News & Events

Thankful for Three Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation Research Projects, 2003, 2006, 2007 The Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation projects offered multiple opportunities to pursue research interests while collaborating with humble yet gifted colleagues and personalizing education experiences for students and their families. For example, Diane Diebel, deceased in 2015, was a testament to the thoughtfulness, dedication, and talent abounding in our schools. Her concerns about children’s struggles, despite our best efforts, helped direct my inquiries about increasing lap time to promote early reading success.  Data from Photobooks as a Shared Home-Reading Tool showed keepsake photobooks significantly increased lap time with both immediate and extended family members.  Administrative and support staff were frequent helpful sources of encouragement. Those early days of technology –yikes! Over the course of three projects, data was collected through surveys and interviews involving students in and teachers of grades prekindergarten, kindergarten, 1, 2 and 5.  Two projects directly Read more

By Juanita Tuharsky, Nancy Buisson, Sue Burns, Cory Britton and Greg Enion Our Stirling McDowell project focused on students of indigenous descent (Inuit, First Nations and Metis) who struggled to successfully pass grade 10 and go on to graduate.  As educators and researchers, we wanted to see what challenges these students encountered — what prevented them from success. Cochrane High School, back then, was an alternative high school that provided hands on learning through shop classes to our students.  It no longer exists today. We used a qualitative methodology and grounded theory to examine our students’ interviews. We anticipated interviewing fifteen; however, for our research, we were only able to obtain twelve students — five were Cree, three were Assiniboine, two were Saulteaux and two were Metis. They were ages 17 to 20, fifty percent female and fifty percent male. This provided us a small glimpse into lives of students Read more

Que(e)rying the Curriculum:Resistance and Reception in Anti-homophobic Education Our Project was Action Research in the Humanities 10 class of Marilyn Totten, at Robert Usher Collegiate in Regina in 2004.  I collaborated with Marilyn, a graduate student of mine, and university colleague Dr. Scott Thompson on a two week unit exploring Homophobia, Heterosexism and Sexual Orientation.  Key findings: 1.    There was both resistance and reception to our action research and the topic itself.  The students were “captive” if you like, to our agenda.  2.    There was more resistance from the bureaucracy of the school division than from students or parents.   It took more than a year for this project to be approved by central administration with the insistence that students had the right to opt-out of this teaching and learning.  Unfortunately, 17 years on, despite much progress, this resistance continues to be a problem in many Saskatchewan schools. 3.    Only one Read more

Milissa Gavel, Ann Kipling Brown, Lisa Lenkart, Norman Yakel This study examined the preparation of teachers in the professional development process on preservice teachers, involving students and faculty from the Arts Education program at the University of Regina and students and teachers and community members from the City of Melville. Traditionally the preservice teachers in the Arts Education program are involved in two activities: Professional Learning as Community Experience (PLACE); and a school placement. PLACE involves three days during which the students spend time in elementary and secondary schools, attend community events, visit significant historical and cultural sites and leaders of the community. Placement involves a week in an elementary classroom where students practice teaching, guided by cooperating teachers and university faculty. The alliance between two schools in Melville, the City of Melville and the Arts Education program began in 2006 when a graduate of the Arts Education program invited Read more