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Seminars
The IERG occasionally holds local seminars during which members of our group present some of their ideas about imagination and education, and discuss some of their more recent research. Since we realize that not everyone can find the time to attend these events, we thought we would provide whatever content is available from these events on this page. Our seminar schedule is a bit irregular but we hope to be able to add materials from these events to this page on a regular basis. You can find our introductory materials here. Or you might prefer to download a pdf version here.
SPRING 2007: Spring into Imagination
Thursday March 29th at 4:30pm, EDB 7500Front
Speaker: Dr. Michael Ling, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, SFU
Topic: From Hip Hop to Habermas and Back: On Cultural Forms and Cultural Imagination.
Hip-hop is a phenomenon that encompasses music, fashion, language, visual media, social mores, politics and much more. It is also a phenomenon with a wide and varied currency, a careful examination of which can tell us much about both culture and imagination. Drawing on concepts from cultural anthropology, cultural studies, and particularly the work of Jurgen Habermas, this presentation will offer some ideas about how cultural forms are created, how they move, and how they transform. It will also argue why it might be important for teachers and academics to pay attention to such emergent and shifting forms of culture.
About Michael:
Michael Ling is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education with a
background in cultural anthropology. He has an abiding interest in how
people make their lives meaningful through creative cultural
expressions, along with how such expressions circulate and are
transformed through experimentation and innovation. He works primarily
in the Fine Arts Diploma stream of Field Programs, the Masters of
Education in Educational Practice, and in the Community-based Masters
of Education Program.
Postponed.
Speaker: Dr.Dalene Swanson, Post-Doctoral Fellow, IERG
Topic: Ironic understanding, ironic validity, ironic pedagogy?: What does a
postmodern ethics offer?
In consonance with the postmodern turn, Kieran Egan describes 'ironic understanding' as a learning orientation that is about coming to appreciate the 'limits of theory', 'reflexivity and identity', and 'radical epistemic doubt'. Patti Lather, describes 'ironic validity', in respect of a research orientation, as 'foregrounding the insufficiencies of language', 'producing truth as a problem', 'resisting the hold of the real'. Similar in their thrust, these perspectives bring into focus ambiguity, paradox and contradiction and undermine the 'lure of certainty' that sustains modernity.
For teachers, educators, and researchers, embracing contradiction and paradox ensures vulnerability and dilemma in enacting 'ironic pedagogy' as lived curriculum. Within such a postmodern sensibility, can we, how do we, arrive at a sustainable ethic of pedagogic engagement and practice?
About Dalene:
Dalene holds a B.Sc. (Mathematics), Higher Diploma in Education, B.Ed. and M.Ed. from the University of Cape Town, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies and Mathematics Education from the University of British Columbia. She also completed a Teacher’s Licentiate Diploma in Speech and Drama from Trinity College, London, and an Advanced Certificate in Ballet from the Royal Academy of Dance. She has published locally and internationally, and received four prestigious Canadian and international awards in Qualitative Research and Curriculum Studies for her doctoral research.
Monday, February 5th from 4:30 until 6:30 in EDB 7610, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby Campus,
Speaker: Dr. Victoria Purcell-Gates, Canada Research Chair in Early Childhood Literacy (UBC).
Topic:
The topic of her session will be The Cultural Practices of Literacy.About Victoria:
Dr. Victoria Purcell-Gates is interested in the ways in which people in communities value and practice literacy in all aspects of their lives. This includes texts, written symbol systems, purposes for reading and writing, attitudes and beliefs. She will consider designing early literacy instruction that builds on young children's linguistic, cognitive, cultural, and social models for reading and writing that they acquired within their home communities. She is a past winner of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award and is one of the best known researchers in the world in her field.
Fall 2006 - Falling through Autumn with Imagination
November 1 , 2006 from 4:30 to 6:30, Room 7500.F, bottom floor, Education Building, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby Campus
Speaker: Dr. Thomas Nielsen, 2006 Visiting Scholar, IERG
Topic:
Rudolf Steiner's ideas on imagination differs somewhat from the normal view of imagination (if there is such a thing!). In this seminar by visiting professor, Dr Thomas Nielsen, an alternative pedagogy of imagination is introduced, drawing especially upon his empirical study of imaginative teaching in Australian Waldorf schools.
About Thomas:
Dr Thomas William Nielsen is a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Education at the University of Canberra, Australia, where he teaches behaviour management and educational philosophy. His Ph.D. was a hermeneutic phenomenological case study of imaginative teaching in Steiner schools, contextualised through an examination of the holistic tradition in education.
September 27, 2006 from 2:30 to 4:30, Halpern Centre, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby Campus
Speaker: Dr. Stefan Popenici, Post-Doctoral Fellow, IERG
Topic: Imagining the Future. Role Models, Students, Captured Imagination and Modern Education Reform
The topic of role models and heroes who shape individuals‚ value maps is directly related with education results. This presentation will look at the data provided by the first nationwide survey on role-models and motivation for learning in Romania and it will analyze how these findings are connected with imagination and education. We will try to find out how imagination is connected with motivation to learn, study and develop skills for the future and what public education do in order to meet these goals. Second, we will
present a comparative analysis on major trends in education through the lenses of the intrinsic relation between education and imagination. In the end, we will analyze major challenges presented by the situation when the imagination of our students is captured by the controversial creations of the media, by street mythology or villain heroes.
About Stefan:
Since 1996 Stefan Popenici was a senior researcher in the Institute of Educational Sciences, Romania, within Educational Management Department. As a former Advisor to the Minister in the Romania‚s Ministry of Education and Research, Dr. Popenici was responsible with educational policies for Romania‚s educational reform, educational research and coordinator of a national project on education against discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism. Stefan Popenici holds a Ph.D. in Educational Sciences (with a dissertation on Education and Imagery. A study on fairy tales), a Master degree in Educational Management and a BA in Pedagogy and Psychology from Bucharest University. Dr Popenici have professional experience as international expert or participant in different international programs in education in Belgrade (Serbia), Oxford (UK), Washington D.C (U.S.A.), Barcelona (Spain), Budapest (Hungary), Salzburg (Austria), Jerusalem (Israel) and Manila (Philippines). He was associate professor between 1997 to 2000 in Bucharest University and Iasi University and Associate Professor in De La Salle University ˆ Manila, in 2005. Mr. Popenici published a book on imagery, education and imagination and various studies and articles in education
Spring 2005 Seminars
Imagine a Computer Imagine...Gadi Alexander, Ben Gurion University, Israel. (Visiting Scholar at SFU in 2005/6). |
January 25, 2006
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Computers challenge our perceptions of what representations, thinking, social presence, and many other so called "uniquely human" qualities entail. Our special interest in imagination at IERG leads us to the current thought experiment attempting to find out if common computer applications could change our perception of what imagination could be while scaffolding or hindering our ability to imagine. The presentation (which is intended to begin a collaborative effort to think together about these issues) will zoom-in on four representative categories of computer applications.
We will attempt to develop a model of the types of interaction and imagination that are afforded in each category. The question is what this interplay entails for educators who are concerned about the engagement of the imagination of their students. |
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Fall 2005 Seminar
Our 2005 Fall Seminar was held on 22nd . September at Simon Fraser University. There were three talks, followed by discussion: |
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 The audience gathers for the fun. Our new IERG faculty member, Sean Blenkinsop, in the red shirt in the front row, fortifies himself for what is to come. |
Kieran Egan spoke on: |
Large / Small Large / Small Large / Small |
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Our second seminar took place on Thursday, October 27 th . Dr, Natalia Gajdamaschko spoke on the topic "Vygotsky and Culture." She discussed the complexities of Vygotsky's interpretation of culture as it is formulated in cultural historical psychology. She drew on her recent chapter written with Michael Cole that will appear in The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky . The discussion was so lively, we had to eventually close it down so that Dr. Gajdamaschko could get dinner and save the remains of her voice. Video will be available soon. |
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Fall 2004 Seminars
Improving teaching by fostering educational judgment: Roles for dialogue and imagination Nov 5 2004An interactive talk by Dr. David Coulter, Associate Professor, UBC |
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For most of the last fifty years efforts to improve teaching have emphasized direct links between various forms of knowledge and improved practice. In contrast, I contend that understanding teaching practice as the exercise of educational judgment is a better way to understand teaching. Ironically, for a profession concerned with making decisions affecting the lives of others, judgment is an under-theorized topic in education. The study of human judgment, however, has a 2400-year history in Western scholarship, beginning with Plato and Aristotle, through Kant, to the relatively recent work of Arendt (1978), Gadamer (1960/1996) and Habermas (1992/1996). I report on my efforts to develop and use an Arendtian framework--with its concern for particular forms of dialogue and imagination--to understand teaching as the exercise of educational judgment. |
Towards a clearer understanding of Imagination; Dispelling the Fog of Myth Oct 22 2004
An interactive talk and discussion led by Dr. Keiichi Takaya of the Imaginative Education Research Group |
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Imagination is a term which induces strongly approving reactions from many people, perhaps especially in the field of education. However, upon close scrutiny, most people's idea of imagination's role in education is vague or confused. One of the reasons lies in the vagueness and complexity of the concept of imagination itself. As a brief review of modern intellectual history will show, we have inherited a few particularly misleading ideas on the nature of imagination and its significance in education. In this presentation, I will examine these myths and misunderstandings, and present a better way of understanding the connection between imagination and education. |
Hand Outs |
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Breaking the Ties That Bind; Beyond imagination and memory in an at-risk youth literacy program
Oct 1, 2004
Theory, examples, and discussion led by Dr. Andrew Schofield of the Newton Learning Center School District 36, Surrey, BC |
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At what point is imagination and memory a hindrance to education and learning? In the second IERG Colloquium of the fall, we were introduced to a Youth Literacy Program located in a Surrey alternate secondary school. Engagement with the literacies of student lives is shown to be a viable, necessary, yet insufficient response to the challenges facing inner city youth. Two examples demonstrate how "at risk" students may change their lives through classwork: their acts are found to be liberatory and, in the contexts of student lives, revolutionary. The talk also raises questions regarding the dialectics of freedom, agency, and pedagogy within Surrey classrooms. |
Copy of the paper |
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Seminar on "Here be Dragons ." September 2004
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Mark Fettes and Anne Chodakowski joined with members of the faculty, students, and practicing teachers to discuss "An imaginative approach to teaching the high school essay". Everyone met at the Diamond University Club at the SFU Burnaby Campus for some drinks, some snacks and a chance to interact and talk about the application of the imaginative education way of teaching. Here you can download (pdf) the 3 page Framework of the lesson plan that Mark and Anne presented and discussed with the audience. As soon as we can we will also add some video footage for you to watch. Please visit this page again soon! If you would like to try to find out more, click to this page for the worksheets and guides. |
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Seminar on "Vygotsky and imagination" Summer 2004
| Natalia Gajdamaschko led this seminar, introducing Vygotsky's ideas on imagination and education, and leading into such questions as whether children are more imaginative than adults, aiming to disrupt a commonly held view. The seminar was very lively, dealt with a range of issues about imagination and about Vygotsky's educational ideas. You may read Natalia's introductory papers here. |
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Seminar on "What are cognitive tools and how many of them are there?" Summer 2004
This seminar began by trying to give some adequate notion of what cognitive tools are, and broached a number of problems that the concept raises. It then explored the kinds of cognitive tools that have been a staple of the IERG's work, debating in what sense these were examples of cognitive tools and raising issues about how we are to classify the range of tools, from oral language or literacy to much smaller scale "tools." The seminar was introduced by Kieran Egan, and you can read his introductory materials here. |
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Seminar on "Metaphor" Fall 2003
| Metaphor is ubiquitous in all languages, and seems to be energetic at the time young children are learning language. It forms an explicit part of at least one of the planning Frameworks for teaching developed by the IERG. During this seminar we explored a range of ideas about metaphor and its educational uses. The seminar was introduced by Kieran Egan, and you can read his introductory materials here. |
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