By Dr. Tim Waddington Walk any sideline on a mid-October Saturday morning and they’ll all tell you… watching your kids at mini-soccer is an easy conduit to happiness. Everywhere you look, you’ll see a field of shiny uniforms and happy flushed faces, representing teams with intimidating names like the Spiders, Vipers, Thunder and Tornados. With […]
By Matthew J. Kruger-Ross, PhD (Assistant Professor, Educational Technology, West Chester University of Pennsylvania) I regularly teach an online graduate courses for educators on teaching and learning online. Unfortunately, almost every version of the course that I’ve taught or seen begins with the assumption that we can take what we know about teaching in the physical classroom and […]
By Glenn Ellis (Professor of Engineering, Smith College, USA) The year is 1981 and it is the first day of my geotechnical engineering class. The professor enters the classroom and writes on the board: geotech—the dark arts of engineering! We were fascinated and eager to learn all about this magical topic. However, the magic quickly […]
By Adriana Grimaldo (Author, Educator, Graduate Student) In my experience, the profession of writing has to do with the ability to transform a series of images in our mind into words. It might sound crazy but, when I wrote Valles y Alturas, De Noche and Viento Austral, I had the feeling that I was seeing the […]
I recently* published an article in the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education that provides a rationale for in-depth and imaginative study as part of an ecological approach to teaching. In other words, Learning in Depth meets Imaginative Ecological Education! (I say “recently” because the journal came out in 2017 but it is a 2015 volume!) […]
By Dr. Tim Waddington **DISCLAIMER** You are not going to make it all the way through to the end of this blog, guaranteed! Anyone with even limited teaching experience will attest that the following scenario is true, … can feel true, … has the unsolicited air of ‘truthiness’ lurking about it. Every teacher, even […]
“People have long harboured a touch of disdain toward walking.” (Rubinstein, 2015, p. 96) Walking With Secondary Students The Walking Curriculum offers learning activities designed to simultaneously develop students’ sense of place and to enrich their understanding of cross-curricular topics and core competencies. It reflects principles and practices of Imaginative Ecological Education bringing engagement of the body, imagination and […]
By Matthew Oldridge (Father, TEDx speaker, mathematics educator, and thinker.) When I was first thinking about mathematics as a critical and creative endeavour, I wrote this piece for The Learning Exchange (Ontario Ministry of Education) blog. It is upsetting that kids don’t see mathematics as a creative, living and vibrant subject. (Some don’t, at least.) […]
By Kristen Swaren (Grade 6 Student; LiD topic: Pests) Learning In Depth, or LiD, is a collaborative hour block every Tuesday at my school. Everyone has a topic. My topic is pests. Some people choose to work together, and some people choose to work alone. I am working alone because I feel it is better, because […]
Walk more. Anywhere. (Rubinstein, 2015, p. 251) Walking With High School Students The Walking Curriculum offers learning activities designed to simultaneously develop your students’ sense of place and to enrich their understanding of cross-curricular topics and core competencies. Walking curriculum activities reflect the principles and practices of Imaginative Ecological Education as they connect engagement of the body, imagination and the local […]
Here is a very brief slideshow that aims to clarify what we mean by “imagination” in Imaginative Education. Please SHARE if you value imagination too! All learners, all contexts. Imagination matters.
By Greta Visscher-Pau (Secondary FSL Teacher) It’s 2020, and you are on a train. You carry nothing but a backpack, filled with clothes, toiletries and a guidebook explaining how to get from A to B. As you wait for the train to pull out from the station, a smiling person walks […]
By Terri Zolob (K/1 Teacher) You never know what’s in store when you begin a journey. Perhaps it is a bit of the unknown that intrigues us to take that first step. That first step for me came 5 years ago when, as fate would have it, I met Kieran Egan. It in the cozy […]
By Jolene McFadyen-Nein (Kindergarten Teacher) Working in a school that is nestled in the heart of our community has sparked my interest in Place-Based learning. Many of my students live close by, but have very little understanding of the place in which they live. I have pushed to ensure that my students have emotional ties […]
I’m pleased to announce that the Walking Curriculum is expanding! Coming soon: Resources for secondary school students that look at issues of “walkability”, social justice, and community development. So please stay tuned! This set of walks and resources (Set #10) was suggested by the awesome teachers in Surrey, B.C., Canada, who participated in a “#getoutside” […]
