We partner with schools and districts, institutions of higher learning and local community groups including municipalities, non-profits and Indigenous peoples to help prepare students to be responsible global citizens and stewards of the world.
Centres & Labs
Our centres form the foundation of our research. Faculty members partner with communities to advance knowledge and practice in-field educational concepts and initiatives, providing students with hands-on learning experiences.
Centre for Mindful Engagement (CME)
What does it mean to teach, learn and live well together? The CME aims to be a community of inquiry that reflects diverse traditions, perspectives and methods to explore and understand human flourishing in education and across a variety of settings and contexts.
English as an Additional Language Learning Lab
Designed to support English as an additional language (EAL) teaching and learning in the Okanagan School of Education, the EAL Learning Lab provides a space to bring together theory, research, and practice to create meaningful experiences for students and scholarly insights for educators.
Creativity. Entrepreneurship. New ways of thinking and ideas destined to make a difference. Explore current research
Research Programs
The Okanagan School of Education offers many opportunities for students to gain valuable research experience. Whether its research about mindfulness and resilience, how to become a better citizen or how pets can help reduce stress, we are dedicated to finding new ways to improve learning outcomes.
B.A.R.K.
The Building Academic Retention through K9’s (B.A.R.K.) program brings together university students with trained therapy dogs (and their handlers) in an effort to reduce stress, combat homesickness, foster interpersonal connections and promote the overall social-emotional well-being of students.
Co-Curricular-Making— Honoring Indigenous Connections to Land, Culture, and the Relational Self
As Canada seeks responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action, university researchers and local partners have come together to seek respectful ways for educators to align their teaching practices toward reconciliation.
Learning Garden
A Learning Garden helps to promote the principles of sustainable environmental practice and responsible stewardship of nature while teaching and inspiring students and teachers on how to create their own gardens on school grounds.
School Kindness Scale
The School Kindness Scale was developed by Okanagan School of Education’s Dr. John-Tyler Binfet to test students’ perceptions of kindness in schools.
Students, faculty, alumni and partners are turning vision, cooperation and courage into meaningful results. Read our stories
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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FLOURISH?
The concept of ‘flourishing’ is often explored in the business world, but what about in education?
A recent three-year study from UBC Okanagan Education associate professor Sabre Cherkwoski’s looked at teachers and educators, exploring their working environments and lives to find out what it meant to flourish in their roles.
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B.A.R.K. PROGRAM MAKING AN IMPACT
Since 2012, the Okanagan School of Education’s B.A.R.K. Program, led by assistant professor John-Tyler Binfet, has been helping UBC Okanagan students improve their mental well-being with the help of therapy dogs and their volunteer handlers.
With the continued success of the program, B.A.R.K. is expanding into new territory, including with elementary students and law enforcement.
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TAKING EDUCATION RESEARCH TO THE WORLD
After teaching at an international school in Beijing, for five years, Tian Li moved to Canada to continue her educational research.
“Understanding the development of critical thinking and the relationship with additional language learning has a great benefit for creating and providing better education,” Li says
Li hopes her research will provide insight into more effective ways to support English language learners within different subject areas, while fostering more inclusive educational environments in international high schools.
Deepen your understanding of education and advance your career. Learn about our Graduate Programs
Research Themes
Teacher Identity
Examining teaching identity from teacher candidate to classroom teacher.
Drama Education in the Arts
Drama as a learning medium, teaching strategy and art.
Academic Honesty
Determining the causes and solutions of academic misconduct at post-secondary institutions.
Critical thinking
Gauging the degree to which critical thinking informs learning and teaching.
Curriculum as Lived and Experienced
Curriculum understood as genuine inquiry, embracing creative and critical thinking within action, attends to the process character of curricular enactment. The associated teaching/learning conditions, structures/supports, resources, and participatory roles and responsibilities, are key to fostering the pedagogically-oriented context to grow and sustain such learning cultures.
Teaching English as an Additional Language (TEAL)
This field fosters scholarship to increase the knowledge base related to English as an additional language teaching and learning. Part of the wider field of Applied Linguistics, TEAL is also known as Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL).
Extra-curricular Involvement
An exploration of the effects of extra-curricular involvement on academic achievement.
Activity, Focus, and Self-Esteem
An exploration of the interaction between activity levels, attention, and self-perception in the classroom.
Local and global citizenship
Exploring the meanings, policies and processes related to local and global citizenship education, including education for humanity and environmental stewardship in historical and contemporary contexts.
Health and Well-Being
Investigating physical activity and health-related behaviours among children and youth in local, provincial, and national contexts.
Mindfulness and Well-Being
Engaging in critical and creative initiatives which support and sustain a holistic approach to well-being. Exploring culturally responsive pedagogy in diverse societies.
In-Situ Teaching
Theory/practice relationships grounded in concrete learning situations.
Flourishing in Schools: A Positive Organisational Perspective
Understanding what it means to flourish in schools through investigating conditions, forces, factors, and influences for educator wellbeing within school systems from individual, collective, organisational perspectives.