Teachers of students with disabilities require a vast set of knowledge and skills for effective practice. While preparation programs provide a broad array of content and experiences through course work and guided practice, the wide scope of knowledge and skills required for beginning teachers, in conjunction with increased accessibility to online…

Recent research into critical pedagogy supports the implementation of performance-based practices into the classroom. This qualitative research explored the pragmatic ways in which youth, ages 8-17, are taught in Canada's, specifically Ontario's, education system on topics of difference and power. Through semi-structured interviews, four…

Biodiversity education is widely considered a necessary component of protecting global biodiversity by helping to change harmful attitudes and actions. BioBlitz events, rapid surveys of all living things in a defined area over a set period, are becoming a widely used practice for biodiversity education. The aim of this study was to evaluate the…

As environmental and sustainability issues are becoming embedded in the school curriculum, there is a need to understand how environmental identity develops within the complex social structure of the classroom. Reflection is a potentially valuable classroom process to consider as it intersects student learning, identity work, and agency. This…

Students with learning disabilities and other high-incidence hidden exceptionalities (HIHE) can struggle with secondary difficulties including low confidence in their abilities (e.g., Klassen, 2010) along with primary difficulties related to their exceptionality. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of the perspective of…

Restorative justice pedagogies, such as dialogue or peacemaking circles, allow students to learn how to share and listen with peers, set boundaries for moral dialogue, and engage constructively with each other's perspectives. This study is part of a larger project focused on teachers' professional development and circle implementation. The focus…

The aim of this paper is to address the teaching and learning processes in schools from a Vygotskian perspective based on the notion of "identity artefacts" (IAs) which, for our purposes, consist of documents created by the learners about themselves, in which they try to capture all the things that make sense and are meaningful to them…

In the winter term of 2016, Cape Breton University launched a revised version of a second year Mi'kmaw Studies course entitled Learning from the Knowledge Keepers of Mi'kmaki (MIKM 2701). This course was designed to be led by local Elders and Knowledge Keepers with facilitation support from university faculty. It was designed by course…

The impact of trauma on learning in post-secondary institutions is largely ignored. However, recent studies on how Aboriginal people experience mental health issues are bringing attention to Aboriginal students' experiences of intergenerational trauma (IGT). IGT occurs when the maladaptive effects of an original trauma experience, such as historic…

Schools with dramatically increased immigrant and refugee student populations need a systematic approach and inclusive process to ensure newcomer students, who differ in their backgrounds, languages, identities, frames of reference, prior educational experiences, abilities, interests, and belief systems, have equal opportunities and resources to…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore issues of race and culture in health education in the secondary school health and physical education (HPE) curriculum in Ontario, Canada. Design/methodology/approach: Using Ontario's secondary school curriculum as a point of analysis, this paper draws from critical race theory and a whiteness lens…

The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine whether incorporating vocabulary instruction in individual reading fluency interventions for English Language Learners (ELLs) would improve reading comprehension. Two vocabulary instructional procedures were contrasted with a fluency-building only condition in an alternating-treatments design…

Over the years that I have taken secondary school students to the theatre, the the digital revolution has moved through schools, classrooms, and even theatres, calling into question my goal of contributing positively to students' identity formation through exposure to live plays. Responding to calls to examine the ways in which young people's…

This paper explores the social construction of knowledge, identity formation, and the ways in which the education system supports dominant societal ideology. I examine how dominant historical and societal ideologies are deeply cultivated and facilitated through education systems, including forcefully through the residential school system and, in…

In recent decades, educators have been seeking ways to improve outcomes for Indigenous students. Yet most Indigenous education at the K-12 level still takes place within a theoretical framework based in Eurocentric thought. "In Teaching Each Other," Linda Goulet and Keith Goulet provide an alternative framework for teachers working with…