Summary of SyMETRI Meeting: March 25, 2025 by Qiaochu Xu
Presenter/Guest Speaker: Dr. Maria Jose Athie Martinez, a recent graduate from Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy from the University of British Columbia
Date: March 25th, 2025
Host: Dr. Cynthia Nicol

On March 25, 2025, Dr. Maria Jose Athie Martinez presented her PhD dissertation research on Understanding Reconciliation in the Classroom: Teachers’ Responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action. This session was an opportunity to learn about her insightful study and engage in a workshop-style discussion on bringing Indigenous perspectives and reconciliation education into our own teaching, particularly in mathematics.

This research was guided by Indigenous Storywork principles (Archibald, 2008) of relationships—interrelatedness, respect, reciprocity, reverence, responsibility, wholism, and synergy—and to this, she added relevance. She also drewupon her experiences with Mexica dance to offer a research approach and lens for understanding the world, as well as to give meaning to this study. The findings of this dissertation were organized around four themes:

1. Teachers perceived reconciliation as a process of building relationships over time;
2. Teachers’ pedagogical approaches to reconciliation were informed by understanding injustices and Indigenous pedagogies and ways of knowing;
3. Indigenous and reconciliation education required changing mindsets and taking risks; and
4. Teachers emphasized the importance of relationality at multiple levels.

This study offered insights about the importance of building relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people as processes of reconciliation.

Participating teachers’ understanding of reconciliation, as described through their teaching practices, either emphasized the injustices Indigenous people had experienced and continued to experience or drew upon Indigenous teaching practices as acts of reconciliation. Teachers reported that successful and effective Indigenous and reconciliation education required moving out of their comfort zones and changing both their own and their students’ perspectives. Conclusions highlighted how non-Indigenous teachers understood Indigenous and reconciliation education. This study also offered the Mexica dance as both method and metaphor for reconciliation education, emphasizing the ongoing need to build relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people across educational fields.

Here are some slides from Maria’s presentation:

SyMETRI members expanded the conversation by reflecting on what reconciliation meant to them and what role they believed they had in advancing reconciliation through their teaching practices. Some members shared personal reflections on their connections to land and to their hometowns, considering the historical, cultural, and personal significance of these places in relation to Indigenous territories. Others raised thoughtful questions about the use of Mexica dance as a research approach for understanding the world, expressing interest in how embodied cultural practices can contribute to educational inquiry. Additionally, participants asked for concrete examples of teaching strategies for introducing reconciliation in the classroom and engaged in discussion about how such approaches might differ when teaching Indigenous students, highlighting the importance of relationality, responsiveness, and cultural awareness in pedagogical practice.

Bio

Dr. Maria Jose Athie Martinez is a Mexican Mestiza scholar, passionate advocate for Indigenous rights. She is an educator with a passion for decolonizing, indigenizing and culturally responsive education. Specialization in Indigenous, reconciliation, culturally responsive education. Dr. Athie Martinez’s research explores how seven non-Indigenous teachers in Greater Vancouver are responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, integrating Indigenous perspectives into their teaching. Through Indigenous Storywork principles and her own experiences with Mexica dance, she offers a lens for understanding reconciliation education as a relational and transformative process.

Summary of SyMETRI Meeting: January 28th, 2025 by Qiaochu Xu
Presenter/Guest Speaker: Malihe Manzouri, from Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia
Date: January 28th, 2025
Host: Dr. Cynthia Nicol

At the SyMETRI meeting on January 28, 2025, Malihe Manzouri leads SyMETRI members through a series of exercises designed to reveal the challenges immigrant students encounter in math classrooms. Using Farsi-style numerals, questions written in an unfamiliar language, and problems that common translation tools struggle to interpret, participants gain firsthand insight into the linguistic barriers that can affect students’ mathematical understanding.

These activities allow teachers to step into the shoes of immigrant students, helping them recognize the importance of inclusive instructional strategies. The workshop offers insights for supporting multilingual learners, ensuring that all students—regardless of their language background—can engage meaningfully with mathematics. SyMETRI members leave with a deeper understanding of how language barriers and mathematical number writing systems create additional challenges for immigrant students, particularly as they navigate solving math problems in a new language and educational setting.

Bio

Malihe Manzouri is an educator and researcher passionate about mathematics education. She holds a master’s degree in mathematics education from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the National University of Malaysia. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at UBC, focusing on the mathematical learning experiences of immigrant students in Canada.

With extensive teaching and mentoring experience in diverse educational settings—including universities, schools, and her own academic consulting company, Coherent Consulting Corp.—Malihe strives to create inclusive and equitable learning opportunities for students. Her unique academic journey, transitioning from engineering to education, allows her to bridge technical and social perspectives in her research and teaching.

Summary of SyMETRI Meeting: January 14th, 2025 by Qiaochu Xu
Presenter/Guest Speaker: Julian Marcado, from Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia
Date: January 14th, 2025
Host: Dr. Cynthia Nicol

On Jan 14^th, Julian Marcado shared insights from his capstone project titled “Exploring the Potential of Garden-Based Teaching for Mathematics Education: The Case of One High School Educator in British Columbia.” Julian’s research focused on Garden-Based Learning (GBL), a pedagogical approach that integrated hands-on, experiential activities in garden settings to enhance mathematics education. His study revealed how GBL fostered greater student engagement, motivation, and comprehension of mathematical concepts while also addressing the challenges educators faced in integrating these methods within the standard curriculum.

Julian’s study employed a qualitative case study design, focusing on a single high school mathematics teacher utilizing GBL. It followed a flexible and emergent approach, emphasizing collaboration and consultation with the teacher throughout the process. This design aimed to provide rich, descriptive insights for educators and researchers, offering practical implications for implementing GBL in mathematics education. Through this case study, Julian demonstrated the potential of GBL to enrich teaching practices and inspire further exploration into innovative pedagogical methods.

Following Julian’s presentation, members of the SyMETRI group engaged in a thoughtful discussion, posing questions about various aspects of maintaining a school garden. They asked whether students planted and harvested edible vegetables and fruits and how these activities were incorporated into the curriculum. The group also delved into how the teacher linked garden-based learning with mathematical concepts, seeking clarity on the strategies used to connect practical gardening activities with abstract mathematics. Furthermore, the conversation brought attention to the challenges teachers face in sustaining such programs and the opportunities these gardens present for communities to create valuable, sustainable, and educational spaces.

Bio

Julian is an MEd student in Mathematics Education at UBC’s Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy. With a background in History and Mathematics and five years of high school teaching experience, he recently completed a capstone project focusing on garden-based learning. His research interests lie in exploring how school gardens can provide innovative opportunities for teaching mathematics in engaging and dynamic ways.

Summary of SyMETRI Meeting: December 10th, 2024 by Dr. Cynthia Nicol
Presenter/Guest Speaker: Dr. Kshamta Hunter, Faculty of Education and manager of Transformative Learning & Student Engagement at the University of British Columbia
Date: December 10th, 2024
Host: Dr. Cynthia Nicol

Dr. Kshamta introduced us to her research and activities on the Climate-Kind Pedagogy project, a project supported by a UBC Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund grant. The project involves faculty and students from across Canada and Australia to meet and talk about how to re-introduce kindness in academia in the midst of a poly-crisis world and climate emergencies.

Right from the beginning Dr. Kshamta had us contributing our own thoughts and experiences to the presentation. She asked “How are you integrating climate education in your learning and teaching?” Her questions required that we “stand-up” to move from the sidelines of listening, toward sharing ideas and actions with each other. This is what conversations about climate emergencies should do – move us to act.

Kindness, emphasized Dr. Kshamta, is not about being nice. Kindness is about making space for critical engagement with others, respectfully challenging our own and others’ ideas, within a supportive space. A Climate-Kind Pedagogy can be described as a humanizing pedagogy with foundational values, a transformative learning theory, and reflexive pedagogy.

Enacting Climate-kind Pedagogy involves attention to values. “How can we bring values into the classroom?” asks Dr. Kshamta, and “How can you enact these in your classroom?” We discussed values such as justice, trust, honesty, and resilience.

An activity Dr. Kshamta shared involved inviting students (or teachers) to individually write down 3-4 values that are important to them for working on a project. Then students work in pairs to decide on the top 3 values they agree on as a pair, then they work in a small group and decide on the top 3 values agreed upon as a group. The process involves discussion, negotiation, and awareness. It involves individuals and groups in co-creating values to guide their work with each other in kind and relational ways.

Making space for these difficult conversations around the climate emergency is crucial and Dr. Kshamta give us valuable insights on how we might do this ourselves and with our students, colleagues, and families in kind and respectful ways.

Recommended resources:
https://climatelearning.ca/
https://climateemergency.ubc.ca/

Bio

Dr. Kshamta Hunter is an instructor in the Faculty of Education and the manager of Transformative Learning & Student Engagement at the University of British Columbia. Her research aims to design responsive and relevant integrative curriculum and pedagogical approaches for the 21st century, through a values-based and justice-informed lens. She is a member of first External Advisory Committee for Canada’s 2030 Agenda and recipient of the 2023 President’s Service Award for Excellence.

Summary of SyMETRI Meeting: November 26th, 2024 by Stephanie La France
Presenter/Guest Speaker: Diana Royea from Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia
Date: November 26th, 2024
Host: Dr. Cynthia Nicol

Today, Diana Royea did a mock presentation for her doctoral defence. She explained that her research was inspired by noticing that many teachers (PSTs) were finding their programs and coursework theory heavy with few opportunities to plan math lessons. She wanted to support teachers in connecting theory and practice in mathematics.

Diana used Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenology as a methodology to explore the experiences of PSTs. She enhanced her understanding of students’ experiences by combining Activity Theory and Professional Theorizing to complement the phenomenological study. These were her research questions:

• What are PST’s lived experiences of participating in learning study as part of their learning to teach math coursework?
  • Themes from Q1: PST understanding of learning study; PST experience Studenting; PST collaboration
• How do PST elementary math teachers understand and use variation theory to inform their pedagogical decisions while collaboratively planning learning situations?
  • Themes from Q2: understanding theory in relation to practice, developing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)

Through her presentation, Diana discussed how she used Learning Study as a collaborative action research model. Learning Study uses a theory of learning to inform pedagogical decision making and student learning, and Diana decided on Variation Theory – a learning theory that she clarified in the questioning period as a theory of learning stating that students’ conceptual understanding gains sophistication through small variations. She used the example of mathematics where if students are developing a deeper understanding of the equal sign, the format of the equations they are engaging with would be varied.

Thirty-eight student teachers participated in the Learning study which involved labs; however, only 7 individual students and 2 groups of 5-6 students participated in the research as participants. Diana showcased how her project and the learning study enabled students to have a more meaningful connection with theory—such a meaningful finding for supporting PSTs in their journey to developing praxis! Additionally, Diana’s study is only the 3^rd study in Canada to focus on Learning Study and teacher education! Thanks Diana!

Here are some slides from Diana’s presentation:

Bio

Diana Royea is a doctoral student in EDCP and is preparing to defend her dissertation on December 3, 2024. Her committee includes Dr. Cynthia Nicol (supervisor), and committee members Dr. Ann Anderson, Dr. Tony Clarke and the late Dr. Carl Leggo.

Summary of SyMETRI Meeting: November 12th, 2024 by Stephanie La France
Presenter/Guest Speaker: Ariane Faria dos Santos from Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia
Date: November 12, 2024
Host: Dr. Cynthia Nicol

At the SyMETRI meeting on November 12th, 2024, Ariane Faria dos Santos shared about her experience writing comprehensive exams, and specifically, her thought process on finding, analysing, and managing literature. In her presentation, she covered the following platforms:

• Covidence platform and its many functions particularly for systematic review.
• Mendeley – for tracking sources and their characteristics
• NVivo – for coding papers for themes in the literature

She also shared her thoughts on how to approach literature reviews and reading literature. For example:

• How to decide on a kind of literature review: scope vs systematic. Systematic uses a methodological approach that is replicable by others and formulaic and is intended to capture the state of established fields; scoping literature reviews are intended for emergent topics and takes an explorative approach that covers broader connections.
• How to choose databases: ERIC, Education Source, Academic Search Complete, and Scopus are databases that would capture educational literature.
• How to narrow down research focus for the paper and main question guiding the literature review : think deeply about what exactly it is you want to synthesize and how it supports the topic that you are reviewing the literature for.
• How to choose search terms for the library database: this is trial and error, but you can refine your search terms as you go and repeat the searches. Look to see what terms the literature you are interested in is using have in their abstracts, titles, and search terms.
• How to do a Boolean search in the UBC library: see your friendly librarian!

Here are some slides from Ariane’s presentation:

We were happy to have Ariane join us and give some insight into how to approach various types of literature reviews and choose the platforms that will work for us!

Bio

Ariane Faria dos Santos is a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy. Her research interests include curriculum implementation and teaching practices to improve learning opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds. She is particularly interested in understanding how to better connect both micro (classroom/school) and macro (policymaker) stakeholders to design and implement more equitable curriculum policies.

Summary of SyMETRI Meeting: October 29th, 2024 by Stephanie La France
Presenter/Guest Speaker: Tony Domina from Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia
Date: October 29th, 2024
Host: Dr. Cynthia Nicol

At the SyMETRI meeting on October 29^th, 2024, Tony Domina shared about his recently completed Capstone project on Project Based Learning (PBL) in/through STEM education. Tony interviewed various STEM subject teachers to find out about their experiences with and perspectives on PBL in hopes to gain insight into how we might support future practice and refine ideas for projects at his school. He engaged with thematic analysis coming to three major themes. The first theme in his research indicated that teachers felt STEM PBL developed key skills like critical thinking and collaboration through group work, and that the open-ended nature of the projects fostered creativity. The second theme showed that, for these projects to be considered successful, there must be scaffolding of engagement for students, a balance between theory and practice, and that projects align with global issues of relevance. Finally, in his analysis, the third theme that emerged was around challenges and sustaining practice of PBL. He noted that there were three factors: lack of time and resources, simplifying complex problems, and building and sustaining partnerships with community.

In considering the future of PBL in STEM education, Tony suggests interdepartmental collaboration (and even beyond) through various online platforms like Google Classroom (as an example). He considers various avenues for how to get communities of practice going and sustained within his school and across his district.  He notes that a stronger community of practice would lead to better alignment between assessment and instruction through the projects (rather than as a separate enrichment activity). This would enable students to progress through the project while teachers could more efficiently support their trajectory through curriculum. He emphasized that this collaboration would help students learn concepts in the curriculum and get excited about learning by sharing their great ideas with the community.  In fact, John Larmer talks about PBL to motivate students because students start connecting projects with real life challenges and helps them feel like they are making a difference; the project becomes more authentic, and so the activity associated with the project becomes more authentic.

Here are some slides from Tony’s presentation:

We are excited to see what future projects Tony takes up as it relates to his research interests like connecting with a broader community, engaging with longitudinal studies on STEM-based projects fitting the PBL frameworks, and studies that include student feedback. Tony is also excited by the potential for mixed methods studies and the use of quantitative data to complement qualitative. He feels that future studies are critical to support teachers sense of self-efficacy in implementing PBL in meaningful and authentic ways that promote student-centered decision making. “A lot of teachers do amazing things, it’s just that we so often do it individually, so I want to encourage more collaboration to share ideas.” We couldn’t agree more, Tony!