Dr. Judson is Executive Director of the Centre For Imagination In Research, Culture, & Education (CIRCE). Her research and teaching are primarily concerned with the role of imagination in all learning. She also investigates how an ecologically sensitive and imaginative approach to education can both increase students’ engagement with, and understanding of, the content of the curriculum but can show it in a light that can lead to a sophisticated ecological consciousness.
Dr. Marela Dichupa recently completed training in somatically oriented psychotherapy. As a result, she is reframing concepts in her earlier work where she builds on the notion of the gaze, conceptualized as an aspect of dialogue that ascribes value on to persons, objects, practices and ideas.
Because the gaze is an undercurrent to surface communication, she considers it one of the tasks of the educator to elicit the countergaze-a moment of insight when the student recognizes the gaze and its action. To extend this work, Dr. Dichupa is investigating the effect of the gaze on somatic experiences of persons.
I received my BA in philosophy from the University of Washington in 2015. I am currently an MA student in philosophy at Simon Fraser University. When I am not reading and writing, I enjoy skiing, hiking, traveling and generally being outdoors. Right now I am mostly interested in early modern philosophy, especially Kant and Leibniz, the history of ethics, philosophy of religion, and the occasional debate in contemporary meta-ethics or moral epistemology. I also enjoy classical Chinese philosophy, especially Confucius.
My current research interests focus on how instructional/teacher development and curriculum innovation (i.e. content and language-integrated learning, intercultural competency development) can improve teaching and student learning, particularly in a multilingual and multicultural K-12 and university environments. Given my current leadership role, I am also interested in broader questions of systemic educational change that supports inclusion and student success of multilingual learners, with a particular focus on the development of professional learning communities, and the nature and impact of interdisciplinary collaborations. In addition, I have been engaged in projects related to educational assessment and evaluation at the course and program levels in various disciplinary contexts.
I teach in two main areas – Foundations of Academic Literacy and Arts Education, and my research focuses on how human expression, most notably writing and visual art, can enable a sense of personal meaning, self-knowledge and connections to the world around us. Broadly speaking, I am interested in engendering the expression of values – personal, cultural and ecological – in a clear, nuanced and articulate voice. This includes bringing personal narratives into learning, writing process, creative inquiry and the ethical implications of aesthetic education.
More specifically, I am interested in how narrative writing and visual art can enable deeper connections with the natural world, which in turn help bring about cultural change with regard to environmental stewardship and care. Among my current research foci is the engendering of empathy with, and understanding of, others (including other life forms) through the practice of writing. My visual art practice examines how we interact with natural ecologies close to home, with a view to drawing connections between human forms of communication and those that exist within the dynamics of nature.
I am a bilingual language instructor and curriculum developer, coming from a multicultural background. In my research, I look into the relation of language acquisition and identity in multilingual communities. I also focus on the use of cognitive tools to better engage teachers and learners in a multicultural classroom. My goal is to help refugee and immigrant population to better define their new identity in the host culture through an effective language curriculum design.
I did my MEd program in Curriculum and Instruction at Simon Fraser University. The rich and engaging academic environment in the Faculty of Education at SFU encouraged me to look for more and further my research. My desire to make a positive change in my community, the society and the world. I also see myself evolve and grow as I continue to study and this growth inspires me to take further steps.