News & Events

The Wuchusk or Muskrat Project

The Wuchusk or Muskrat Project Researchers: Renée Carrière and Dr. Tim JardineOctober 2016 The objectives of this project have been established to include but are not limited to the following:  To advance the bridging of Indigenous and Western science knowledge.  To promote the modelling of land-/place-based teaching pedagogy and practices with science curriculum.  To increase high school science credit attainment rates for Indigenous students.  To include students and community in wetland management research.  To encourage Indigenous students to enroll and participate in science-related careers and occupations.  To develop pride in culture, tradition, language, and livelihoods.  The following are activities that were used in gathering and presenting research information:   The recording and transcribing by students of elder trapper interviews.  Student and elder photography.  Student wetland studies including GPS work, plant identification, collection, displaying, and weighing.  Movie presentation of this project’s photos.  Student/teacher/community participation in wetland management policy development. Final Report > Additional Resources Read more

By Nicole Tainsh, ago

Promising Practices for Meaningful Family Engagement

Promising Practices for Meaningful Family Engagement Researchers: Carly Robson Gilchrist, Pamela Sawatzky and Amber ThompsonOctober 2020 As three researchers, each from distinct rural communities, we will seek to establish and communicate a host of possible practices that are central to engaging families to support student learning. Our project proposal asks, “What practices offer possibilities for the meaningful engagement of parents?” and seeks as well to understand “What are the critical elements of these practices that contribute to success?” Knowing our learning will be deeply affected by not only the positive experiences that we have alongside the families we work with, we will also unpack “Which practices were less successful and why? What can we learn from this?”  We will collect a variety of artifacts, such as photographs, videos, interviews, family focus group conversation transcripts, as well as our own teacher reflections, to document our journey. This collection of our own Read more

By Nicole Tainsh, ago

Teachers Leading Teachers: The Saskatchewan Professional Development Unit’s Facilitator Community

Teachers Leading Teachers: The Saskatchewan Professional Development Unit’s Facilitator Community Researcher: Dr. Pamela Osmond-Johnson (University of Regina)October 2018 Within this context, the purpose of this study was twofold. Firstly, the project aimed to explore the value-added component of communities of practice within the teaching profession by examining the SPDU’s Facilitator Community as an example of a network of teachers leading teachers. An initiative of the professional development branch of the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation, SPDU’s Facilitator Community supports the growth and development of teacher facilitators who design and lead professional learning for teachers. Drawing on interview and survey data from over 20 Community members, the project aimed to highlight the positive impact involvement in this network has had on its members in terms of the development of their professional capital, which Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) position as being imperative to the future of the teaching profession. They also note that building Read more

By Nicole Tainsh, ago

Collaborative Ecological Consultation: Psychologist, Classroom Teacher, and Embedded Interventions

Collaborative Ecological Consultation: Psychologist, Classroom Teacher, and Embedded Interventions Researchers: Tammy FergusonSeptember 2020 The focus of this research was on ecological collaboration at the intervention stage of psychological consultation in schools. In this action research, teachers and psychologists worked in partnership to select and then to embed appropriate interventions within a curricular unit of study. This collaboration centred on the deliberation of the realities of the teacher’s classroom, such as the students and the curriculum, to understand the application of interventions and their potential impact within the context of the classroom. Embedding interventions within a curricular unit with direct teacher involvement is consistent with collaborative ecological consultation that concomitantly considers student characteristics, teacher style and skills, and curriculum context. This study emerged from a classroom teacher’s concerns with the implementation phase of psychological consultation. This teacher requested further collaboration beyond a team meeting in which the psychological assessment report and the Read more

By Nicole Tainsh, ago

Creating Opportunities for Using Family Funds of Knowledge to Support Literacy Skills

Creating Opportunities for Using Family Funds of Knowledge to Support Literacy Skills Researchers: Callie Lewry and Sharla Currie December 2016 In our community school we are working on improving oral language and literacy skills.We know the research says that parent engagement is a primary factor in student success; thus, we wanted to explore different ways to create authentic opportunities for caregivers. The research also points to higher parent engagement in literacy programs when parentknowledge is recognized. Typically, literacy programs for families are very teacher-directed; we tell them what we want them to do. We rarely ask families what they would like to do, what they do, and what knowledge they have to share.  We used a community kitchen to develop relationships with families and share knowledge. We worked alongside the families while preparing the meals. Initially, the cooking sessions were meant as a way to bring families in; however, as we were Read more

By Nicole Tainsh, ago

Their Voices: What High School Students are Saying About School-Related Anxiety

Their Voices: What High School Students are Saying about School Related Anxiety Researchers: Dr. Jenn de Lugt and Jenn Chan2017 The purpose of the study is to further our understanding of anxiety as experienced by high school students, and how these anxieties can be mitigated.Through 10 weekly confidential journal entries, and five focus groups, we asked students from grades 9, 10 and 11 what their greatest school-related anxieties were and to make suggestions for their teachers to help reduce these anxieties. Final Report

By Nicole Tainsh, ago

Exploring Visual Literacy: Secondary Teacher and Consultant Reflections on how Increasing Visual Literacy Impacts Adolescent Learning

Exploring Visual Literacy: Secondary Teacher and Consultant Reflections on how Increasing Visual Literacy Impacts Adolescent Learning Researchers: Lois Keller and Karon Guttormson August 2015 Teaching visual literacy as a way to increase student engagement and improve student achievement remains largely untapped in high school content subject areas (Draper & Siebert, 2010; Siegel, 2012; Hirsch & Hansel, 2013). Prior to this inquiry, while supporting teacher learning and adolescent literacy in English language arts, we found a need for pedagogy that offered a holistic and multimodal understanding of literacy. Multimodality is the social practice of making meaning by combining multiple semiotic resources (Siegel, 2012). While the Saskatchewan renewed English language arts curricula (Saskatchewan Ministry of Education, 2013) includes visual and digital literacies implicitly throughout curricular outcomes, our experiences as consultants and classroom teachers indicated that the skills needed for achieving these outcomes remained underdeveloped and often poorly scaffolded for both students and teachers. Read more

By Nicole Tainsh, ago

Using Teacher Collaboration to Increase Student Engagement

Using Teacher Collaboration to Increase Student Engagement Researchers: Paul McTavis, Moira Hamm, Michelle Brochu, Audrey Gavlas, Jon Pedersen and Cherie Wilke-PrielOctober 2015 The intent of this research project was to explore teacher experiences and observations as teachers worked collaboratively to deepen their understanding of student engagement. More specifically, the researchers were interested in what considerations and group dynamics were important to attend to when teachers worked together collaboratively and what supports were required by teachers in order to effectively work together. Through this work the researchers hoped to determine the outcomes, both positive and negative, of working together collaboratively over a sustained period of time, and to conduct action research into teachers’ practices that had the potential to improve students’ academic engagement. Final Report

By Nicole Tainsh, ago

Superhumans: How Teachers Use Graphic Novels

Superhumans: How Teachers Use Graphic Novels Researcher: Scott AllenAugust 2015 Current expectations in the Saskatchewan English language arts curriculum acknowledgethat the language arts are not simply about reading and writing, but involve a good balanceof listening, speaking, viewing and representing as well. Furthermore, the curriculumacknowledges the importance of any and all types of text (film, radio, oral storytelling,presentations, graphs, plays, graphic novels, etc.). Each text offers a way of understandingthe world differently. Each text also requires that students master a unique set of skills inorder to help them make meaning from the text. In this study I have recognized the importance of using multiliteracies and multimodalitieswithin the classroom via graphic novels. In my reading I have found that graphic novelsopen the door to multimodal literacy, where students are given access to a broad range ofindividual and overlapping modes each connected to a specific literacy style. The overallgoal of my research is Read more

By Nicole Tainsh, ago

Ē-kiwēyitotamāhkKitāyisinēwinānāw – Reclaiming Our Cree Language Through Oral Tradition

Ē-kiwēyitotamāhk Kitāyisinēwinānāw: Reclaiming Our Cree Language Through Oral Tradition Researchers: Diane Peekeekoot, Charlotte Campbell, Emily Weenoonis and Shaun Sasakamoose. August 2015 What began as a project to revitalize our traditional Cree language in our school became an incredible re-awakening and revitalization of our Cree culture, and formed new bonds with Elders in our community. What we learned was that through an invitation to our community, we could learn so much, not just about our language but also to reconnect to traditional ways of teaching, learning, and traditional wisdom and ways of being spiritual.  Through support and collaboration with Elders in our community, students at Ahtahkakoop First Nation had the opportunity to not just learn their traditional language, but to learn about culture, traditional stories, recollections and customs. An area of focus was a 30-level Cree class where Elders came to teach the language in the classroom.  This project couldn’t have happened Read more

By Nicole Tainsh, ago