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Contact:
June Beynon, 604.291.3519, wyattbe@sfu.ca
Marv Wideen, 604.461.0376, wideen@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, Media & PR, 604.291.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca

The old adage that the most reliable information comes from the horse’s mouth is reason enough for teachers-in-training and teachers who mentor to read From Teacher to Teacher Educator. The book’s authors interviewed or surveyed more than 140 faculty associates over seven years before collaborating on a book about what drives SFU’s Professional Development Program (PDP), a one-year teacher certification program. Faculty associates are seasoned public school teachers hired to mentor teachers-in-training.

June Beynon, SFU associate professor of education, Janice Grout, a former PDP faculty associate and teacher in the Surrey school district, and Marv Wideen, SFU education professor emeritus, authored the book. Published by Pacific Educational Press, From Teacher to Teacher Educator is the book of the month at the SFU bookstore. "The book is the culmination of research into why faculty associates have always praised SFU’s 40 year old PDP and why students line up to get into it," says Wideen. About 700 students enter SFU’s PDP annually.

Numerous candid accounts from PDP participants guide readers through the authors’ analysis of what makes SFU’s PDP unique and the most successful of its kind in Canada. The program’s uniqueness lies in the fact that it has an equal complement of faculty and faculty associates, who work in collaborative teams. They strive for deeper learning for each other, not just for students, through open debate of ideas rather than a top down approach to teaching. Beynon notes that From Teacher to Teacher Educator could benefit educators in any field. "Even though cultural, linguistic, geographical and professional differences create potentially enriching diversity in many work environments the unfortunate tendency is to suppress rather than grow from diversity."

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Websites:
SFU’s PDP: www.educ.sfu.ca/pdp/