OISE@AERA2012: More than 100 OISE researchers in Vancouver for North America's largest education conference

April 17, 2012

Jennifer O’Reilly and Eileen Thomas

More than 100 OISE researchers headed to Vancouver, BC last week to participate in North America’s largest meeting of educators, the American Educational Research Association Conference (AERA), joining 13,000 of their colleagues from around the world, and including 32 OISE graduate students who were helped to attend and present their research at AERA this year with assistance from OISE in the form of travel grants.

Two Human Development and Applied Psychology students, Nathalie Rothschild, a PhD student in Developmental Psychology and Education, and Kadria Simons, an MA student in Child Study and Education, were among the number.

Nathalie Rothschild, currently in the second year of a doctoral program in Developmental Psychology and Education working with Professor Janette Pelletier on a longitudinal research study on the impact of kindergarten and integrated child care on children’s academic and social development, was happy about attending her first AERA meeting “I am very excited to be attending AERA for the first time. It’s a wonderful opportunity. My own doctoral research explores the impact of full-day French immersion kindergarten programs.” Nathalie collected a prestigious Early Education and Child Development (EE/CD) SIG Student Travel Award, which she received at the EE/CD business meeting on April 15.

Kadria Simons, who will graduate in June and begins studies in the PhD program in Developmental Psychology and Education next September, also worked with Professor Pelletier, and last year was the researcher on a high profile series of articles for the Globe and Mail, the Kindergarten Diaries. Kadria’s AERA presentation extends earlier work on the effects of family literacy programs that aim to improve home literacy practices and foster children’s language and literacy development. Kadria also received an Early Education and Child Development (EE/CD) SIG Student Travel Award, which was presented to her at the EE/CD business meeting on April 15.

OISE faculty member Carol Campbell, a savvy social media user, tweeted her way through the conference, using the hashtag #AERA2012 to aggregate her tweets for those who followed the conference at a distance, and share information with colleagues on site. Reflecting on her personal experience of the conference, she said, “AERA’s 2012 theme,  To Know Is Not Enough,  provoked questions about the purpose of our education research and what knowledge we are attempting to create, construct, share and apply; how we contribute to understandings and actions; and with what implications and potential impact for educational improvement. There’s been lots of discussions, a wide range of research, new connections formed and, as always, more to do going forward. On another note, it was great to welcome US and international visitors to Canada!”

The most anticipated conference event was a joint reception, co-hosted by OISE and other members of the International Alliance of Leading Education Institutes (IALEI): the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of London, and Melbourne University on April 14 where a large contingent of OISE alumni who are researchers, teachers, and educational leaders from across the globe had an opportunity to reconnect with current and former OISE colleagues and friends.

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