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Update on the Current Masters Program
C. Broom talks with Dr Natalia Gajdamaschko...IERG’s second Masters in Education cohort is based in the Surrey campus for the first time. This unique Masters program aims to improve the schooling experience for both teachers and students through reinscribing teaching and learning in terms of the imaginative education (IE) framework. The current cohort, composed of high school teachers, adult education teachers, and alternative education educators, has begun to take a total of six courses, taught by imaginative education theoretical experts. Dr. Kieran Egan taught the first course.
Other instructors have included Dr. Sean Blenkinsop, who taught a course on Educational Theories and Dr. Natalia Gajdamaschko, who taught a course on special topics. Dr Dalene Swanson taught “Current Issues in Curriculum and Pedagogy” in the fall of 2006. Dr. Jean Warburton will be guiding students through the process of implementing their theoretical frameworks next. Gillian Judson’s summer course exposed students to the ideas of many imaginative education experts who spoke of how they have implemented IE frameworks in their own teaching. It provided students with a bridge between practice and theory. This latter theme was amply addressed at IERG’s fourth annual conference, which all students attended. This conference allowed students to explore the connections between theory and practice through paper, workshop, and roundtable discussions led by university professors and practicing teachers from all over the world.
Over the course of their program, students have been provided with the opportunity to develop their own theoretical units. In the following semester, they will transform these into practice. These units will form part of their portfolios, which they will prepare and defend next summer, as part of their last step prior to graduation. The IERG team has provided students with a unique opportunity, in that a number of their papers and units have been collated, and students have been invited to contribute to two distinct publications. A set of students' papers will appear in the forthcoming issue of the international journal, Educational Perspectives, and others will be soon submitted to a book publisher. If you are interested in taking a Masters Program in Imaginative Education in the future or in learning more about our masters program, please visit http://ierg.net/med_programs for more details.