SFU/SSHRC backgrounder
December 9, 2003
Mark Fettes, an assistant professor of education at Simon Fraser University, has been awarded $992,920 under SSHRC's Community-University Research Alliances (CURA) program. Fettes is the principal investigator in the project Building culturally inclusive schools through imaginative education. Fettes is developing an education model to help B.C. aboriginal people attain greater academic, social and economic success.
A member of SFU's Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG), Fettes is collaborating with three other SFU professors, all IERG members and graduate students. The project also involves First Nations and school district leaders from Chilliwack, Prince Rupert and the Queen Charlotte Islands.
An expert on linguistic ecology, Fettes studies how language and culture influence the way people imagine, and how imagination is implicated in learning, relationship building and community identification. He is applying an innovative teaching approach, developed by SFU education professor and project co-investigator Kieran Egan, to teaching classes with large numbers of aboriginal students.
Egan's theory predicts that students learn best when progressively advanced teaching strategies scaffold their cognitive development through imaginative stimulation. Fettes's believes that even culturally sensitive curricula are not improving the number of aboriginal students graduating from high school because they are based on conventional teaching strategies.
Fettes says, to the detriment of aboriginal students, these strategies make tacit assumptions about students' identity within the politically and economically dominant culture. Fettes hopes his project will demonstrate that imaginative education encourages learners to re-imagine their communities' future and their place in the world.
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Mark Fettes, 604.291.4489; mtfettes@sfu.ca
News Release:
Health, education research draws $11 million in new SSHRC grants
1M$ CURA research grant awarded to IERG
December 2003
IERG was awarded a one million dollar grant to explore ways in which our notions of "imaginative education" might be helpful in enabling First Nations students better understand typical curriculum materials. The grant came from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's Community-University Research Alliance program. Mark Fettes is the principal investigator, and was the lead writer of the proposal. Congratulations Mark! The project gets underway immediately. We will post results and updates on our Research Projects page as they become available. The project is to run for five years. More details can be seen here.
Education through imagination
Jul 15, 2003
For centuries educators, sociologists and psychologists have debated the secret to successful learning. At the first International Conference on Imagination and Education, hosted by Simon Fraser University's Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG), hundreds of educators are gathering to hear the latest research on imaginative learning and teaching. They will explore, debate and share ideas about the role of imagination in aiding the educated mind's processing of information at various stages of development.
The conference, taking place July 16 to 19 at the Coast Plaza Hotel in Vancouver, is the first anywhere to explore how and why imaginative teaching accelerates learning. The conference features 120 presentations by high profile educators and researchers internationally and workshops and roundtable discussions with teachers.
Among the presenters are:
Kieran Egan, SFU professor and Canada Research chair in education, IERG founder and director. Egan will discuss his educational theory which links learning to a framework of techniques that pique the imagination based on cognitive tools at various stages of human development.
Elliot Eisner, keynote speaker, Stanford University education and art professor, will talk about the importance of the arts in children's education in terms of enhancing learning abilities.
David Nyberg, visiting scholar in philosophy and education at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, USA, will discuss the role of imagination in developing human moral judgement.
Mark Fettes, SFU assistant professor of education, will discuss how engaging the imagination of multicultural students in their learning helps them achieve success in a bicultural setting, attain intercultural understanding and retain their primary identities.
Pamela Benson, lecturer, Massey University College of Education, Palmerston North, New Zealand, will present how a storytelling approach to engaging students' imagination helped them learn about their culture and history. Storytelling is a key technique in Egan's framework of imaginative educational development.
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Contact:
Isabelle Eaton, at conference, 604.688.7711, 604.724.3628 (cell), ieaton@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, Media & PR, 604.291.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Websites:
For a complete list of the presenters and details about their presentations see: www.sfu.ca/conferences/ierg2003/
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