Faculty Research Highlights

Dr. Naghmeh Babaee

Dr. Babaee presented her research on multilingual students’ identity construction and language learning, and teaching and learning in internationalized university contexts. Presentations included: Investigating identity and investment of second generation Iranian immigrants in developing Farsi at the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics Conference (University of Regina); Positionality and reflexivity in a critical qualitative research project at the Learning Together Conference (SFU); Teaching in Internationalized Art and Design Post-Secondary Contexts at the Investigating Our Practices Conference (UBC); and Identity and power imbalance: Facilitating or inhibiting bilingual development? at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference (Chicago).

Dr. Susan Barber

Dr. Barber presented a paper at AERA in New York City in April, entitled, Refugee dreams: Teachers in Canada facilitating hope for students and their parents with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and preliteracy.  She submitted a grant proposal that was shortlisted for a McConnell Foundation grant related to helping refugees with SFU Surrey, the Surrey School district, the City of Surrey, ISSofBC, RCMP and MothersMatter entitled, Crossing many bridges: The journey to Surrey Secondary Schools.

Dr. Elina Birmingham

Dr. Birmingham received a Team Development Grant from the NCE Kids Brain Health Network (formerly NeuroDevNet), in collaboration with Dr. Siamak Arzanpour in Mechatronic Systems Engineering, and colleagues in Engineering (SFU, UBC), Psychology (SFU, Western), Computing Science (SFU), and Audiology (UBC).  In this project, entitled, Intelligent solutions for atypical auditory processing in children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders, the team will be developing a wearable device to help children with ASD who experience sound sensitivity.  The project partners include Surrey School District (who will consult on the design of the device and help with field testing) and industry partner MetaOptima, a skin analytics company.

Dr. Geneviève Brisson

Dr. Brisson was in La Rochelle, France in June for the Congrès du Conseil International d’Études Francophones. While there she presented the paper, L’enfant émigrant/immigrant au cœur des mini-romans québécois.

Dr. Stephen Campbell

Over the past six months, Dr. Campbell has been focusing on the role of consciousness in neurofeedback. He attended and presented a paper at the Science of Consciousness Conference in Tucson, AZ entitled, Expanding the role of consciousness in neurofeedback. He is currently teaching a special topics graduate course on guided meditation and neurofeedback.

Dr. Wanda Cassidy

Dr. Cassidy co-edited a Routledge book (in press) with colleagues Chantal Faucher and Margaret Jackson, Cyberbullying at university in international contexts. This book includes 5 chapters by the co-editors, along with chapters from scholars from eight countries. Dr. Cassidy’s co-authored chapter titled, Looking below the surface: A Canadian perspective on cyberbullying in schools and universities, was published in a book edited by P. K. Smith and others, Bullying, cyberbullying and student well-being in schools: Comparing Western, Australian and Indian perspectives. Dr. Cassidy’s article with Dr. Özlem Sensoy and Dr. Kumari Beck, From rhetoric to reality: Identifying opportunities and barriers in educating for human rights, was accepted for publication in the next issue of the Journal of Global Citizenship and Equity Education.

Dr. Sean Chorney

Dr. Chorney’s research interests have been focused on how digital technologies are mobilized in the teaching of mathematics. Desmos is a web-based graphing calculator that has become very popular amongst teachers and students in high school. It has replaced the hand-held graphing calculator as the tool of choice because of additional functionalities, ease of use and improved precision in graphing. Dr. Chorney is examining the various ways teachers are using Desmos in their classrooms, specifically how they implement new activities and tasks and how those align with curriculum goals and learning expectations. Of interest so far is how teachers frame Desmos, ranging from thinking of it as a tool to help understand mathematics to that of a new way of thinking about the structure of mathematics itself.

Dr. Lynn Fels

Dr. Fels is currently engaged with colleagues in the final year of a 5-year SSHRC Partnership Grant investigating Arts for Social Change in Canada. Lynn was director of Perfect Imperfections: The Art of a Messy Life, created and performed by Dr. Celeste Snowber with award-winning Bassist Jodi Proznick, harpist Alexa Reimer and singer, Katherine Penfold. On June 15, as senior supervisor, Lynn celebrated the graduation of two MA students, Amy Thomasson, whose thesis offers an insightful perspective on the roles of vulnerability and trust in youth theatre; and Meghan Parker, whose comic book thesis about the life of a secondary school art educator won the 2018 ARTS MA Graduate Research Award. Lynn is currently co-editing Releasing Hope, a collection of writing by women with incarceration experience on the challenges of returning into the community.  

Dr. Huamei Han

Dr. Han published Studying religion and language teaching and learning: Building a subfield in the Perspectives column in the latest issue of the Modern Language Journal. Bigelow introduces the column as follows: “Regardless of the way you see the world, what your belief system or teaching context is, I hope the anchor piece by Huamei Han will inspire reflections on your own research and teaching. Han brings deep expertise into the research of religion, …  grounds the discussion by offering readers important background about how the study of religion has emerged throughout the history of our field, as well as an argument for the more prominent inclusion of religion across multiple research agendas in the field of applied linguistics. Han lays out a blueprint for ways researchers might take up religion in their work.”

Dr. Joel Heng Hartse

Dr. Heng Hartse published two book chapters on the subjects of religion, identity, and education with Saeed Nazari of UBC’s Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy: Attempting interfaith dialogue in TESOL: A duoethnography appears in Spirituality & Language Teaching: Religious Explorations of Teacher Identity, Pedagogy, Context, and Content, edited by Mary S. Wong and Ahmar Mahboob and published by Multilingual Matters; Religion, curriculum, and ideology: A duoethnographic dialogue appears in Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Inspiration/ Imagination/ Interconnection, edited by Carl Leggo and Erika Hasebe-Ludt and published by Canadian Scholars’ Press.

Dr. Cher Hill

Dr. Hill worked to develop place-conscious pedagogical practices and wrote about her experiences with her critical friend, Laura Piersol, in a chapter entitled, The Transformative Becomings of a Nature-based Educator. This work will appear in Ellyn Lyle’s book, Fostering a Relational Pedagogy: Self-Study as Transformative Praxis. She, along with Margaret MacDonald and Nathalie Sinclair, experimented with pedagogies informed by new materialist perspectives in their master’s cohort. This work will appear in Beyond the Technical-Rational: Drawing on Social Theory for Educational Research edited by Nolan and Tupper. The chapter is entitled Pursuing relational and differential methodologies: From diffraction to monstrosity in In-service Teacher Education.  She co-presented three papers at CSSE: The Problem and Potential of Representation: Being and becoming (with Margaret MacDonald and Nathalie Sinclair); In-service Teacher Education as a “Gathering Space” for transformative learning (withPaula Rosehart, Sue Montabello, Margaret MacDonald, Don Blazevich, and Belinda Chi); and Disrupting boundaries in education and research: Becoming new materialists (with Suzanne Smythe, Margaret MacDonald, Diane Dagenais, Nathalie Sinclair, and Kelleen Toohey).

Dr. David Kaufman

Dr. Kaufman presented a lecture to approximately 200 faculty and students at the University of Santa Catarina in Florianopolis, Brazil in March 2018. The topic was Digital games for older adults: A review of our research and development.  The main purpose of this trip was to plan collaborative research on digital games and digital storytelling for older adults. Dr. Luciane Fadel, a faculty member from this university, will visit Dr. Kaufman in June and July to continue their work together. Dr. Kaufman is also collaborating on research with Dr. Eugene Loos from Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam on digital games for older adults. Dr. Kaufman’s PhD candidate, Amir Doroudian, will spend a few weeks in The Netherlands this summer to work with Dr. Loos to collect data that Amir plans to include with his Canadian data in his PhD thesis. Dr. Kaufman and his PhD candidate, Simone Hausknecht will also present a four-hour workshop at the HCI International conference in Las Vegas in July, 2018. His postdoctoral scholar, Dr. Fan Zhang, and Amir Doroudian are also scheduled to present papers there.

Dr. Paula MacDowell

Dr. MacDowell showcased her research at the #BCTECH Summit, the largest technology conference in Western Canada. She was thrilled to welcome high school students to #BCTECH and speak about opportunities for empowering youth through education and technology. She is grateful to SFU Innovates staff for writing an article about her research and advocacy initiatives. Paula presented at CSSE on a panel Exploring Maker Pedagogy in Teacher Education as well as a session analyzing PSAs produced by girls to deconstruct the (mis)representations of girlhood in hegemonic media texts. In March, her EDUC 358 students were honoured and recognized at the Celebration of SFU Authors for creating an interactive multi-touch textbook “Traditions, Education, Technology.” Working alongside the Stand Tall school in Kampala, Dr. MacDowell is currently analyzing the efficacy of an app designed to assist Ugandan students in passing the national primary leaving examination (PLE).

Dr. Masahiro Minami

Dr. Minami returned to Rwanda to give a guest lecture entitled, Ubwiyunge Mubikorwa (Reconciliation in Action) - Development and Field Piloting of Action-Based Psychosocial Reconciliation Approach in Post-Gacaca Rwanda to three of his field partner institutions, Prison Fellowship Rwanda (PFR), the Rwanda National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC), and the Protestant Institute for Arts and Social Science. His seven years of dedication to provide psychosocial reconciliation support to rural villages of Rwanda was recognized as a significant contribution to the country. As a result, he was appointed as a senior research partner by both PFR and the NURC. Dr. Minami also authored one invited article entitled, Reconciliation beyond Dialogue ―Supporting alongside Nurturance of a New Relationship between Genocide Survivors and Perpetrators in Rwanda, and one invited book chapter entitled, Morita Therapy, Reconciliation, and Peace Building.

Dr. Susan O’Neill

Dr. O’Neill published a chapter in the Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities book series entitled, OPEART within teacher education: Enhancing communal engaged learning (2018, Springer). In May she was the keynote speaker at the Third Symposium on the Social Impact of Making Music in Porto, Portugal and presented a paper entitled, Disrupting the status quo: Young musicians in actions that create change. In June she gave a keynote at the Progressive Methods in Popular Music Education Symposium at Western University in Ontario, and two of her doctoral students, Cary Campbell and Colleen Maybin, also presented papers. She was awarded two SSHRC grants in 2018 as Co-PI, a Partnership Development Grant, Creative later-life in a digital age and a Connection Grant, Mapping the musical life course with Dr. Andrea Creech, CRC in Music in the Community at Laval University.  

Dr. Özlem Sensoy

In April at AERA, the second edition of Özlem Sensoy’s co-authored book, Is Everyone Really Equal? An introduction to key concepts in social justice education (2017) received the 2018 Outstanding Book Award from the Society of Professors of Education for outstanding contribution to social foundations of education. In June, Özlem and colleagues in the Equity Studies in Education cognate group (Sensoy, Beck, Cassidy, Chinnery, Dharamshi, Han, Jordan, Lee, Marshall, O’Neill, Parent, Smythe, and van der Wey) are presenting a session at the annual conference of the Critical Ethnic Studies Association. Their roundtable is a self study on the Equity Studies program and the goals of equity and decolonization within institutional settings. This session brings together pillar commitments (equity, indigeneity, and culture of inquiry) in the FoE’s 5-year plan; they will turn their session into a paper for publication soon after.

Dr. Slava Senyshyn

Dr. Senyshyn presented a paper with Dr. Susan O’Neill entitled, The social impact of young people’s music making within a relational ontology: Cultivating connectedness across school and outside school contexts at the Third Symposium on the Social Impact of Making Music in Porto, Portugal. Dr. Senyshyn is preparing a paper based on Heidegger’s concept of dwelling for Philosophy of Music Education Review. He is also preparing a piano recital programme for a series of performances taking place next year.

Dr. Nathalie Sinclair

Following on from Dr. Sinclair’s research with TouchCounts, which focusses on counting, adding and subtracting, she has been developing TouchTimes, which extends the gesture-based arithmetic to multiplication and division. Along with her Co-PI Dr. Sean Chorney (on their recently-funded SSHRC grant) and graduate students Sandy Bakos and Canan Guness, Dr. Sinclair has been developing teaching and learning materials for the new app, as well as trialling it with grades 2-3 students. The design of TouchTimes tries to move beyond the metaphor of repeated addition and to provide students and teachers with a more powerful feeling—through their fingers—of multiplicative growth.  

Dr. Celeste Snowber

Perfect Imperfections: The Art of a Messy Life, an interdisciplinary performance, where dance, spoken word, poetry and comedy was created and performed by Dr. Snowber in June at three sold out shows at the VanCity Culture Lab at The Cultch.  Dr. Snowber was joined by Juno-nominated bassist Jodi Proznick, harpist Alexa Reimer and singer-songwriter Katherine Penfold and directed by Dr. Lynn Fels.  Themes of loss, sensuality, worry and wonder were explored in a playful provocative program which is a facet of Dr. Snowber’s performance scholarship.  Following is an interview with Dr. Snowber about the show with SAD Magazine and a review with feminist publication Loose Lips. Forthcoming will be a radio documentary with CBC in the Sunday Edition on the show which will be broadcasted in September nationally through Canada.  

Dr. Valia Spiliotopoulos

Dr. Spiliotopoulos’ most recent publication entitled, Lessons learned from immersion in western Canadian’s multilingual and multicultural post-secondary context across the disciplines:  A case study in business focuses on assessing the impact of additional language learning through a content and language-integrated approach in disciplinary university environments as informed by a comparative analysis of immersion research.  She has also published on teacher professional learning and identity in the area of intercultural competency development in the journal, Study Abroad, Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education. Finally, Dr. Spiliotopoulos’ leadership in the area of research and development of English language learning was profiled by the TESOL International Association: ESP Project Leader Profile.

Dr. Phil Winne

Bucking a long trend, Dr. Winne’s article Theorizing and researching levels of processing in self-regulated learning in the British Journal of Educational Psychology describes why it’s mistaken to conceptualize metacognition and self-regulated learning as “deeper” cognitive processes. That’s important because many people equate “deeper” with more difficult and wrongly design instruction on that misperception. Winne’s chapter co-authored with post-doctoral fellow Dr. Zahia Marzouk on Learning strategies and self-regulated learning, appearing in the updates research foundations for the widely cited Winne-Hadwin model of self-regulated learning. With Marak Hatala (SIAT) and Michael Sjoerdsma (Engineering), Winne is beginning work on a new funded project, Uncovering students’ enrollment patterns leading to dropping out vs. success in engineering.

Dr. David Zandvliet

Dr. Zandvliet has just completed a new co-edited volume, Thirty years of learning environments: Looking back and looking forward, which draws on and celebrates 30 years of research at AERA related to the Special Interest Group (SIG) Learning Environments.  The book will be published by Brill/Sense later this year. In May, Dr. Zandvliet was awarded the Project WET Canada award for his work in Water Education with Pre-service teachers. The award was presented at the annual Canadian Water Resources Association Meeting in Victoria, BC.