’ intruding the way it tends to, I never thought I would finish the darned thing. I’m just so lucky to have had a wonderfully supportive spouse and thesis committee (Dr. Carol Schick actually came out of retirement to help out) because they certainly didn’t have to do what they did.”

What excites her about her thesis, Sylvia says, “is that my findings have already been referenced to support work being done around reconciliation and the necessity of teaching *for* justice and more practically, *doing* it.”

Sylvia’s master’s thesis is called: Teachers’ Perceptions of Project of Heart, An Indian Residential School Education Project

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to gain insight into how settler teachers took up an arts and activist-based Indian Residential School Commemoration Project called Project of Heart. More specifically, it sought to assess whether or not the research participants were led to transformation, demonstrated through disrupting “common sense” (racist) behaviours of teachers and students as well as through their engagement in social justice work that Project of Heart espouses.

Since 2007, Ontario school boards have been required by Ministry policy to teach the “Aboriginal Perspective” in their high school courses, yet at the time of the study (2010), there were still very few resources available for educators to do so. There were even fewer resources available to teach about the Indian Residential School era. Project of Heart was created by an Ontario teacher and her students in 2007 in order to address this egregious situation.

The study was guided by grounded theory methods and the findings suggest that while Project of Heart did not achieve “transformation” in its participants as assessed through teachers’ lack of completion of the social justice requirement, teachers indicated that both students and teachers benefited greatly because of the relevance of the learning.

Defended: April 2017

Thesis Committee

Supervisor: Dr. Marc Spooner
External Examiner:
Dr. Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and professor for the School of Social Work at McGill University
Thesis committee members:
Dr. Ken Montgomery, University of Windsor, Dean, Faculty of Education and Dr. Carol Schick, former Canada Research Chair in Social Justice and Aboriginal Education

Read more about Sylvia and the Project of Heart here: https://www2.uregina.ca/education/news/disrupted-studies-a-teacher-researcher-success-story/

 

Pre-interns participate in treaty education

270 pre-interns, 10 OTC facilitators, 10 Elders, and 10 faculty and staff. Photo courtesy of Julie Machnaik

Before third-year pre-interns go into schools for their 3-week field experiences, they participate in extensive professional development. Treaty education is a significant part of their learning experience.

This fall (September 13),  three bus loads of pre-interns went to the Treaty 4 Gathering at Fort Qu’Appelle, and while there, experienced the Kairos Blanket Exercise along with Treaty 4 cultural activities.

Pre-interns at Treaty 4 Gathering. Photo courtesy of Julie Machnaik

Ten facilitators from the Office of Treaty Commissioners, 10 elders, and 10 faculty and staff worked with 270 pre-interns on September 23 and 24 at the University of Regina. Students were given opportunities to interact with Elders and received instruction on treaties and treaty education.

Pre-Intern Treaty Ed 2017

Place cursor over the photo above to scroll through photo gallery. (Photos courtesy of Instructor Julie Machnaik)

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