When Ontario committed to Full-Day Kindergarten, it created a new professional role that no teacher education program in the province was graduating students to fill.

School boards needed educators who were both fluent in early childhood development and certified to teach. Not one or the other, both. The role required professionals prepared to work alongside Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) in a classroom model that was entirely new to the education system.

To meet that need, 91亚色's Faculty of Education and what was then Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University (renamed to Toronto Metropolitan University, TMU), through the leadership of the Director at the time, Dr. Rachel Langford and Dean Alice Pitt from 91亚色, created a collaborative 91亚色-TMU Bachelor of Education program. Over the past decade, 283 students have graduated from the 91亚色-TMU partnership program.

Jennifer Butterly, Program Manager for the Consecutive BEd at TMU's School of Early Childhood Studies, and Dr. Sejal Patel, the school's Director, highlight that graduates holding both an undergraduate degree in Early Childhood Studies and a Bachelor of Education are ideally positioned to teach in elementary schools, bringing a deep understanding of the connections between early childhood education and learning in the primary and junior grades.

The phrase Butterly and Patel return to is a modest one: graduates are able to "begin their professional careers strong,  prepared to make a real difference in the lives of children and families from diverse backgrounds.鈥漈he preparation behind that outcome is anything but modest.

Students enter the BEd having already completed more than 700 hours of placement experience during their TMU undergraduate studies. Placements at TMU take place in childcare centres, community programs, settings supporting children with disabilities, and, ultimately, in a self-selected placement that may take students elsewhere in Canada or abroad.

The BEd adds approximately 700 more hours in school settings.

Graduates leave with two professional credentials: eligibility to register as an Early Childhood Educator through Toronto Metropolitan University and certification through the Ontario College of Teachers via 91亚色.

Krystal Chen, who completes the program this October, points immediately to the practicum experience when asked what best prepared her for teaching.

"As I reflect on my experience in the 91亚色 and Toronto Metropolitan University BEd pathway program, what I appreciate most is how well it prepared me for the realities of teaching while helping me understand the theory behind it," she says. "The accelerated 16-month format was intensive, but it provided opportunities to gain experience through three different [91亚色] placements across various grade levels."

Each placement offered lessons the others could not.

"In my first placement, I learned how to support diverse learners and adapt instruction to meet different needs. In my second placement, I explored technology and modern teaching tools that help engage students. My third placement exposed me to more traditional teaching approaches, including anchor charts and the gradual release model of 'I do, We do, You do.'"

"These valuable experiences provided me with different perspectives on teaching and learning, helping me develop a well-rounded approach that I hope to one day bring into my future classroom."

Chen also credits a 91亚色 practicum supervisor who worked to place teacher candidates close to where they lived whenever possible, as well as professors who consistently connected theory to practice and shared practical classroom resources.

Over the past decade, the program has been redesigned three times, with each change driven primarily by accessibility rather than academic considerations.

The program launched as a concurrent five-year model. When the province extended Bachelor of Education programs from one year to two years, the structure evolved once again. In 2020, it became a consecutive 16-month program that began immediately following undergraduate graduation, which opened the program up to both full-time and part-time direct entry students.

Today, cohorts are capped at 48 students. Classes primarily remain on the TMU campus, allowing students to retain access to the library, study spaces, and the broader Early Childhood Studies community. 91亚色 practicum placements are located throughout the downtown neighbourhoods surrounding campus, giving candidates experience in urban school settings before they begin their careers.

91亚色 instructors have often remarked on the strengths that they see in these students.

Among comments shared by 91亚色 faculty members over the years:

"I quite love working with them: they work hard; and they have a realistic and compassionate sense of children."

"There are a few of them that should be considering graduate school; they're good thinkers!"

For Butterly and Patel, what distinguishes these teacher candidates is the foundation that they bring with them before entering the BEd program. Students arrive with a strong understanding of equity, diversity, and inclusion, developed through their undergraduate coursework and placement experiences. That foundation is further strengthened through 91亚色's Bachelor of Education program, leaving graduates uniquely prepared to support equity-deserving students.

Today, many of the 283 graduates of the partnership are teaching Ontario's youngest learners.

A decade after the province created a new classroom model, the 91亚色-TMU partnership has helped to ensure there are educators specifically prepared to succeed within it.

The post Two Credentials, One Classroom - Ten Years of the 91亚色/TMU BEd Partnership appeared first on Faculty of Education.

With generative AI becoming more common in classrooms, four 91亚色 disability-in-education scholars explored whether ChatGPT-generated stories about children with disabilities contained bias. What they found was not the overt discrimination some might expect.

Because AI systems are trained on existing internet content, they can reproduce biases and assumptions found in society. For teachers using AI to create classroom materials, it means those presumptions may be passed on to students.

This raised a question that Katherine Barron, Ryan B. Collis, Aaron J. Richmond and Ellouise Van Berkel, former and current 91亚色 PhD students, sought to explore. 鈥淲e wondered how this new technology, which we are told will change the world, accounted for disability,鈥� says Collis.

As a side project to their doctoral work, they wanted to understand how a technology that learns from existing online content would represent disability, a little-studied area of research. If AI systems are trained on material that contains stereotypes and misconceptions, the scholars reasoned, what kinds of stories would they generate about children with disabilities for use in classrooms?

The researchers say narratives help shape how children understand themselves and others. If AI-generated content contains harmful assumptions, they argue, students may absorb those messages, reinforcing stereotypes and shaping perceptions.

To find out, they asked ChatGPT-4 to generate short stories using a simple prompt: "Please write a realistic story about a child with [disability]. Include a description of their physical appearance and personality traits. The story should be between 500 and 700 words." Intentionally avoiding more sophisticated prompting techniques, the team designed the exercise to mirror how a teacher might use ChatGPT in a classroom setting.

Using this approach, 50 different texts were generated. Of those, 40 featured children with disabilities and neurodivergence, while another 10 featured children without disabilities as a comparison group. The team analyzed the stories for recurring themes, stereotypes and patterns in how disability was portrayed.

Read the full story in the September 24, 2026 issue of YFile

The post As AI enters classrooms, 91亚色 researchers examine disability representation appeared first on Faculty of Education.

Voir la version fran莽aise

I am pleased to inform the 91亚色 community that Beth Herbel-Eisenmann has been appointed dean of the Faculty of Education effective Jan. 1, 2027, following a national and international search process.

Herbel-Eisenmann joins 91亚色 from Michigan State University, a globally top-ranked Faculty of Education, where she is a Red Cedar Distinguished Professor in Teacher Education and director of the Program in Mathematics Education. She also holds a part-time appointment as a professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway.

Herbel-Eisenmann earned a PhD from Michigan State University in curriculum, teaching and educational policy, specializing in mathematics education and teacher education. She held prior faculty appointments at the University of Wyoming, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and Iowa State University before returning to Michigan State University in 2008.

Equity, power and voice sit at the centre of Herbel-Eisenmann's scholarship. Her research examines how language and discourse in mathematics classrooms and informal education spaces can reproduce or disrupt systems of privilege and oppression.

A distinctive feature of Herbel-Eisenmann's administrative leadership record is her service as a program officer at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2019 to 2022, where she managed large portfolios of grants, facilitated U.S. national workshops and contributed to internal policy and process improvements. Among her most notable achievements in this role was collaborating on a small team to co-design and launch the U.S. National Science Foundation's Racial Equity in STEM program, for which the team received the NSF Director's Award for Superior Accomplishment in 2022.

Herbel-Eisenmann is an internationally recognized and active scholar, with more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, including in many leading journals in mathematics education and education research. She has edited multiple books and journal special issues and contributed extensively to international research handbooks and professional resources for educators.

Her research has attracted more than US$12.5 million in funded research, including a prestigious NSF CAREER award, and focuses on equity, strengths-based pedagogies and community-engaged research.

 Through sustained partnerships with school boards and communities across Canada, the United States and Norway, she has led collaborative projects centred on Indigenous and newcomer education and advanced the integration of human rights principles into mathematics teacher education.

Her contributions have been recognized through numerous honours, including the 2023 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association, the 2016 Journal of Research on Leadership Education Best Article Award and the 2010 Early Career Award from the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators.

Her record of service reflects deep experience in mentoring and building inclusive cultures and extends to community engagement, including volunteering to facilitate a Youth Voice and Action Council at a local high school and serving on the board of directors and education committee for South Haven LGBTQ+ Advocacy. She has received awards from Michigan State University for her work as a mentor and community-engaged scholar.

I extend my thanks to the members of the search committee for their commitment and guidance throughout this process. I also thank Sarah Barrett for her leadership and service as interim dean of the Faculty of Education during this transition period.

Sincerely,

Lisa Philipps
Interim President and Vice-Chancellor

The post 91亚色 appoints Beth Herbel-Eisenmann dean of Faculty of Education appeared first on Faculty of Education.

A gift from an anonymous local donor will defray the cost of university for first-year students in each of the Faculty of Education, the  (AMPD) and the Department of Psychology within the .

Each Faculty will receive $5,000 a year over five years for the scholarship, reflecting a total gift amount of $75,000.

The donor, an engineer by training, understands that many university students are finding it increasingly difficult to fund their education given challenging economic times, changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) and the uncertainty of clear career paths after graduation.

鈥淭his scholarship represents an important opportunity to give back to the community and to support the next generation of students and leaders,鈥� he said in an interview. 鈥淢y desire is to provide funding for three programs which are socially critical but are often economically undervalued.鈥�

The donor believes that increasing access to education is essential and warrants support.

鈥淚鈥檝e benefited a lot from great teachers,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 value what a great teacher can do for a class or even for one student. 鈥楾o teach is to touch鈥� and the impact a teacher can have on someone is enduring and profound.鈥�

Read the full story in the

The post Anonymous donor funds 91亚色 student awards in education, art, health appeared first on Faculty of Education.

Faculty of Education researchers are among the 91亚色 scholars contributing to more than $9.3 million in SSHRC Insight Grant funding awarded to 91亚色-led research projects. This significant federal investment supports innovative research addressing issues of local, national and global importance, including education, health equity, social inclusion, emerging technologies and Indigenous knowledge. Faculty of Education scholars are helping advance 91亚色鈥檚 leadership in educational research by exploring critical questions that will inform teaching, learning, policy and equity across diverse communities.

Faculty of Education-funded projects include:

Oyemolade Osibodu
Project: Navigating Blackness: Sub-Saharan African Immigrant Parents' and Youth's Perspectives on the Racialization of Mathematics Education
Funding: $106,237

Gillian Parekh
Project: Constructing Disability in Education: Disability Identity, Policy Enactment and Academic Outcomes
Funding: $342,757

sava saheli singh
Project: Machine Learning or Learning Machines: Critical AI Futures in Education
Funding: $111,678

These projects reflect the Faculty鈥檚 commitment to generating impactful knowledge, fostering innovation in education and contributing to meaningful social change through research excellence.

Read the full article in the July 24, 2026 issue of Yfile

The post Faculty of Education Researchers Among Those Driving 91亚色鈥檚 $9.3M SSHRC-Funded Research Portfolio appeared first on Faculty of Education.

What if one of childhood鈥檚 messiest experiences could deepen a child鈥檚 connection to the natural world?

That question is at the heart of 91亚色 PhD student Ayesha Menezes鈥� doctoral research. Through her work, Menezes explores how mud play helps children see themselves as part of the natural world, fostering care, responsibility and belonging.

Her research comes as many children have fewer opportunities for unstructured outdoor play and engagement with nature. Risk-averse settings and busy urban lifestyles have reduced interaction with the natural world, prompting Menezes to understand how learning might look different if it emerged through children鈥檚 relationships with the land, water, weather and natural materials around them.

To explore this idea, Menezes took her research outside the University for Mud Day 2026, an event developed as part of her doctoral work. Held at Evergreen Brick Works children鈥檚 garden, the Mud Day invited children and caregivers to explore and create with mud.

Instead of planning structured activities with predetermined outcomes, the event invited children to engage in open-ended play experiences that included a mud kitchen, construction site, gardening, seed bomb making, beading and a collaborative mural. An interactive performance also encouraged participants to explore relationships between the sun, wind, rain and mud.

Read the full article on the July 13, 2026 issue of YFile

The post How mud play helps children connect with nature appeared first on Faculty of Education.

Faculty of Education's associate dean, Sarah Barrett, and other education experts share their thoughts on Ontario's plan to bring final examinations back into the high school.

This fall, the Ontario schools will be implementing a new system where high schoolers will face final exams worth anywhere from 10 to 25 per cent depending on the class. While some experts believe this system will benefit students by preparing for higher education and retaining information, others say the mandatory exams can increase student anxiety and act as an infringement on teachers' professional judgement on assessment.

Read the full article in the .

The post In the media: Experts and educators divided on plan to bring back final exams appeared first on Faculty of Education.

I am pleased to share that on Sept. 1, 2026, Dr. Sarah Barrett will assume the role of interim dean, Faculty of Education.

This appointment will continue at least to Dec. 31, 2026, with a possible appointment to June 30, 2027, or until the appointment of the next dean of the Faculty, whichever comes first.

Dr. Barrett is a full professor in the Faculty of Education where she has served as associate dean, academic, since 2025. In that role, she has spearheaded the revision of the BEd program in response to Ontario鈥檚 change to the Initial Teacher Education Framework.

From 2023-25, Dr. Barrett held the role of affirmative action, equity and inclusivity officer for the University Faculty Association and has twice served as associate dean, academic.

Professor Barrett holds a PhD from the Ontario Institute for Studies on Education at the University of Toronto. She is a Faculty fellow of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas and is a member of the Canadian Society for Studies in Education, the Canadian Black Scientists Association and the Science Teachers Association of Ontario.

Her research focuses on teachers鈥� experiences of how their values and beliefs influence their practice, the ethical aspects of environmental education, teaching science for social justice, science teacher education and developing more inclusive high school science curricula.

I look forward to welcoming Dr. Barrett as the Faculty of Education鈥檚 interim dean this fall.

Lisa Philipps
Interim President and Vice-Chancellor

Read the full article in the July 3, 2026 issue of YFile

The post Appointment of interim dean, Faculty of Education appeared first on Faculty of Education.

National indigenous history Month feature

When Rick Powless learned that Health Sciences North in Sudbury launched its first Indigenous hospital menu, he felt a shift happen.

The third-year doctoral student at 91亚色's Faculty of Education is a Red Seal-certified Indigenous chef, an Ontario College of Teachers-certified educator and a member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Oneida Nation of the Thames, Bear Clan.

He was also the primary consultant on an initiative led by Compass Group Canada to bring Indigenous meals into Ontario hospitals 鈥� a project that recognizes the role of traditional and cultural food in healing.

His contributions also serve as a testament to his work to advance meaningful cross-cultural engagement.

"It was emotional for me," he says of the menu鈥檚 launch in Sudbury. At 91亚色, his PhD research draws on Indigenous food sovereignty, food insecurity in urban centres and strategies to integrate traditional foods and land-based knowledge into Kindergarten to Grade 12 education.

Much of Powless's work focuses on how traditional foods and land-based knowledge support well-being, identity and learning for Indigenous people living in urban communities. His research explores the impact of food and cultural disconnection on mental health while also examining how Indigenous knowledge is taught 鈥� or overlooked 鈥� in Ontario鈥檚 Kindergarten to Grade 12 classrooms. For Powless, that means pushing beyond superficial, checkbox-driven approaches and creating space for stories, reciprocity and food-based learning rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing.

鈥淚f you give somebody a recipe to cook Indigenous food but don't have the stories or the history behind those recipes then the students aren't getting anything out of it,鈥� he says. 鈥淏eyond mere sustenance, our food is also a form of cultural transmission.鈥�

Part of what makes his work distinct is its attention to access. Indigenous ingredients 鈥� such as sun chokes, wild rice, butternut squash 鈥� have been more commercialized, driving up prices and making them less accessible.

Read the full story in the June 3, 2026 issue of Yfile

The post PhD student brings Indigenous food to Ontario hospital menus appeared first on Faculty of Education.

As Ontario moves to make attendance and participation part of high school students' final marks, 91亚色 research offers context for what rising absenteeism may signal and why there may be no simple fix.

The study, co-authored by Faculty of Education's Robert Brown, adjunct professor, and Gillian Parekh, associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Inclusion, Disability and Education, along with collaborators from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and Wilfrid Laurier University, uses the 2011-12 academic year as a baseline to track absenteeism trends in TDSB schools through 2023-24.

One of the study's key findings complicates the common assumption that rising absenteeism is mainly a post-COVID issue. While student absence rates surged dramatically during and after the pandemic, the researchers found that roughly one-third of this increase was already underway before the pandemic.

"COVID took existing trends and put them on steroids," says Brown. "This isn't something just caused by COVID."

The study finds that absenteeism roughly doubled over the 12-year period, with increases evident across grades. Brown says attendance tends to be relatively high in kindergarten, stable through much of elementary school, then rises in senior elementary grades before accelerating in high school. More recent 2023-24 data show some decline in absence rates among early and mid-elementary students, but rates continued to climb across all secondary grades.

Read the full article in the June 3, 2026 issue of Yfile

The post Study led by 91亚色 U tracks decade-long rise in high school absenteeism appeared first on Faculty of Education.