Teaching for the 21st century
In 2013, the Ministry of Education announced they were "modernizing teacher education in the province beginning September 2015" and this included expanding the program to two years.
Since then, the Faculty of Education has worked diligently to re-structure and re-design our BEd program to better prepare students for 21st-century teaching and learning. The program will emphasize STEM education, with courses focused on pedagogies for critical digital literacies, coding and communication, mathematical thinking and doing, as well as mental health and responsible digital citizenry. The two-year program will be led by Dr. Diana Petrarca, who has been a part of the faculty since it opened its doors.
The process of designing, developing, and realizing major curricular changes at the program level formed the basis of a collaborative paper which was presented at the inaugural International Symposium on Higher Education in Transformation (HEIT). The symposium was organized by the Technological University for Dublin in coordination with UOIT, OCAD University, Trent University, and Durham College. The paper, Re-imagining pre-service teacher education in Ontario, Canada -- A journey in the making, shares the experiences, objectives, values, and considerations throughout the process of building a new program. It was co-authored by Dr. Janette Hughes, Dr. Diana Petrarca, Dr. Ami Mamolo, Jennifer Laffier, and alumna Laura Morrison, who recently also completed her MEd.
