Undergraduate Research in the Faculty of Education
Six first-year undergraduate Bachelor of Education teacher candidates were the recipients of Undergraduate Research Awards and will begin working along side professors in the Faculty of Education over the spring and summer months.
Learn more about the goals and research interests of the URA recipients and the faculty members mentoring them as the teacher candidates begin work on their first significant research projects.
Daniel Bergman
Daniel Bergman will be working with Professor Richard Hechter this summer
on developing teaching and learning sources for the Grade 11 (Senior 3) Physics 30S curriculum. These resources will focus on sound, music, and the use of musical instruments to better explore the nature and dynamics of waves, simple harmonic motion, and acoustics. They plan to identify areas in the provincial physics curriculum on sound and offer fresh, contemporary ideas for teachers to use to improve the student learning experience.
Daniel will be an active participant in this work in terms of idea generation, data collection, resource writing, and knowledge mobilization. Together, Dr. Hechter and Daniel will produce new teacher resources, at least one publishable manuscript, and expect to submit a proposal to mobilize their work at a national or international conference.
Daniel holds a bachelor’s degree in music focusing on education from Canadian Mennonite University with a minor in physics. He is in the senior years stream teaching band, choir, and physics.
Domenico Bruni
Domenico Bruni will be working with Drs. Robert Mizzi and Nathalie Piquemal. Together they intend to explore the experiences of immigrant/refugee families in schools and the issues that they face.
Domenico holds a bachelor in arts with a major in history from the University of Manitoba. He is in the senior years stream and has experience teaching history, geography, law, and English. In addition he is completing CTESL training in order to teach English as an additional language.
Juan Jimenez
Juan Jimenez will be working with Dr. Mizzi and plans to consider the issues surrounding queer professors. Under Dr. Mizzi’s guidance, he hopes to have a clearer understanding of how to support queer immigrant educators’ experiences in the classroom within an increasingly globalized world.
Juan holds a bachelor in arts with a major in English from the University of Manitoba. He is in the Senior Years Stream.
Angela O’Brien-Klewchuck
Angela O’Brien-Klewchuck will be mentored by and will assist Dr. Robert Mizzi on “The ROUTE project” which explores the experiences of educators who cross borders. She anticipates that she will be gaining practical research experience as she searches for and annotates the literature on educators and teacher candidates who cross borders, facilitates and transcribes interviews with school leaders in the ROUTE Project, assists with data analysis of the ROUTE Project, and researches pre-departure orientations for workers who cross borders to try to obtain different models of cross-border work.
Angela holds an Advanced Bachelors of Arts (B.A. Adv) in Global Political Economy at the University of Manitoba. She is in the Middle Years Stream.
Gabrielle Wiebe
Gabrielle Wiebe will collaborate with Dr. Francine Morin who is currently researching the role of music in social justice within a longitudinal research study. Her research is taking place within two school sites that host Sistema Winnipeg, an after-school orchestra program for children from disadvantaged circumstances that aims to impact social change through the pursuit of musical excellence. Going into her third year of research with this program, Dr. Morin will work with Gabrielle on assessing the children’s musical growth and development. Gabrielle will be in the field, supporting the musical assessment process and collecting data. Among other tasks, she will assist with collecting and organizing data, and transcribing interviews with children and parents.
As an up-and-coming instrumental music educator, Gabrielle is excited to learn more about Sistema Winnipeg and its impact on children and their families, as well as the role that music education in general can play in many aspects of a community.
Gabrielle completed her Bachelor of Music with a concentration in Senior Years Instrumental Education at Canadian Mennonite University. She plays the piano and minored in French and Theology. She is in the senior years stream teaching band and French.
Dr. Richard Hechter will guide an additional URA recipient who will work with him to develop strategies to connect the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba with the physics education community, including the Manitoba Association of Physics Teachers. This will be done in a three-phase process. The first phase will include an exhaustive study of University and Physics Teacher Association collaborations found globally in terms of the nature and dynamics of these partnerships. A synthesis of these results will precipitate the second phase.
The second phase of the work will include developing a strategy for establishing such a partnership in Manitoba, in terms of both the nature of the partnership and the logistics of how such a partnership would work and be sustainable. This phase will also include contacting and meeting with members of the physics teachers community.
The third phase will be to develop a website for this new partnership, and lay out a strategic plan for bringing this plan into fruition. They expect to launch the new partnership in the Fall.