Here in the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, we pride ourselves on fostering innovative teaching and learning that prepares future educators to lead and inspire in today’s world.

Our Faculty ranks 66th globally and fifth in Canada as designated by the . Our commitment to reimagining education is reflected in the transformative experiences we offer, both within and beyond the classroom. 

One of our defining strengths lies in the breadth and depth of experiential learning opportunities available to our students. From working in diverse classrooms across Ontario to participating in community-based initiatives and international placements, our programs are designed to immerse future educators in real-world contexts. These experiences not only bridge theory and practice but also inspire our students to think critically and creatively. 

Innovation is at the heart of everything we do. Our faculty and staff are constantly exploring new pedagogies, leveraging technology and designing interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning. Through research and collaboration, we strive to address pressing educational challenges while embracing emerging opportunities in the field. 

As we continue to evolve and to build on our international presence, our vision remains clear: to empower our students with the skills, knowledge and experiences they need to lead with confidence and compassion. I invite you to read the stories in this issue of Innovatus and to get a sense of the work that we are doing to prepare our students to drive positive change in their communities.  

Robert Savage 
Dean, Faculty of Education 

In this issue:

New digital platform supporting online well-being launches this spring
The Hub is a first-of-its-kind digital wellness platform, created at York's Young Lives Research Lab, that will offer free resources to help Canadians navigate the online world safely.

Indigenous teaching at �첥��Ƶ embraces reciprocity, connection
Learn about the Indigenous teaching methods of Professor John Waaseyaabin Hupfield that aim to foster a deeper understanding of place and connection among students. 

Las Nubes trip inspires �첥��Ƶ’s future educators
From hiking forests to visiting local classrooms, �첥��Ƶ students immerse themselves in hands-on learning in Costa Rica, shaping their future teaching philosophies. 

Bridging generations through literature
Professor Emeritus Warren Crichlow’s seminar on author and civil rights activist James Baldwin inspires students to explore themes of systemic racism, education and personal perseverance.

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This issue shines the spotlight on the Faculty of Education, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. A number of professors have collaborated in turning their research and experiences into books that can be used to teach others. Working in partnership is one of the University Academic Plan’s priorities, and Carl Everton James, the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora, and alumna Leanne Taylor, PhD, examine the experiences of first-generation university students. The inaugural chair holder, Nombuso Dlamini, serves as co-editor of a collection of scholarly essays she and her colleagues wrote during her five-year term. Meanwhile, Gillian Parekh assembled a team of colleagues at York and elsewhere to create an educator’s guide to equity and human rights in special education and a corresponding website.  

Our final story this month isn’t about a book, but about adding new technological education courses to the breadth of York’s offerings so teachers can instruct students who are looking toward jobs in the skilled trades. Tradespeople are in demand across the country, and educators can make those career pathways more inviting and accessible. 

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A new Educational Studies capstone course created by Faculty of Education Professor Celia Popovic is broadening students’ horizons into possible careers in educational policymaking, the psychology of education, teaching and adult education.

Taking the capstone course for his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Educational Studies program has exponentially increased James Garrish’s certainty that he’ll find employment post-graduation.

“I know if one door closes, another will open,” says Garrish, who will graduate from his BA program this year and earn his concurrent BEd next year. “I’m super happy I took this course. I have a better outlook on opportunities. When you are single-minded, you don’t realize the possibilities, but this course opened my eyes.”

Broadening her students’ horizons is one of the reasons Professor created the fledgling capstone course in Educational Studies; she also wants them to apply all that they have learned from the program to the course’s projects.

“The BA Educational Studies differs from a Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree, which trains students to be classroom teachers,” said Popovic, who teaches in the Faculty of Education. “The Educational Studies program looks at all aspects of education, including policy, the psychology of education, teaching and adult education.

“Of my 100 students each year, about two-thirds enter the program with the intent of doing a BEd, too, so they can teach. Many don’t think beyond that and aren’t familiar with other choices.”

To make her students aware of some of these choices, the course’s projects focus on exploring other career options by interviewing professionals in those related fields and creating a web product to offer information about those careers to other interested students. The class is assigned three of these projects during the full-year course, working in groups of four-to-six students to formulate interview questions, interview someone in a particular profession and collaborate on the product. The students are also responsible for a weekly guided reflection on their experiences. Popovic prompts them with questions that help them make sense of what they’re learning by doing the projects and of the program as a whole.

For the inaugural year of the course, Popovic reached out to her connections – people she felt would be willing to add an interview to their already busy pandemic schedules and would be comfortable being interviewed remotely. The careers her students investigated this year include educational developer, educational publishing, librarian, guidance counselling and university recruitment, as well as the classroom teacher.

“Next year, I have more ideas and am looking for contacts in other areas relevant to the BA Educational Studies, such as arts educators and youth workers,” she said. “I encourage anyone with connections in a related area to get in touch with me.”

Darren Duya, who is completing an honours BA Educational Studies this year, is trying to decide what type of position he wants to pursue after graduation and finds the capstone projects very useful.

“I originally wanted to be a teacher, but I’ve decided to take a different path,” Duya said. “It’s great to see these different perspectives and learn how the people got there. I’m finding that it’s common to just let things happen and to learn as you go along.”

The course also requires the students to do a community-based project such as creating lesson plans for a summer program or doing applied research – also as part of a group.

“Group work is such an important skill to have; it sets the students up for success,” Popovic said. “I want them to learn and to make mistakes in a safe environment.”

As for the website that contains the students’ distillation of what they’ve learned about various careers, Popovic believes it’s a more valuable product than standard essays would be.

“Traditionally, students put their effort into essays that are seen by only one or two people,” she said. “I wanted them to create something with value in its own right. Ostensibly, the audience for the website is high school students, but it’s also very useful to our students who are thinking about job opportunities.”

Garrish wholeheartedly agrees.

“I never even thought of these other options,” he said. “I didn’t realize there were so many possibilities with a general education degree. After this, I feel that even if I don’t get a teaching job, I’ll be able to pursue one of these positions and enjoy it.”

Article written by Elaine Smith was originally published in the March 2022 issue of

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Oyemolade Osibodu, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, conducted a pilot study to help her understand the mathematics experiences of Black youth in Greater Toronto Area (GTA) high schools and the results confirmed a lack of diversity in mathematics educators.

Growing up Black in Nigeria, race was never an issue at school for , an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education. If she had to prove herself occasionally, it was likely because of gender. However, her experience teaching in North America has shown her that Black youth have a very different experience, particularly in mathematics.

This year, Osibodu, whose specialty is math education, conducted a pilot study to help her understand the mathematics experiences of Black youth in GTA high schools.

“Math is not a neutral enterprise,” Osibodu said, “and it’s not just about these Black students learning math. I focused on the sociocultural and sociopolitical experience, looking at the extra layer it adds to the enterprise and what effect that has.

“The Black community in the GTA is very heterogeneous and many of the students are first-generation Canadians. I looked to see what research existed in the Canadian context unlike the United States, but I found no qualitative studies about Black youth as related to mathematics. It needs to be done and it mattered to me.”

Osibodu selected eight high school students from schools in Toronto, Durham Region and York Region for her qualitative study and explored their high school math experiences. More than half of them loved math and were successful with it, but Osibodu wanted to see what other factors were at play.

“Many of them felt that other students were surprised to see them in academic math classes and succeeding with the work,” she said. “I don’t know how we fix this.”

Even in the diverse Toronto District School Board (TDSB), the student was one of the few Black or mixed-race students on the academic track at her school and felt the pressure to prove she belonged.

“One other thing was clear,” said Osibodu. “Of the eight students, none had ever had a Black math teacher and only the TDSB student had had Black teachers in any subject.”

To understand the Black experience more thoroughly, Osibodu has applied for a three-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to do a larger longitudinal study following students in Grades 9, 10 and 11 to try to understand the impact of race and power on Black learners and how different experiences shape their math identities.

“My work will combine math with social justice,” she said. “I want to use math as an avenue to talk about social issues, though the students I spoke with weren’t sure it was possible. Many math classes are still very quiet; the teacher asks questions and the students answer. But they were all keen to see what it could look like.”

Osibodu knows there is a way to insert context into math – in looking at housing prices, the inequity in loan approvals and the financial impacts of gentrification, for example.

The project is designed to run throughout the year and would include “interesting math activities” in the summer, giving the students “a space where we talk, rather than do worksheets” and one that will allow them to “make sense of the world through a math lens.”

Osibodu is the winner of the , an honour that recognizes Canada’s emerging education researchers. She’s holding her breath while waiting to see if SSHRC recognizes the importance of her research by approving her grant.

Article written by Elaine Smith was originally published in the March 2022 issue of

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Gissela Avila, an undergraduate student in the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, talks about the enormous benefits offered by her community placement. For Avila, it was the joy found in the unexpected that affirmed her passion for teaching.

Doing a community placement with the Wadoka Academy, a North York martial arts training school for children, is a joy for Gissela Avila;she’s a future teacher learning from a different type of teacher: a sensei, or karate master.

“Never in a million years would I have connected education with karate, but the academy’s founder, Colin Ninvalle, designed his programs to aid mental health; they are calming and help children with tempers and behaviour regulation,” said Avila, a third-year Bachelor of Arts (BA) Educational Studies student.

Because the pandemic originally interrupted classes, Avila began by tutoring one of the students and his mother in English. Now, as the restrictions relax, she is working with a team to create a social media campaign for the academy, giving her the opportunity to learn social media marketing skills.

“I’m really excited about it,” she said. “I know it’s something I can use for my future.”

Avila is one of the education students lucky enough to have a placement during the pandemic as part of her Educational Studies (EDST) 3999 course, Experience, Inquire, Contribute. Usually, community placements are built into the Bachelor of Education (BEd) first-year curriculum as a way of familiarizing future teachers with the contributions communities make to learning; they are also required for BA Educational Studies students in their third or fourth years to allow them to explore education in community contexts.

During this academic year, third-year BA Educational Studies students have engaged with community partners. The placements for Educational Studies students are part of a year-long course and they generally work with their placement organizations weekly from September through April. The first-year BEd students usually work with community organizations once a week, assisting with programs that take place after school or on weekends.

First-year BEd community placements facilitate connection between communities and their schools. Community partnerships are at the center of developing holistic and asset-based approaches in teaching and education.

“Future teachers learn the importance of building relationships and engaging with community. These relationships help facilitate meaningful connections that support culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy in the classroom,” said Lindsay LaMorre, associate director, experiential education in the Faculty of Education.

Community partnerships offer excellent resources and support for students and their families. For students in the educational studies program, it’s an opportunity to put theory into practice while enhancing workplace skills and building networks.

“Teaching skills can be transferred to so many different settings,” LaMorre said, citing colleague Faculty of Education Professor ’s capstone course as another way of introducing students to these opportunities. “Our students choose to participate in quite a range of opportunities and programs with a variety of amazing community organizations.”

The list of opportunities is long and varied, including such possibilities as working with the Toronto Region Conservation Authority, helping with computer literacy for visitors to the Yonge Street Mission and taking part in Basketball Beginnings, a program that uses physical activity to motivate students and incorporates tutoring.

Diane Vetter, the course director for the educational studies practicum course, noted, “My philosophy is that the community is central and foundational to the relationship students have with their schools,” she said. “The community is the heart of the school.”

By building trusting relationships with community partners, the BEd students learn about the importance of these relationships in teaching.

“It is important to have a professional trust relationship with your students so that they want to learn from you,” Vetter said. “Once you build these relationships, you facilitate learning, and it becomes so much easier for the students.”

Vetter ensures that the placements are bolstered by theory and guidance. She holds quarterly class sessions and quarterly workshops for her students during the course. There are required readings and guest speakers, too.

One of the workshops is based on competencies, such as communication. Vetter asks the students to assess where they are in their development of these competencies and helps them create a learning template for improving their skills.

The students are also asked to keep a weekly reflective journal that they can draw upon to write their final paper. The paper is also reflective, allowing them to look back on the personal growth they experienced during the year and the impact community has had on them.

“The point is to develop an understanding of community,” Vetter said.

It’s a point that third-year student Avila now understands and appreciates. In reflecting on her experiences thus far, Avila realizes that “although I thought education was about school, it’s about so much more; it can be done in so many different ways.”

“Future teachers learn the importance of building relationships and engaging with community. These relationships help facilitate meaningful connections that support culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy in the classroom,” said Lindsay LaMorre, associate director, experiential education in the Faculty of Education.

Article written by Elaine Smith and was originally published in the March 2022 issue of

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This month's issue of Innovatus highlights some of the transformative projects, initiatives and activities happening here in the Faculty of Education.

Hello and welcome to a new issue of ‘Innovatus,’

It’s March and it finally feels as if spring may defeat winter. For educators, there’s also a collective assessment underway to consider what the pandemic has meant to teaching, learning and the student experience.

In the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, the talented faculty and staff are examining how the challenges we’ve faced during the pandemic have brought many valuable lessons. This is particularly apparent in how we think about educating the next generation of teachers. At �첥��Ƶ, the focus is on equipping future educators to create positive change, whether it be in the classroom, through actions to address the lack of equity, diversity and inclusion in the classroom, through alternative careers in education, and more. There are some exceptional examples on display in this issue of ‘Innovatus’ that highlight this wonderful work in the Faculty.

Please let me know your thoughts on the stories presented in this special issue. And, if you have an interesting story to suggest, please send it to my office. Faculty, course directors and staff are invited to share their experiences in teaching, learning, internationalization and the student experience through the ‘Innovatus’ story form, which is available at .

As always, thank you. I look forward to receiving your comments and to seeing you on campus.

Sincerely,

Will Gage
Associate Vice-President, Teaching and Learning

In this issue:

In his message to the community, Faculty of Education Dean Rob Savage talks about how the pandemic has brought adaptations in the ways in which we collectively approach teaching and learning.

Oyemolade Osibodu, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, conducted a pilot study to help her understand the mathematics experiences of Black youth in Greater Toronto Area high schools and the results confirmed a lack of diversity in mathematics educators

Gissela Avila, an undergraduate student in the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, talks about the enormous benefits offered by her community placement. For Avila, it was the joy found in the unexpected that affirmed her passion for teaching.

For years, educational institutions have contributed to the marginalization, racialization and vilification of Black youth. Faculty of Education Professor Carl E. James is out to change that reality and doing so with help from an interdisciplinary team and a three-year grant provided by RBC.

A new Educational Studies capstone course created by Faculty of Education Professor Celia Popovic is broadening students’ horizons into possible careers in educational policymaking, the psychology of education, teaching and adult education.

‘’ is a special edition of YFile devoted to teaching and learning innovation at �첥��Ƶ.

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