Bachelor of Education Honours Supervisors

Barbara Brown

Research: My research program in the Learning Sciences is focused on technology-enhanced innovations in teaching and learning. I am interested in using participatory technologies for collaboration and accelerated design processes, such as game jams and hackathons, flipped learning pedagogy, formative assessment, and open educational practices.

Why Honours: As a former K-12 math and science teacher with a passion for meaningful integration of technology in the curriculum, I am interested in supporting undergraduate students in developing research skills.

Fun Fact: I enjoy spending time with my family, playing games, and walking Calgary trails with our Morkie.

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Tonya Callaghan

Research: The overarching goal of Tonya Callaghan’s research is to integrate theory and practice so that educational stakeholders become motivated to free members of sexual and gender minority groups from religiously inspired heterosexist oppression.

Why Honours: Tonya has worked successfully with several PURE winners, and always learns a lot from these incredible undergraduate researchers.

Fun Fact: Tonya was born in PEI and descends from Irish Potato Famine people. They love swimming and have belonged to Calgary’s Different Strokes Swim Club for over twenty years.

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Man-Wai Chu

Research: Man-Wai’s research focuses on science education and assessment; specifically, the use of video games to measure science skills.

Why Honours: Student teachers have such great ideas for classroom research, working with you will give us the opportunity to consider integrating some fun, yet educational, video games and research into your practicum experiences.

Fun Fact: I loved gaming at night, the skills I developed there has helped me transition into a new parent very well – they both require me to function on very little sleep.

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Patricia Danyluk

Research: Patricia Danyluk (Ph.D.) grew up in northern Manitoba where she spent many years working with remote First Nations and Métis communities. She has published on teacher education, critical service-learning, and reconciliatory studies.

Why Honours: Patricia is currently working on a project that would require an undergraduate student to design lesson plans that incorporate Indigenous perspectives.

Fun Fact: A fun fact about Patricia is that she has four dogs...and would have more if she could.

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Roswita Dressler

Research: Dr. Roswita Dressler does research in the area of second language teaching and learning, in particular, the Bilingual Programs in Alberta. In the past she has supported students interested in ESL, critical literacy, linguistic landscapes, music and language learning, and study abroad. She would love to work with an undergraduate student interested in second language reading or adult literacy.

Why Honours: She is excited about the Honours program because it provides students with support through the summer coursework and the fall research.

Fun Fact: She had a hard time picking a picture for this profile because most of her most recent pictures are of her holding a grandchild – she now has five! 

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Kaela Jubas

Research: I focus on adult learning and education, including in the postsecondary classroom and many informal contexts. I approach topics critically, so that equity is typically part of what I investigate. One area that might appeal to student researchers is what is known as public pedagogy—the idea that engagement with and in cultural groups, products, and processes help people learn something about themselves and the world. I have analyzed popular culture (e.g., television shows, novels, films), advertisements and news stories, graffiti, and social movements—all examples of cultural texts and settings that can be researched in a variety of ways, without needing ethics approval.

Why Honours: I’m always happy to work with students interested in working with popular culture and other media texts and processes! There are lots of options available, many questions they can help us answer, and various ways to use them. This is research that is interesting, informative, and fun.

Fun Fact: I did my doctoral study on shopping (as a source of learning about identity, globalization, and possibilities for change) and I spent the better part of a decade on two studies of Grey’s Anatomy (both grant-funded). Research can be fun!

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Michael Kehler

Research: Dr. Kehler is a Masculinities Researcher whose work primarily focuses on challenging traditional notions of boyhood, masculinity and the spaces and places that boys and men gather. Michael examines boys as readers, activists, and the ways that boys take up spaces within schools. Michael has a funded research project centering on how preservice teachers might connect what they learn about education and masculinities (literacy, homophobia, etc) and how that informs teaching practice.

Why Honours: I see the Honours program as an opportunity to support an emerging teacher who sees teaching as an exciting challenge  with huge potential for being a critical educator much as I was as a Secondary School English teacher.

Fun Fact: While I’m not Scottish I do have three kilts that I like to wear!

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Kim Koh

Research: My research is focused on building preservice and inservice teachers’ capacity in the design and implementation of authentic assessments.

Why Honours: I am happy to work with prospective teachers, and to mentor them to become world-class teacher researchers who will contribute to improvement in students’ learning experiences in classroom assessment.

Fun Fact: I enjoy listening to and learning from student teachers. 😊

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Eugene Kowch

Research: I research situations where education and educators change society for good – for example, I am part of an exciting new joint research project with the U of C Engineering Faculty, the School of Architecture and the Faculty of Social work all working to help understand how STEM and public learning can be improved as we find new green ways to heat (and cool) the buildings via thermal and solar experiments in Calgary. We will actually be part of Canada’s first large social and technical experiment to develop new neighborhoods in Calgary with thermal energy.

Why Honours: Always seeking to help education system leaders and teachers be more social, more welcoming, less bureaucratic, and more involved in serving humanity/lifting lives. I teach undergraduates how to teach learners to lead, and to change their minds for a better future. As a BED honours student you will thrive, researching how to lead, to educate and change the way students, parents, institutions and society integrate STEM and pedagogy for a better world through super-cool, totally unique (collaborative, multidisciplinary) research done on the first geothermal project in Calgary, with schools to boot!

Fun Fact: Providing quality service to people is a continuing, wonderful journey for me. I have learned as much from being a waiter at the Keg as I have from leading global research to lift up education. It’s not always about perfect service, skill, and style. Ask me about my time at the Keg involving a piece of cake, a purse, and a great life lesson!

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Kimberly Lenters

Research: My work examines children’s playful(l) literacy practices in home, school, and in/outdoor community spaces.

Why Honours: I have always enjoyed working with students in our BEd program, especially those who are passionate about the diverse, unusual, and exciting ways children engage in communicational practices.

Fun Fact: I am currently thinking a lot about mycelial networks, gophers, and the Huggy Wuggy in my research. (How’s that for an unusual approach to literacy?) 

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Jennifer Lock

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Greg Lowan-Trudeau

Research: My current research and supervision activities in the areas of environmental education and communication variously focus on:

• Climate change
• Energy and environmental politics
• Digital technologies
• Science and environmentally-related media
• Outdoor and experiential approaches

I often take text-based approaches into the topics above through discourse, content, or framing analysis and curricular reviews.

Why Honours: I think that it is a great opportunity for undergraduate students to extend their learning in an area of interest. I enjoy working with students on research and writing projects.

Fun Fact: Winter is my favourite season.

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Mairi McDermott

Research: My research is oriented towards imagining and building new worlds beyond the confines of hierarchy, oppression, and inequity. This entails three emphases—on being able to name and mark how are current world (schools and society) are structured and organized and who the beneficiaries of that organization become; listening for and drawing out the voices and experiences of those who are left out of the dominant narratives shaping our lives; and embracing the potential we have to contribute to more just ways of knowing, being, and doing. Presently, my core values as a motherscholar are manifesting in an emerging project that hopes to work with young pregnant and parenting mothers to create speculative fiction where their lives are central to social decisions (policies, timelines, relationships, etc.).

Why Honours: I brought a sociological background from my undergraduate degree into my teaching practice as a high school English Language Arts teacher and since then believe in the revolutionary possibilities of dwelling in our curiosities through research. I think a research disposition fuses beautifully with an educator disposition and would be honored to work with pre-service teachers as they come into their identities and relationships with curiosity and imagination!

Fun Fact: I love to learn about Calgary by taking long bike rides along the various river pathways!

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Ronna Mosher

Research: The areas of my research that may be of interest to BEd students include curriculum studies, literacy education, and classroom practice. I'd be happy to support their research in any of these areas and/or to make room for them in an ongoing project exploring play and literacy learning. In that work we'd be involved in observing and documenting classroom and/or outdoor play experiences.

Why Honours: I'm excited to hear what students are curious about and to see how being a researcher of practice can help them prepare for their careers as educators.

Fun Fact: I am slowly trying to read Harry Potter in Italian (I think I'm more memorizing it than learning Italian though).

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Yvonne Poitras Pratt

Research: I am heavily involved in research that looks at how educators can take an active role in responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action, and I am also very active in my own Metis community here in Alberta with digital storytelling, art-based projects, and other initiatives focused on self-determination. Students might be interested in exploring what factors define self-determination in Metis education with me or to support community-based initiatives around the topic of reconciliation.

Why Honours: My own Honours' thesis in my undergraduate degree focused on contemporary Indigenous artists in Canada and how their work provokes conversations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. This early scholarship continues to inform how I teach and how I learn. I would like for others to have the same experience.

Fun Fact: I dressed up in Victorian garb to teach a class on Emily Carr and how her work evolved to become part of the Canadian Group of Seven as part of my teacher training experience.

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Sylvie Roy

Research: My research looks at linguistic ideologies and how languages are used in the society. I also look at bilingual education and multilingual identities. French immersion is the context for my studies.

Why Honours: I would love to work with students who are interested to know more about different topics, especially about languages and cultural and linguistic identities.

Fun Fact: I have a cat and a dog who are best friends!

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Meadow Schroeder

Research: My current research focusses on how students of diversity (i.e., learning disabilities [LD], ADHD) are supported in their transition to postsecondary and how their learning needs are met in schools. I have a number of projects students are welcome to participate in. I may have thesis-based students who need some support with their projects. I’m also happy to support a student in a small project of their own, i.e., literature review.

Why Honours: Research is fun, and I hope that scaffolded, hands-on experiences will get students excited about it.  Also, undergraduate students benefit from getting experience in research including being more competitive for graduate programs and scholarships.

Fun Fact: Growing up, I didn’t have a TV in my house until I was older and even then, there were long stretches of time when we didn’t have one.  As a result, the first episode of Seinfeld I watched was the finale. 

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Dennis Sumara

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Miwa Takeuchi

Research: Are you passionate about mobilizing your disciplinary expertise (mathematics, sciences, arts…) toward socioenvironmental justice? In our Soil Camp project, we welcome students who are interested in joining our transdisciplinary research & design team, and the team of educators and educational researchers.

Why Honours: Teachers are pivotal in our co-design of Soil Camp project and we value and welcome teachers who are committed to working with children and families who experienced forced displacement, toward socioenvironmental justice. I’m excited about the potentials of your research experiences/theories making impacts on your everyday acts of teaching, as a future teacher.

Fun Fact: I’m very honoured that children in Soil Camp named one of the earthworms “Miwa.”   

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Jo Towers

Research: My current research is qualitative/interpretive, classroom-based, and focused on transforming students’ relationships with mathematics. In previous projects I’ve explored the emotional dimension of learning, mathematical understanding, and collectivity/how groups learn (examined through the lens of improvisational theory drawn from jazz and theatre). My interests also include teacher learning, ecopedagogy, and teaching mathematics for social justice.

Why Honours: My own undergraduate program was an Honours program and it set me on a lifelong journey of exploring new ideas, theories, and texts, researching novel approaches to teaching, and creating new knowledge. I’ve previously supervised undergraduate (PURE program) and graduate students, and mentored post-doctoral scholars, and I’m excited to help Honours students in this new program explore the ideas that interest them.

Fun Fact: I’m a volunteer with the Pacific Assistance Dogs Society (PADS) so you may see me out and about with a PADS puppy-in-training!

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Gregory Tweedie

Research: How can we use artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to make English language teaching and testing more equitable and accessible?  

Why Honours: Happy to be supervising a student in the Honours program because: "I really wish they'd had something like this when I was a student!" 

Fun Fact: Animal I'm most like: Arctic tern. Don't ask. 

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