Tag: Faculty of Education

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Carousel activity connects students with community mental health and wellness experts

Students in Sultan Rana’s “Teaching Physical Education and Health” course participated in a carousel activity with industry experts to learn about community mental health and wellness resources available to schools and students. The activity was another example of experiential education and hands-on learning in York University’s Faculty of Education.

Representatives from six community organizations, including Toronto Public Health, Hassle Free Clinic, The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Naseeha, Ontario Physical and Heath Education Association (OPHEA) and the John Howard Society of York Region, were on hand to answer questions and to provide valuable insight into the resources and services that they offer.

“The main objective of the activity was to connect our soon-to-be educators with health and wellness experts from organizations across the Greater Toronto Area,” Rana said. “It provided my students with an opportunity to see that health and wellness supports exist outside of schools and should be integrated into their teaching practice. It also gave them a chance to get a first-hand account of the many resources and services that are available to them.”

Students visited each organization’s carousel for 15 minutes to learn about the support services they offer and to discuss how to build positive relationships between schools and organizations.

“We provide teachers with essential tools, resources, supports and professional learning necessary to teach students the fundamentals of healthy, active living,” said Andrea Haefele from OPHEA. “All of our supports are developed in partnership with sector and subject matter leaders to make school communities healthier, safer and happier. It’s important for us to present and share the information with teacher candidates because we need to ensure that they are aware and equipped with reliable, relevant, evidence and practice-informed resources and supports to enable them to deliver quality health and physical education programs, along with extra-curricular programs.”

Students’ overall health and wellness affects everything from their academic performance to success later in life. Promoting positive mental health, identifying students at risk, and helping them to get the support they need are all roles that teachers and the education system can play.

“In this Q-and-A style discussion and activity, I had the opportunity to learn from and develop great partnerships with various organizations including CAMH, OPHEA and Toronto Public Health to name a few,” said student Simmy Kaur. “The guest speakers were eager to provide multiple platforms for support such as programs, drop-in sessions and help lines. This hands-on activity has inspired me to facilitate my own carousel in my future teaching practice in order to inform my students of the rich resources available to them in their local community.”

Exploring anti-Blackness, Islam and Islamophobia at CFR series

York University’s Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) will host a lecture and workshop focused on the intersections between Islamophobia, race and anti-blackness as part of their Spotlight on Islamophobia series. The event, titled “Anti-Blackness, Islam and Islamophobia,” examines the complex histories and expressions of Islam in Africa and Muslims of African origin. The free three-hour event will take place on March 9 beginning at 11:30 a.m. in Room 305 Founder’s College Building at the Keele Campus.

The event will include a presentation titled “Islamophobia and Blackness: the view from Sub-Saharan Africa” from York University Associate Professor Zulfikar Hirji, and discussions with panelists including Hannah Ali, Fatimah Jackson-Best and Yusra Khogali.

Zulfikar Hirji
Zulfikar Hirji

Zulfikar Hirji is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at York, specializing in the social and cultural expressions of Muslims in historical and contemporary contexts. He was born in Kenya and lived in Uganda until 1972 when he immigrated to Canada. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in and related to the East African Coast for the past 20 years, focusing on knowledge production, identity formation and material culture. His most recent publication is an edited volume entitled Approaches to the Qur’an in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Hannah Ali is a graduate student in York’s Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies program, and a second-generation Somali born and raised in British Columbia, respectively known as the unceeded Musqueam territories. After completing her bachelor’s degree at University of British Columbia in psychology and social justice, she moved to Toronto to start her master’s at York. Ali’s theoretical interests are interconnecting psychoanalysis, psychoanalytical feminism, anthropology, decolonized psychiatry and Somali Canadian studies. She has also studied Malcolm X and the complexities of his legacy within Muslim communities.

Fatimah Jackson-Best
Fatimah Jackson-Best

Fatimah Jackson-Best is a public health researcher with a specialization in mental health whose work focuses on communities in Canada and the Caribbean. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Currently, Jackson-Best is a lecturer at York in the Department of Anthropology, and the project manager of Pathways to Care where she is designing an intervention to improve access to mental health and addictions services for Black children, youth and their families in Ontario.

Yusra Khogali is a daughter of a Sudanese diaspora from Regent Park, Toronto. She is a black feminist multi-disciplinary educator, writer, performance artist, activist, public intellectual, emcee and grassroots community organizer. She co-founded the Black Lives Matter Toronto movement that has shifted the current political landscape of Canada by actively working to dismantle all forms of anti-Black racism. Khogali also co-founded the Black Liberation Collective Canada, a Black student movement which works to create infrastructure for Black students around the globe to build power, using an intersectional lens, to eliminate anti-Blackness on campus. She completed her master of arts degree in social justice education at the University of Toronto Ontario Institute for Studies in Education with a research focus on Black diaspora, Black African, anti-colonial, Trans*feminist Liberation thought.

Islamophobia has become disturbingly prevalent in Canada, United States and Europe, and indeed has become a worldwide phenomenon. Often defined as a set of ideologies, discourses and practices that structures fear, hostility and rejection towards Muslims in Canada, substantial scholarship has illustrated that Muslim subjects face harassment, discrimination, and at times, violence, in their daily lives, in schools, in housing, in applying for jobs and in the workplaces. Particularly since 9/11, Islamophobia has become a subject of considerable scrutiny and interest. In an attempt to further understand one of the most entrenched form of racism, the CFR Spotlight on Islamophobia series focuses on key aspects of the social forces that shape and reinforce contemporary practices of Islamophobia.

This event is sponsored by York University’s Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and Its Diasporas and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora. Previous events in this series have included an event exploring sexuality and Islamophobia and a talk on Islamophobia and the francophone context. A calendar of upcoming CFR events can be found on the Centre for Feminist Research website.

Those interested in attending the event are asked to RSVP by email.

Award-winning author and York alumna to discuss ‘The Poetry of Picturebooks’

Those who love children’s literature, picture books and the way beautiful language breathes will want to mark Feb. 26 on their calendars. From 3 to 5 p.m., award-winning author and York alumna Kyo Maclear will be at the Keele Campus to present a session titled “The Poetry of Picturebooks.”

Kyo Maclear

Maclear is a scholar, essayist, novelist and children’s author. A few of her well-known and well-loved books are Bloom (2018), Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation (2017), The Liszts (2016), The Wish Tree (2016), Virginia Wolf (2012) and Spork (2010).

Maclear’s books have been translated in 15 language, illustrated by artists such as Isabelle Arsenault, and are published in more than 20 countries. They have attracted nominations for several awards, including the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Trillium Book Award, the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the National Magazine Awards, among others.

In 2018, she won the prestigious Trillium Book Award in the English-language prose category for her non-fiction memoir Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation.

Maclear holds a doctorate in education (language culture and teaching) from York University. She is a faculty member of The Humber School for Writers and an associate faculty member of the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA program. She has presented at universities, schools and festivals around the world.

The event takes place in room 050A McLaughlin College, York University.

Fast food worries: Lecture explores digital food delivery platforms and workers

Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash
Julie Yujie Chen

What do the use of surveillance technologies, the operation of platforms as a business model and food delivery workers on digital platforms have in common?

On Feb. 25, from 4 to 5:30 p.m., in room 519 Kaneff Tower, Julie Yujie Chen, an assistant professor in the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and the Faculty of Information at the University Toronto, will give a talk addressing this question. Chen will explore how the use of surveillance technologies, the operation of platforms as a business model and a shift in cultural expectations for on-demand service provision has transformed food delivery workers on digital platforms into a “just-in-time” labour force.

Chen will frame her remarks based on an ethnographic study of food delivery workers in China. Chen will explore the multiple aspects of how couriers experience and live their time as they struggle to meet exacting delivery times that are imposed and monitored by platforms through tracking technologies.

Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash
Chen’s lecture will focus on food delivery workers and the digital platforms that command their time

Chen’s talk is presented by the Institute for Research on Digital Learning. She studies how culture, digital technologies and established economic structures shape the experience and perception of work. She is the lead author of Super-sticky WeChat and Chinese Society (Emerald Points, 2018). Her previous work has published in the New Media & Society, the Chinese Journal of Communication and TripleC.

More about the Institute for Research on Digital Learning

The Institute for Research on Digital Learning (IRDL) has a broad mandate to engage in systematic inquiry, discussion, and information sharing related to the uses of technology in teaching and learning by encouraging the formation of links with faculty members across the university and with schools, government, and industry to provide collaborative, multidisciplinary approaches to research problems and issues.

Originally established in 1987 within the Faculty of Education as the Centre for the Study of Computers in Education, the Institute became a university-based research unit in June 2001 and was re-named The Institute for Research on Learning Technologies (IRLT). Ron Owston directed the Institute for 25 years.

In 2013 Jennifer Jenson, Professor of Pedagogy and Technology in the Faculty of Education at York University took over as Director of IRLT. The name was officially changed to IRDL in 2014.

In 2019 Natalie H. Coulter replaced Jen as the Acting Director of IRDL.

Faculty of Education Black History Month event features gospel music, R&B, jazz and more

Gospel music is so ingrained in pop culture today that gospel choirs are everywhere from the Superbowl and Grammys to detergent and car commercials, says Karen Burke, one of Canada’s leading authorities on gospel music’s history and performance practices.

Karen Burke
Karen Burke

Burke, an associate professor in York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, will be among several gospel, spoken word, jazz and R&B performances at the Faculty of Education’s Black History Month event. The event, Word, Sound, Power: Black Artistic Expression, will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 12, with a performance from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in the Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, Keele Campus.

The York University Gospel Choir will present a variety of traditional and inspiring gospel classics under the direction of Burke. Spoken word artists, Griots to Emcees, will deliver a selection of slam poetry and spoken word performances. The R&B Ensemble, featuring York University music students under the direction of York jazz music instructor Mike Cadó, will offer a variety of R&B favourites.

With musicians from pop star Justin Bieber to rapper Kanye West belting out gospel music, the origins of gospel music easily could be forgotten. Gospel music began as spiritual songs, sung by enslaved African Black people in the U.S. The songs were peppered with concealed messages of survival and plans to escape from the slave owners.

The York University Gospel Music Choir

“Gospel music is an important tool to understand the depth of Black history, and the gospel music community in Canada today is a big vibrant and diverse community,” says Burke, who is organizing musical performances and directing the York University Gospel Choir at the event.

A singer, choral director and composer, Burke started Canada’s first university gospel music course at York in 2005.

“Gospel choirs are used all the time to emphasize important events, like at the Grammys or the Oscars or Meghan Markle’s wedding,” says Burke. “The hydraulic lift goes up and there’s the gospel choir hoisted in the air and the energy is electric.”

The event is hosted by the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora, currently held by Professor Carl James.

Of the event’s theme, James says gospel music is quite culturally relevant to Black history, adding that “gospel music was central to the colonial project and hence a part of life for enslaved African Black people in the West. But while the music is rooted in Christian spirituality, it’s important to remember that Black people are not all Christians, so we will all have a different relationship to the music.”

York University community members interested in attending the performance are required to RSVP as space is limited.

PhD candidate awarded prestigious scholarship for gerontology research

Image announcing Awards

Faculty of Education PhD candidate Lois Kamenitz has been awarded the Schlegel-University of Waterloo Research Institute for Aging Scholarship by the Canadian Association on Gerontology. The award recognizes academic success and community involvement with older adults and supports doctoral students whose programs of study relate to gerontology.

Lois Kamenitz (right) receiving her scholarship award

Kamenitz has more than 35 years of experience in education. After a long career as an educator and counsellor at various levels, including elementary, secondary and post-secondary, Kamenitz obtained a master’s degree in library and information studies at Dalhousie University and continued to work in a volunteer capacity as a key enabler of consumer health education.

In addition to a long career dedicated to education, health and wellness, as well as volunteer service with older adults, Kamenitz’s interest in gerontology dates back to her childhood. Kamenitz was raised by her grandparents and grew up an only child in a multi-generational household. “I was surrounded by older people whose company I always enjoyed,” she said.

As a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at York University, her research focuses on the reasons why later-life women (women over 55) return to graduate school to pursue a PhD. Her study examines the socio-cultural, economic and aging factors that pull older women back into university and how these experiences shape their accomplishments, sense of self, personal identities and life goals. Kamenitz has sampled this growing population in order to contribute to an expanding literature on gender, education and aging.

Kamenitz herself started her doctoral studies at age 70.

“I am in a unique position as I interview women in their late 50s, 60s and 70s who have embarked on their own doctoral journey,” she said.

While adding to the body of literature on older women doctoral students, Kamenitz’s research also has the potential to contribute to a shift in the conversation about age and ageing.

“My research also has implications for younger doctoral students, and it has the potential to lead to further studies, all with a view to transforming societal structures and relationships.”

The Schlegel-University of Waterloo RIA Scholarship permits Kamenitz to focus on her research by assisting with travel costs to conduct interviews, transcribe the interviews and analyse data. The scholarship acknowledges the value of her research and its potential to bring about change in the field of gerontology.

“Traditional stereotypes of old age are challenged by the post-war ‘baby boom’ generation. Now, there is an emphasis by ‘boomers’ on enhancing mental capital and promoting well-being in later life through a range of learning opportunities, including a return to higher education deferred over the life course by many, but especially by women,” she said.

Kamenitz’s research is key to shaping a response to this demographic change.

York launches a virtual assistant for undergraduate students

Student Virtual Assistant
Student Virtual Assistant

The following is a message to the York University community from Lisa Philipps, provost and vice-president academic, and Carol McAulay, vice-president finance and administration:

We are thrilled to announce that York has launched a virtual assistant as part of its commitment to enhancing student experience and developing a more student-centred approach.

What is it? The virtual assistant is an online tool accessed through Moodle (eClass for Glendon). It enables students to receive immediate answers to many of the most commonly asked questions related to campus services, course and program changes and extra-curricular activities. Students can pose questions in their own words and receive information that is tailored to their Faculty and program.

More than 100 students were involved in developing the new tool – a 24/7 virtual assistant that will be rolled out in stages. By March 2020, it will be available to undergraduate students in eight Faculties (School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design, Education, Environmental Studies, Glendon, Health, Lassonde School of Engineering, Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Science). Plans are being made to incorporate students in the Schulich School of Business and Osgoode Hall Law School.

The virtual assistant will provide students with uninterrupted advising support that complements in-person advice by our staff. It will allow students to connect with a range of readily available information and resources, often specific to their studies, whenever they need it. It will also direct students to the right on-campus, in-person services for more sensitive or complex matters.

Some topics covered by the virtual assistant include:

  • academic advising referrals,
  • Registrarial & financial services,
  • campus life & events,
  • career advising information, and
  • mental health & well-being resources.

What’s next?

The virtual assistant is being launched Jan. 28 to students in AMPD, Glendon and Lassonde. Students in those Faculties will receive an email inviting them to log into the virtual assistant via Moodle (eClass for Glendon students). Detailed instructions and FAQs will help students become familiar with this new tool and a feedback form will allow students to engage with us. A contest to name the virtual assistant will also be launched, giving students an opportunity to be part of this exciting program and develop a sense of pride and ownership.

Student interaction with the virtual assistant is key to helping the tool continually evolve. The more questions students ask, the more the data is refined to deliver the best possible answers on a growing range of topics. Content experts and program staff will ensure that the virtual assistant provides increasingly detailed responses as time progresses.

York is proud to collaborate with IBM, an industry leader, to connect our students to the right people, resources and support to help them meet their goals.

Learn more about the virtual assistant and other transformational projects underway at the University on the Transformation York website. If you would like to see how the tool works, click here for a demonstration.

Look for another email close to the launch of the five other undergraduate Faculties in March.

McLaughlin College celebrates Day of Education with panel presentation

The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed Jan. 24 as International Day of Education in celebration of the role of education for peace and development. Without inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong opportunities for all, countries will not succeed in achieving gender equality and breaking the cycle of poverty that is leaving millions of children, youth and adults behind.

The 2020 celebration will position education and the learning it enables as humanity’s greatest renewable resource and reaffirm the role of education as a fundamental right and a public good. It will celebrate the many ways learning can empower people, preserve the planet, build shared prosperity and foster peace.

To recognize this, McLaughlin College will present a special panel presentation as part of its Lunch Talk Series, on Jan. 22 from 12 to 2 p.m. in the Senior Common Room, 140 McLaughlin College.

James C. Simeon, head of McLaughlin College and associate professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA), Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, will moderate the event. He is a member-at-large of the Executive of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS) and a past-president of CARFMS.

Panelists will include:

Don Dippo, a professor in the Faculty of Education at York University. Together with Professor Wenona Giles, he co-directs the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project, an initiative designed to bring post-secondary education opportunities to people living in the Dadaab refugee camps in northeastern Kenya.

His talk is titled “Learning with and from people living in displacement: The promise of borderless higher education.”

Kate Tilleczek, a professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Youth, Education & Global Good in the Faculty of Education. She is the founder and director of the Young Lives Research Laboratory which employs transdisciplinary approaches to collaborative, international research about how young people and their communities navigate the digital age and Anthropocene.

Her talk is titled “Towards International Education as Wellbeing with/by Youth.”

Gillian Parekh, an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in the Faculty of Education. With a doctorate in critical disability studies, Parekh has conducted extensive research with the Toronto District School Board in the areas of structural equity, special education, and academic streaming.

Her talk is titled “Getting in, getting through: Exploring access, participation and graduation from York University.”

All are welcome to attend.

The event is co-sponsored by the Office of the College Head, McLaughlin College, Centre of Public Policy and Law, Centre for Refugee Studies and the Department of Sociology.

Faculty of Education Students’ Association welcomes visitors from Wikondiek School in Kenya

The Honourable Phoebe Asiyo and Atieno Asiyo (centre) with representatives of the FESA executive, York International and the Faculty of Education.

The Faculty of Education Students’ Association (FESA) recently welcomed former parliamentarian of Kenya, and former ambassador to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Phoebe Asiyo and her daughter, Atieno, from the Wikondiek School in Kenya to speak at their council meeting.

The meeting provided an opportunity for the Asiyos to share information about the progress of the small school in Western Kenya that FESA has supported through fundraising activities over the past five years, including conferences, workshops and an annual job fair for education students.

During her remarks, Phoebe Asiyo spoke about the partnership that the Wikondiek school has developed with FESA and the University through the York International Internship Program (YIIP).

Phoebe Asiyo and Atieno Asiyo (centre) with representatives of the FESA executive, York International and the Faculty of Education

“The partnership with FESA and with York University has benefited Wikondiek and its residents immensely,” she said. “Some of the impactful changes that have occurred as a result of the fundraising efforts of FESA include: the construction of roads to make the village more accessible; the building of the school and other facilities so that students can continue their studies despite the weather conditions; and the creation of a First Aid Club started to help develop residents’ life-saving skills – this is particularly impactful due to Wikondiek’s rural setting and clinics/hospitals not being as accessible.”

Through YIIP, the Wikondiek School has hosted a number of York students as interns during the summer months. The experiences were beneficial for not only the students, but also provided key learning opportunities for those at the school, said Atieno Asiyo.

“Mobilizing knowledge and learning from each other, all while understanding the importance of education and its impact on people as global citizens, locally and abroad, is key,” said FESA President Kim Tran. “As future educators (within the classroom or not), we believe that education should be accessible for everyone.”

In 2003, York University awarded an honorary doctorate to Phoebe Asiyo in recognition of her impressive human rights work. That work continues today through her ongoing support and work with the Wikondiek School.

To learn more about internship opportunities at the Wikondiek School, visit the YIIP website.

‘Thinking Mathematically’ teaches education students to make math accessible

lecture classroom teaching teacher

Students in Faculty of Education Course Director Heather Bourrie’s Thinking Mathematically course recently took part in an experiential education activity to co-plan and teach a mathematics lesson for their peers. The exercise provided students with hands-on experience facilitating mathematical thinking and also helped them use “student solutions,” which involves being responsive to student thinking in the moment.

The goal of the lesson was to support the students in learning how to anticipate elementary students’ solution strategies within the framework of “5 Practices” when conducting a math lesson.

The “5 Practices” are a framework developed by mathematics educators Mary Kay Stein and Margaret Schwan Smith as a guideline of how teachers can orchestrate mathematical discussions through problem solving, including:

  • Anticipating: For their planned mathematical problem, teachers anticipate possible student responses by using a variety of strategies. This allows the teacher to interpret a solution that was not anticipated.
  • Monitoring: The teacher identifies student strategies by visiting groups and begins documenting student solutions. The teacher may prompt student thinking and encourage students to go deeper.
  • Selecting: The teacher determines which solutions will be highlighted in the discussion. The selecting is driven by the goals and objectives of the lesson.
  • Sequencing: The teacher determines a specific sequence of presentation that makes pedagogical sense and will highlight student solutions in the order chosen during this phase. The order sets up the solutions to be connected in various ways in the next stage.
  • Connecting: The teacher makes connections in the approaches or solutions students have used through questioning. Often other students are asked to explain their understanding of another student’s work. The student work is used to meet the goal of the lesson. The role of the teacher in this phase is to help the students make mathematical connections.

This task not only offers teacher candidates the opportunity to practice their skills in guiding a “consolidation” to a lesson by using student solutions as the basis of the instruction but also challenges the traditional ways of thinking about mathematics. The course encourages a shift from binary thinking which imposes math is either right or wrong, to the idea that mathematics is thinking.

“Whether a students’ solution is ‘right or wrong’ (in a traditional sense) still tell us ‘thinking’ is occurring. So, we need to focus on thinking and moving that thinking forward, rather than focusing on labeling math ‘right or wrong’ which in effect, shuts down thinking and learning,” said Bourrie.

Bourrie also highlighted the importance of making mathematics accessible for every student and hopes that the teacher candidates can bring these experiences into their classroom and encourage their own students to think of mathematics in a different way.