Author: Dalene Swanson, who joined the IERG as a postdoctoral scholar in Imaginative Education in September 2006. Prior to that, Dalene completed her Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies at UBC and was honoured to receive four prestigious national and international awards for her doctoral research. Since joining SFU, Dalene has taught a required course in the Imaginative Education Master’s program at the Surrey campus. The EDUC 820 course, Current Issues in Curriculum and Pedagogy, ran from September to December 2006. Dalene thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the wonderful students in the Surrey cohort and having the opportunity to experience a strong sense of pedagogic community with them.

Last term, she also taught mathematics methods courses to pre-service teachers in the Elementary program at UBC and acted as a Faculty Advisor for students in the long practicum in Vancouver schools. Dalene worked with the students to introduce them to Imaginative Education ideas and helped them facilitate the inclusion of these ideas in their practicum teaching. She was also able to introduce the ideas to several teachers at the respective schools where student teachers were on practicum. Last term, she presented Imaginative Education to faculty, sessional instructors and student teachers at UBC. The presentation was very well received, and many of those present were interested in having a follow-up presentation and receiving copies of the newly published handbook: A Guide to Imaginative Education. The new guide has been distributed to them and they were grateful to receive it.

As well, Dalene visited a LUCID project school in Chilliwack with Tannis Calder and Kym Stewart. She was excited to see the engaging work done there to support the infusion of a culturally-inclusive IE into the curriculum. Dalene hopes to follow this work through further research, in order to have a better understanding of how IE is taken up in aboriginal schooling contexts.

Dalene has had several proposals on Imaginative Education accepted for presentations at national and international conferences. She hopes to present a paper on IE at the 14^th International Conference on Learning in Johannesburg, South Africa, in late June 2007. At that time, she plans to speak with leading educationalists in South Africa on the possible infusion of IE into educational curricula there.

Currently, Dalene is assisting IERG to collate lesson plans and units for publication on the website, and she has been invited to present a lecture at the IERG Speaker Series in early April at SFU.

Click here to access her IERG bio: http://ierg.net/people/index.php?bio_id=10002