CTL Newsletter - September 2025
In the September 2025 Issue:
Message from the Chair
Dear CTL Community,
Welcome to a new academic year in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at OISE! I hope you had a restorative summer — that you found time to relax, connect with friends or family, and maybe even head out on an adventure or two.
I had a busy (but fulfilling) summer myself. I traveled to Berlin and London for a balanced mix of vacation and research; spent a week at Red Pine Camp on Golden Lake, the traditional territory of the Pikwàkanagàn First Nation; and — perhaps most crucially — finally tackled cleaning and organizing my basement. And now, with my kid dropped off at university once again, it feels like a brand new year — and I’m rested and ready to go.
It was such a pleasure to kick off the year with so many of you — whether at our Orientation events, where we hosted over 500 incoming students across our three programs, or at the Welcome Back lunch for faculty, staff and our student associations at the Duke of York. These gatherings are a powerful reminder of what makes CTL so special: our vibrant, dedicated, and supportive community.
To our returning students, faculty, and staff — thank you for your continued commitment to the important work we do together. And to our new students — welcome! We’re thrilled to have you join the CTL community and look forward to supporting you as you explore, grow, and make your mark on education and beyond.
As we settle into the rhythm of the semester, I encourage all of us to stay open — to new ideas, fresh collaborations, and the many opportunities this year will bring. Whether you’re launching a new research project, beginning your first practicum, or navigating the day-to-day of academic life, please know that my door is always open. I’d love to hear from you — your thoughts, your questions, or just a quick hello.
Here’s to an exciting year ahead. Let’s make it a great one — together.
Warmly,
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September Highlights
2025 CTL Orientation Recap
Welcome to all our new students! You showed up, you connected, you oriented—and what an incredible start to the year it’s been! A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for last week’s CTL Orientation events. We were thrilled to welcome over 550 students across our three programs. The energy, the connections, the memories… truly unforgettable! Help us make future orientation events even better by sharing your thoughts in our .
CTL Welcome Back Lunch
Our 2nd Annual CTL Welcome Back Lunch was a wonderful success! It set the tone for a warm, welcoming, and collaborative start to the new academic year. We were thrilled to bring together faculty, staff, and student associations to connect, unwind, and recharge before diving into the term ahead. Check out our recap video for highlights from the afternoon.
News & Updates from Our CTL Programs
This section is a vital resource for staying current on important developments across each of CTL's graduate programs: Curriculum & Pedagogy, Language and Literacies Education and Master of Teaching. It offers key updates on faculty appointments, events and program initiatives and changes. We encourage all members of our community to stay informed about each of our programs to promote collaboration, uncover opportunities for research intersections, and strengthen our sense of community.
Curriculum & Pedagogy Program
September 2025 News & Updates
Language and Literacies Education Program
September 2025 News & Updates
Master of Teaching
Program
September 2025 News & Updates
Faculty Research Spotlight
This section highlights the diverse and impactful research outputs of our faculty, showcasing their latest books, articles, media appearances, research initiatives, and more. It offers a glimpse into the innovative work being done across a range of disciplines, celebrating the contributions of our faculty to advancing knowledge and making a meaningful impact in their fields.
Léa Roback: Quebec Social Justice Activist by Tara Goldstein
by Tara Goldstein is the first English-language biography of this legendary Canadian activist, tracing her seven-decade fight for union rights, women’s rights, and social justice in Quebec. Using a method called “story merging,” Goldstein blends Roback’s powerful legacy with her own journey as an educator and theatre activist. Drawing on interviews and archival sources, the book highlights Roback’s unique ability to bridge linguistic, religious, cultural, and class divides—an urgent lesson in today’s polarized world. Published by Lived Places Publishing, it offers educators, students, and activists a rich resource on how activism can be lived and passed on across generations.
How to Teach Holistically by Jack Millar
Jack Millar’s latest publication, , is an illuminating guide that offers a comprehensive overview of holistic teaching in higher education. Addressing the issue of fragmentation in educational settings, Millar explores teaching approaches that nurture the whole person—body, mind, and spirit.
The book will be launched virtually this fall, featuring a conversation between Professor Jack Millar and Dr. Keith W. Brown, a PhD graduate from the University of Toronto’s ¥ (OISE) in Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning. Dr. Brown’s research focuses on holistic education, contemplative learning, and teacher wellness.
Workable Accents: How International Teaching Assistants Vocally Fashion and Contest Academic Labor by Vijay Ramjattan
Vijay Ramjattan's first monograph, , explores how international teaching assistants in Canadian universities craft accents to meet the communicative demands of academic work. Rather than treating this as a purely technical process, the book shows how a “workable accent” both conforms to and challenges the academic status quo. Covering themes like voice, racialization, higher education, and neoliberalism, it offers an interdisciplinary look at accent at/as work.
New Faculty in CTL
This section introduces the scholars who bring fresh perspectives, innovative research, and diverse experiences to our faculty. Learn more about their backgrounds, areas of expertise, and the exciting contributions they’re making to our teaching and research missions.
Meet Dr. Lydia Cao
I’m delighted to join the CTL and OISE community as an Assistant Professor of Digital Technologies in Education. Having already experienced the supportive and innovative spirit of this community, I feel fortunate to continue building on the research momentum and collaborative partnerships here.
Before joining OISE, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I completed my PhD in Education at the University of Cambridge, UK, and also studied in Strasbourg, France, and Montreal, Canada.
My research explores how digital technologies can serve as enablers in transforming education—moving beyond “doing conventional things better” to “doing better things,” and creating new possibilities for learning and teaching. I focus on AI in education, knowledge building, sustainability education, cross-cultural collaboration, and extended reality (XR) for developing complex skills. Having been a teacher myself in Calgary, Canada, I bring a practitioner’s perspective to this work, always keeping real classroom challenges and opportunities at the center of my research. I co-design with teachers and lead professional development on AI literacy across many countries. My goal is to empower every educator with the AI literacy needed to better serve their students in this rapidly evolving and uncertain space. I look forward to collaborating with colleagues and students who share interests in any of these areas.
Outside of my research, I find joy in simplicity. I enjoy tea tasting and exploring local cafés. I also love creating educational resources for children, educators, and families in my spare time, which helps me stay connected to the communities my research aims to serve. I enjoy traveling—both locally to schools and learning communities, and internationally to places where learning and teaching take me. I look forward to continuing to contribute to OISE’s mission of shaping the future of education. Please don’t be a stranger if you’d like to explore potential collaborations, or simply share a conversation over a cup of tea or coffee!
Meet Angela Easby
I’m thrilled to be joining CTL and the OISE community. Working at OISE is a happy return to Toronto for me, as I worked at the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres from 2017 to 2020, and I’ve missed many things about the city.
My research interests span Indigenous language revitalization in Canada, contemporary Indigenous resurgence, and Indigenous education, with a focus on relationships as a space of social and political change within communities resisting and responding to colonialism. My PhD dissertation examined adult Anishinaabemowin learners’ participation in language revitalization in the context of their own and their communities’ short- and long-term movement, drawing on interviews with other adult learners and autoethnography of my own language learning and at-home immersion practice. I found that access to travel played a key role in participants’ ability to engage with learning opportunities, affirming Anishinaabe understandings of the relationship between movement and learning. In a capitalist context of uneven socioeconomic means, this also shapes who is able to learn Anishinaabemowin, with implications for sovereignty, wellbeing, and revitalization efforts. Going forward, my work will continue to explore the social and relational dimensions of Anishinaabemowin revitalization, with an interest in children's language acquisition as well.
Much of my scholarship and personal life runs together at the moment, as I am an adult Anishinaabemowin learner who speaks Anishinaabemowin to my son at home—and keeping up with the necessary language skills takes a lot of my time, constantly seeking learning opportunities and checking the Ojibwe People’s Dictionary online. I live with my family in Michi Saagiig territory in Peterborough. I’m also a runner, an avid amateur soccer player (midfield!), a beader, and a chocolate and sweet treat enthusiast. I used to be a big traveller, but in recent years I’ve mainly been traveling around Anishinaabewaki (Anishinaabe territory) on road trips and camping trips—which has been a nice change.
Nimiigwechiwendam omaa ayaayaan / I’m grateful to be here!
Recently Awarded Faculty Research Grants
We are pleased to announce several recently funded research grants. These grants not only highlight the exceptional work being done by our faculty, but also provide invaluable opportunities for our students to gain hands-on research experience.
Congratulations to Dr. Qui Alexander! Dr. Alexander was awarded a for their project, “Black Trans Educators Coming into Critical Consciousness.” The project "will create space for Black trans educators to come together, understand their own critical consciousness and use their pedagogical expertise to share that knowledge with their larger communities."
Congratulations to Dr. Alexandre Cavalcante! Dr. Cavalcante was awarded a for his project, “A Complex Approach to Time Value of Money in Middle School Math.” The project "addresses the challenge of understanding how middle school students (Grades 6 to 9) in Ontario develop an understanding of the Time Value of Money and how this understanding supports the development of citizenship competencies."
Congratulations to Dr. Kathleen Gallagher! Dr. Gallagher was awarded a for her project, “The drama workshop: Collective discernment and artistic practice as relational pedagogies for an epoch of intersecting ecological, social, and economic crises.” The multi-sited, arts-led ethnography project will explore the ways in which "the drama workshop equips young people for both the world we have and the better world-to-be-imagined."
Congratulations to Dr. Tara Goldstein! Dr. Goldstein was awarded a for her project, “Léa Roback: A Biography Project.” The project explores Roback's life and work as a social justice activist whose career spanned seven decades.
Congratulations to Dr. Rishi Krishnamoorthy! Dr. Krishnamoorthy was awarded a Connaught New Researcher Award for their project, “Examining barriers to science education among minoritized South Asian youth.” The project will "investigate diverse South Asian youths’ experiences with school science by engaging ten...high school students from across Toronto in creating “cellphilms” — short videos produced on cellphones – to illustrate the identity-linked barriers and challenges youth experience when learning science."
Congratulations to Dr. Arlo Kempf on receiving two prestigious research grants for his work on the experiences of families with precarious immigration status in Ontario schools.
Dr. Kempf was awarded a for his project, “Education System Experiences of Parents with Precarious Immigration Status Children in Ontario Schools.” In collaboration with Childhood Arrivals Support and Advocacy, this project will survey and interview parents and guardians of Precarious Status Youth across Ontario about their experiences with, and perceptions of, the province’s K–12 schooling systems.
He also received a for his project, “Precarious Immigration Status Families and Ontario Schools.” This research will explore how status-precarity impacts families’ experiences navigating the school system, their perceptions of access and inclusion, and the schooling and career-related advice they offer their family members.
Congratulations to Dr. Doug McDougall! Dr. McDougall was awarded a for his project, “Professional Learning Sessions for De-tracked Mathematics.” The project will "clarify how mathematics in the early secondary school years can be taught in an inclusive way and ultimately ensure all students have equitable chances to succeed."
Upcoming Faculty Research Grant Opportunities
Grant Opportunity | NOI | MRA | UofT Internal Deadline | Sponsor |
| N/A | SEPT.25.2025 | SEPT.29.2025 | OCT.1.2025 | |
| N/A | OCT.21.2025 | OCT.28.2025 | NOV.1.2025 | |
| N/A | NOV.5.2025 | NOV.12.2025 | NOV.17.2025 | |
| N/A | NOV.17.2025 | NOV.17.2025 | NOV.17.2025 |
*If you intend to apply to any research funding opportunity, please contact CTL Research & Project Coordinator, Amelia Ainsworth, at ctlresearch@utoronto.ca early in the process.
CTL Operations & Initiatives
Stay informed with key updates that impact our community—operational changes, department-wide initiatives, and ongoing projects. This section keeps you in the loop on what’s happening across CTL.
CTL 10th Floor North Renovation Update
We’re excited to share that the renovation of 10th Floor North at OISE is now in the design phase, led by Superkül Architecture + Design. This long-planned transformation—shaped by community input and CTL leadership—aims to create inclusive, flexible, and welcoming spaces for MT students, sessional faculty, and the broader CTL community.
Earlier this week, drop-in information sessions were held with our architects, giving the community an opportunity to learn about the proposed plans and share thoughts and feedback.
As part of the ongoing relocation and redesign of the CTL, all students currently assigned office space on the 10th and 11th floors are required to reapply. Office space will be reassigned based on updated departmental policies, with priority given to funded full-time PhD and MA students. The new office allocations will be located on the 10th Floor South and 11th Floor North. If you wish to be considered for student office space, please complete the by September 26th.
CTL Weekly Digest
CTL Student Experience & Equity
The CTL Student Experience & Equity Team continues to work behind the scenes to keep the CTL community informed on events and resources and provide supports around mental health, well-being, accessibility and community resources. Contact the team at oise.ctl.equity@utoronto.ca
1) Let's Sit With This
September 18th, 2025 | 3:00pm-5:00pm | 11-204
Join the CTL SEE team for Watercolours and Decorating our CTL SEE Practice Planner
2) Let's Get Set Together
September 19th, 2025 | 12:10pm-12:55pm |
Join other students to be guided through a reflection of the past week, planning for the upcoming week, sharing tools to help us stay on top of our work with a special guest from the OISE Student Success Centre
3) OISE BIPOC Student Career Series #1: Applying for CSSE
September 25th, 2025 | 4:30pm | Zoom
Join the OISE BIPOC thesis group for the Student Career Series #1: Applying for CSSE session on Zoom. Registration link will be provided soon.
4) Let's Get Set Together
September 26th, 2025 | 12:10pm-12:55pm |
We're excited to welcome a special guest from the , who will share valuable insights about group participation and motivation.
5) Let's Go Together
September 29th, 2025 | 1:00pm-3:00pm | Student Commons (230 College St.)
Let's Go Together to the workshop. The workshop will share techniques for long and short-term goal-setting so you can come away with practical strategies for developing a shared vision for your life, your leadership, and your team. We'll be leaving OISE at 12:30pm
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For more information from the CTL Student Experience & Equity Team, view the or visit the page on the for Events, Community Resource Pages and more.
Upcoming Observances
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Quick Links
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Resources and Support for 24-hour community crisis:
Call or text 9-8-8
1-844-451-9700
1-866-925-5454
416-978-8030
416-978-2222
CTLSA & MTSA - News & Updates
Welcome Table: A CTLSA Gathering
Calling all CTL students! Join us for a cozy, social brunch to start the term off right! Meet new folks, reconnect with classmates, and grab a bite with your CTL community.
Friday, September 19th, 2025
Location: OISE Nexus Lounge, 12-130
10:30 AM – 1:00 PM
CTLSA OFFICE, 10-212, 10th Floor North
OISE, University of Toronto
Email: oise.ctlsa@utoronto.ca
Instagram:
Call for MT Cohort Reps
The MTSA is currently seeking two Cohort Representatives from each cohort to help represent your peers and strengthen the MT community. If you are interested in becoming a Cohort Representative, please coordinate with your cohort to select two representatives. Once selected, the chosen representatives should email us at with your full name (first and last) and the name of the cohort you will be representing.
Please ensure that this information is submitted no later than Friday, September 19, 2025 by 5:00 PM.
Email: mtsa.oise@utoronto.ca
Instagram:
Upcoming Student Award Opportunities
Award | Required Legal Status | Degree | Student |
| Burstow Scholarship for Research into Antisemitism | Domestic, International | Doctoral | September 30, 2025 |
| William G. Davis Golden Anniversary Leadership Scholarship | Domestic, International | Doctoral | September 30, 2025 |
| Hetty C. Chu Memorial Fellowship | Domestic | Doctoral, Graduates, Master's | January 15, 2026 |
| Margaret I. Hambly Memorial Scholarship | Domestic | Doctoral, Master's | January 15, 2026 |
*Please visit the Tuition & Financial Support webpage for up-to-date and accurate information and to access full award listings.
Recent Doctoral Defenses
CTL extends our heartfelt congratulations to our doctoral students who have recently defended their theses. This significant achievement reflects your dedication, perseverance, and intellectual growth throughout your academic journey. We are incredibly proud of your accomplishments and excited to see the impact your research will have on your field. Best wishes as you move forward into the next chapter of your academic and professional careers!
Dr. Andre Scholze
PhD in Language and Literacies Education
Thesis Supervisor: Normand Labrie
Thesis Title: Plurilingualism in Practice: A Narrative of the Backgrounds, Beliefs, and Experiences of Second Language Teachers Integrating Language and Cultural Diversity in North American Classrooms
Dr. Wenyangzi Shi
PhD in Language and Literacies Education
Thesis Supervisor: Normand Labrie
Thesis Title: Growing as English Language Teachers: A Case Study of International Graduate Students in Toronto
Dr. Tina Ta
PhD in Language and Literacies Education
Thesis Supervisor: Shelley Stagg Peterson
Thesis Title: In Conversation with the Self and Others: The Ethical Dilemmas, Ethical Challenges, and Values of Elementary Language Arts Teachers in Ontario
Dr. Laurel Waterman
PhD in Curriculum and Pedagogy
Thesis Supervisor: Karyn Cooper
Thesis Title: Teaching with Consciousness: A narrative inquiry into scholars' experiences teaching about consciousness beyond the brain
Dr. Mitchell Wong
PhD in Curriculum and Pedagogy
Thesis Supervisor: Roger Mantie
Thesis Title: Teaching for Volitional Music Making in Schools
Dr. Weiyi Xiao
PhD in Curriculum and Pedagogy
Thesis Supervisor: Shelley Stagg Peterson
Thesis Title: Using Revision Prompts to Facilitate Knowledge Creation in Threaded Discussions: An Action Research Study
Upcoming Events
September.24.2025
11:30am - 1:30pm | 12-115
OISE Wellness invites staff and faculty to awaken the body and mind with meditation, breath practice, and movement. Ease strain, maintain energy, and enhance your wellbeing. Register your sessions!
Mindfulness Community of Practice
September.29.2025
7:00pm - 7:45pm | Online
This online meeting led by Dr. Shelley Murphy and the OISE Wellness team is open to teachers/educators, teacher candidates, and teachers of teachers interested in being a part of an ongoing community of support centred around mindfulness education.
OISE Virtual Fall Open House
October.4.2025
9:00am - 3:15pm | Online
Explore graduate programs at OISE, University of Toronto. Meet faculty, staff, and current students, and learn about the wide range of programs that prepare future leaders in teaching, research, community development, and educational policy.
Contact Us
Have a departmental inquiry and not sure who to reach out to? We're here to help! Contact us by email, join a drop-in session or visit the Administration & Staff Team at OISE of the 11th Floor, South from Monday to Friday from 8:30am - 4:45pm where someone will be pleased to assist you.
Departmental Inquiries
Program Specific Support (C&P, LLE, MT)
Awards, Funding, and Student Employment
Finance, HR, and Operations
Online Meetings and Virtual Drop-in Hours
Staff Directory
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Executive Assistant & Finance Administration
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In the next Issue
The next issue of the CTL Newsletter will be released in December 2025. Do you have a story, event or newsworthy item you would like to share with the CTL Community? Complete the and a member of the CTL Communications team will be in touch with any follow up questions. Have a communications related questions? Email:
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CTL Communications
Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
OISE, University of Toronto
252 Bloor Street West
Toronto, ON, M5S 1V6
