EDCP news

EDCP Head Search

The Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, invites applications for the position of Head, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy. Click here for details.

Congratulations to Dr. Linda Farr Darling

Linda Farr Darling has been appointed to the Eleanor Rix Professorship for Rural Teacher Education. The position was made possible by the Rix family's recent donation of two and a half million dollars to the Faculty of Education. Research and initiatives will focus on better understanding rural resources, strengths and needs, so we can better prepare, recruit and support teachers to work effectively with students in these communities.

All the best Linda!

Welcome from The Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy to all New and Returning Instructors!

During the upcoming Winter 1 and 2 terms, EDCP is offering about 120 undergraduate (teacher education) courses and 19 graduate courses. Teaching the extremely wide variety of these courses-- everything from the arts to technologies-- the Department's superb Graduate Teaching Assistants, Sessionals, Seconded Faculty, and FT Faculty meet the demands and expectations of our outstanding students. To catch up on changes and information, all instructors are reminded to review the Instructor's Handbook (you need to login in order to view the handbook) for 2009-2010.

As a Department, we aim to provide the best teaching and learning environment possible for all-- staff, students, and faculty. Currently, we are in the process of renovating to create healthy, smart classrooms, and spaces for comfortable informal, social interaction. We encourage all instructors to attend to the academic and social life of the Department through our Green Plan and commitments to equity.

Thank you and best of luck this year!

EDCP Interim Head Announcement

Announcement from Dean Tierney:

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,

It gives me great pleasure to announce the Provost's approval for the appointment of Dr. Karen Meyer as the interim department head of EDCP beginning September 1, 2009. Please join with me in thanking as well as providing support and encouragement to Karen in this role.

Rob Tierney

Dean, Faculty of Education

Dr. Dennis Sumara Accepts Position as Dean of Education at the University of Calgary!

Announcement from Dean Tierney:

Dear All,

I find that I am always proud of the accomplishments of our colleagues and excited for them when opportunity comes their way to pursue new possibilities. At the same time, I do have some regret when such an opportunity entails a departure of a colleague from the Faculty. It is with such a mixture of feelings that I am informing you that Dennis Sumara, Head EDCP, has elected to accept the position of Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary. Dennis will begin a five-year term on September 1, 2009. Please join me in warmly congratulating Dennis on his appointment.

Rob Tierney
Dean, Faculty of Education

Message to the EDCP Community from Dennis:

Dear EDCP Faculty and Staff:

As many of you are aware, I will be leaving my position as Head of the Department to assume the Deanship at the University of Calgary, effective September 1st. Although I am looking forward to the challenges associated with this new situation, I am very sorry to leave behind good colleagues and friends here at UBC. I have appreciated and enjoyed working with all of you over the last three years. I am very proud of what we've been able to accomplish together.

I will be on campus for most of July, participating as much as I can in the lively summer institutes and other events we have planned. I hope that I will be able to see many of you during that time. If not, I know that our paths will continue to cross as we meet at conferences and other meetings.

Best wishes,

Dennis Sumara
Professor and Head
Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy

Visiting Scholar Dr. Shirley Steinberg

One of the world's foremost scholars of cultural and media studies, Shirley is teaching CUST 562 (Introduction to Curriculum Theory and Issues) for EDCP this summer. She is Associate Professor at McGill University in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education, where with Joe Kincheloe, she established The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy. Following Joe's tragic passing in December, Shirley has continued as Director of the Project. She is the author and editor of many books and articles in cultural and media studies including Christotainment: Selling Jesus Through Popular Culture (2008), Media Literacy: A Reader (2007), Teen Life in Europe (2005), Contemporary Youth Culture (2005), Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood (2004), and Adolescent Culture, Knowledge, and Gender in Contemporary Film and Music (2004). Welcome back Shirley!!!

Call for Papers

Technological Learning & Thinking: Culture, Design, Sustainability, Human Ingenuity
June 17-21, 2010
Vancouver, British Columbia

International conference sponsored by The University or British Columbia and The University of Western Ontario, Faculties of Education, in conjunction with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.

The conference organizing committee invites papers that address various dimensions or problems of technological learning and thinking. Scholarship is welcome from across the disciplines including Complexity Science, Design, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Education, History, HCI, Indigenous Studies, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology of Technology, and STS. The conference is designed to inspire conversation between the learning and teaching of technology and the cultural, environmental, and social study of technology.

Click here to view poster.

For more details: http://learningcommons.net

Congratulations to 2008/2009 Faculty of Education Award Winners

• Killam Faculty Teaching Prize - Anne Phelan
• Sessional and Lecturer Teaching Prize - Gale Smith
• UBC Graduate Teaching Assistant Teaching Award - Juan Castro
• Association of BC Deans of Education - Teacher Educator of the Year - Tony Clarke

Congratulations to all the EDCP winners!

Memoradum of Understanding Signed

On April 29, 2009, Dr. Rob Tierney, Dean of the Faculty of Education at UBC, and Marilyn Luscombe, President of Selkirk College, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Castlegar, securing the continuation of UBC's West Kootenay Teacher Education Program (WKTEP) at the Selkirk College. Visit selkirk.ca/about/news for the full story.

From left to right, Rita Irwin, Associate Dean of Teacher Education at UBC, Dr. Rob Tierney, Linda Farr-Darling, Academic Coordinator for WKTEP, Susanne Schmiesing, Director of Finance and Administration for the Faculty of Education at UBC, Marilyn Luscombe and Angus Graeme, Vice President of Academic and Student Development at Selkirk College.

Congratulations to 2009 SSHRC Grant EDCP Recipients!

2009 SSHRC Awards

SSHRC Standard Research Grants

• PI: Penney Clark, EDCP Textbooks must reflect Canada: An historical investigation of post World War II textbook publishing and English-Canadian identity $96,000
• PI: Brent Davis, EDCP A study of mathematics teachers' knowledge of implicit associations, their pedagogical emphases, and their students' engagements with mathematics $163,424
• PI: Donal O Donoghue, EDCP Place-making practices and place-cultures in boys' schools $83,478
• PI: Stephen Petrina, EDCP Collaborator: Franc Feng, EDCP Learning technologies & media across the lifespan $139,900
• PI: Bill Pinar, EDCP Curriculum studies in China and India $155,000
• PI: Rebecca Luce-Kapler, Faculty of Education, Queens U Co-I: Dennis Sumara, EDCP Developing critical awareness of normative structures: A study of senior learners' engagement with literary reading and memoir writing practices $124,604

SSHRC Research/Creation Grants in Fine Arts

• PI: Ruth Beer, Emily Carr University Co-Is: Kit Grauer, EDCP; Jim Budd, Emily Carr University Catch and release: Mapping stories of geographic and cultural transition $250,000

Anna Kindler receives the International Ziegfeld Award

Anna Kindler has been selected as the United States Society for Education through Art, 2009 "International Ziegfeld Award" recipient. The award will be given during the USSEA/InSEA Luncheon on April 20, 2009 at the National Art Education Association Conference in Minneapolis, MN.

EDCP Graduate Student Research Symposium 2009

“From Expression to the Expressiveness of Knowledge:”
EDCP Graduate Student Research Symposium 2009

On Thursday and Friday (March 5th & 6th), the Department hosted a Graduate Research Symposium for graduate students to share, present, co-present, or perform their research. The extremely successful event offered graduate students an opportunity to discuss their current research initiatives and to learn about the research undertaken by their EDCP peers. Over the two days, 23 students presented to an audience that included about 50 participants. The event was opened by Department Head Dennis Sumara, who elaborated on the theme of the symposium by drawing on Susanne Langer�s notions of knowledge as an expressive act. The symposium reflected the disciplinary and interdisciplinary interests of our students and their commitments to curriculum and pedagogy in schools and higher education, and across communities and informal learning contexts. As is common within their research, we found a range of critical, feminist, hermeneutic, post-structuralist and anti-oppressive, orientations, and theorizing from complexity, ecopedagogical, and semiotic perspectives. Special acknowledgements go to Aparna Rae and Feda Ghaleb for organizing the symposium, Basia Zurek for logistical arrangements, and to all graduate students and faculty members who attended and made the event so successful. Recommendations are to organize two graduate research symposia per year. Input and volunteers for the upcoming November 2009 symposium are welcome!