Amy Burns

• PhD
• Associate Professor at University of Calgary

Two years after the introduction of the new Teaching Quality Standard in Alberta, Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers from eight teacher education programs came together to examine how teachers were weaving Indigenous knowledges into their classrooms. The fifth competency of the standard requires that all Alberta teachers possess a foundation...

As part of a commitment to deepen the braiding and weaving of Indigenous knowledge in teacher education, ten Alberta programs came together to examine how Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing were attended to within our programs. We discovered that there are three key characteristics that work to deepen the level of Indigenous knowledge in...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctv1005bhd

Alberta’s Teaching Quality Standard requires that all teachers possess and apply a foundational knowledge of Indigenous Peoples to their teaching. In 2020, representatives from ten Alberta teacher education programs came together to examine how they were braiding and weaving Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing into their programs. They als...

This article empirically examines the ways in which Initial Teacher Education in Scotland and Alberta, Canada, seeks to ‘get students in’, ‘get them out and into the workforce’, ‘get on with teaching future teachers’ and how it should ‘get on with students’. Using Adams’ (2016) policy heuristic, which posits that policy can be discerned in three re...

A current trend in practicum or field experience programs is online and blended learning approaches being implemented alongside traditional classroom experiences. Principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) should be integrated in the design of these online environments in order to better support learning needs of all students. Instructors mu...

This paper presents findings from a 2-year collaborative self-study examining four teacher educators’ (TEs’) experiences facilitating community-based field experiences in the United States and Canada. To examine our experiences working in these field settings we drew experiential learning theory (ELT) as well as the concept of apprenticeship of obs...

This article chronicles a provincial collaboration between ten Bachelor of Education degree-granting universities in Alberta, Canada. This collaboration focused on the newly implemented Teaching Quality Standard (2018) in Alberta and its impact on preservice teacher practicums. Data were collected through curriculum mapping and interviews at each i...

The history of Canadian preservice teacher practicums demonstrates that great effort has been put forth to bridge the perceived divide between university teaching programs and classroom practice. Although innovative theory and practice is often researched at the university, this can fail to transfer for a number of reasons resulting in a replicatio...

This article chronicles a provincial collaboration between ten Bachelor of Education degree-granting universities in Alberta, Canada. This collaboration focused on the newly implemented Teaching Quality Standard (2018) in Alberta and its impact on preservice teacher practicums. Data were collected through curriculum mapping and interviews at each i...

https://eera-ecer.de/ecer-programmes/conference/26/contribution/50172/

The shift to online learning that occurred in March of 2020, created an unprecedented period of intense work for faculty and sessional instructors at the post-secondary level. This shift necessitated courses be adapted under short timelines, new technology be integrated into course design and teaching strategies and assessment methods be adapted fo...

For the past three years, the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education and Rocky View School Division (RVS) have worked alongside one another to design a Professional Learning Community (PLC) for preservice teachers to develop their skills as designers in authentic professional and classroom settings. This paper examines this ongoing co...

https://www.casae-aceea.ca/webinars/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqhNu7DD7UY

This chapter describes my engagement with feminism from my time as a public school teacher and educational leader into my work as a tenured Faculty Member and Associate Dean in a large research-intensive university. It draws heavily on doctoral research concluded over a decade ago (Burns in Feminist educational leadership in the Alberta public scho...

In 2014, a university in Western Canada introduced a new community-based Bachelor of Education pathway targeting students in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities. Many students enrolled in this program are current or former educational assistants. This study employed a descriptive phenomenological methodology to have participants reflect on th...

This article examines the phenomenon of failure in a Bachelor of Education practicum from the perspectives of preservice teachers. Utilizing a phenomenological theoretical framework and methodology, the perspectives of four preservice teachers are shared. The data were drawn from practicum reports, field notes, interviews, and student teacher quest...

This book offers a new perspective on how Canadian women in the academy are re-conceptualizing and reconsidering their position as professionals. It examines central challenges associated with the lives of women scholars and higher education professionals, including their professional identity, institutional expectations, lessons learned throughout...

This document summarizes the major themes identified in a study of how Alberta mentor teachers support preservice teachers who are struggling in their field experience. Each theme is presented with a quote from a mentor teacher describing a challenge, tips for handling a similar situation, information from additional research, and resources for you...

This collaborative self-study centers on the experiences of four teacher educators facilitating preservice teacher learning in four separate community-based settings. Specifically, we examined the ways these community-based field experiences enhanced and challenged our work as teacher educators. We identified enhancements related to the settings, a...

This resource presents the findings of a two-year study on preservice teachers who struggle in practicum. This study, funded by the Alberta Advisory Committee for Educational Studies, sought the tips and advice of ten in-service teachers and five school-based leaders who work extensively with preservice teachers and who have had at least one preser...

Blog Post https://supportingstudentsuccess.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/strengths-based-teaching-the-role-of-cliftonstrengths-for-postsecondary-students-in-teaching-roles/#respond

In this article, we examine selected literature on the implementation of culturally responsive pedagogy in higher education with regard to academic integrity among international students who speak English as an Additional Language (EAL). The question that guided this work was: How can Canadian post-secondary educators demonstrate culturally sensiti...

The choices facing academic women are rooted in expectations around gender roles and career aspirations, and the need to balance their private and professional lives. Through a thematic examination of personal narrative texts, the authors explored the challenges of pre-tenure female academics negotiating complex choices with goals to learn from the...

With multiple institutions in Alberta, Canada competing for quality partner teachers, the challenge to find mentors willing to share their classrooms with a pre-service teacher has never been more difficult. How do we motivate potential partner teachers to mentor a pre-service teacher during the practicum? This article will present findings from a...