McDowell Foundation Award Recipients

Michelle Prytula

2010 McDowell Foundation Award for
Contributions to Educational Research

Educator and researcher, Michelle Prytula lives her beliefs that “we build strong schools through strong teachers,” that “teacher leadership effects strong learning outcomes for students” and that “the secret to teacher success is achieving a delicate balance between teaching and learning.” It is because of her dedication to teacher-centred educational research that we are proud to honour Michelle Prytula as the 2010 recipient of the McDowell Foundation Award for Contributions to Educational Research.

Michelle credits her early love of learning and passion for education to her parents, Conrad and Diane Bussière, both educators, as well as to the many influential teacher mentors from her elementary and secondary schooling in Vonda and her post secondary studies at the University of Saskatchewan.

Michelle received a Bachelor of Commerce degree with a major in marketing in 1992 and a Bachelor of Education after-degree with distinction as well as a Bates Award from the University of Saskatchewan in 1995. She later went on to complete a Master of Education degree in 2004 with a thesis titled Control-Alt-Change: A Study of Teachers’ Perceptions of Technology and Change, as well as a PhD from the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Saskatchewan. Her doctoral dissertation was titled Scholarship Epistemology: An Exploratory Study of Teacher Metacognition Within the Context of Professional Learning Communities.

In her 15 years of teaching with Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, Michelle taught primarily in the middle years at St. Luke, Bishop Roborecki and St. Frances schools. She served as both a vice-principal and principal where she had the opportunity to put her beliefs into action.

Currently, Michelle is an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan in the Department of Educational Administration. Her areas of teaching include educational policy studies, educational finance, organizational theory and educational leadership. She also currently co-teaches the Masters’ Practicum course with Angela Ward for the Department of Curriculum.

Michelle’s commitment to filling the gap between research and practice was evident even in the early days of her teaching career when she had the opportunity to develop middle years online interactive math resources for the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School. Spurred by the Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation research grants, Michelle continues to spend much of her time pursuing action research and appreciates the effect that action research has on other educators.

Michelle’s relationship with the McDowell Foundation began after the completion of her doctoral dissertation when she and three other teachers on staff, Chris Makahonuk, Nicole Syrota and Michael Pesenti, applied for a research grant to undertake a project to explore the effects of the professional learning community model on teacher induction. This model proved to be an effective model for teacher induction and had a positive affect on the learning of teachers. Michelle is currently conducting research in the areas of teacher induction, teacher learning, professional learning communities, parent engagement in schools and principals’ perceptions of assessment practices in Saskatchewan.

This year, as co-teachers of the Masters’ Practicum course, Michelle and Angela will provide the opportunity for over 40 students to undertake a reflective or action research project blending research and practice to improve education. The display of these 40 projects at the College of Education this December promises to be an unprecedented and significant display of action research in our schools.

Michelle also supervises masters and PhD students through their research, as well as involves them in her own research, providing opportunities for them to refine their skills in research and writing.

Michelle’s interest in interdisciplinary research has led her to partner with Dr. Marcella Ogenchuk in the College of Nursing to develop teaching resources designed to curb the use of alcohol among teens. In addition, Michelle is conducting research with Dr. Michael Moser in the Department of Surgery, studying how to teach an endoscopy.

Michelle has presented at conferences locally, nationally and internationally over the past year. Her work has been published in the Canadian Journal of Education and Current Issues in Education. She is currently writing a chapter for a book on internship, is writing for the SSBL newsletters and has other articles in review. She has conducted professional development sessions on professional learning communities and instructional leadership for several school divisions in Saskatchewan, and works with the Saskatchewan Educational Leadership Unit at the University of Saskatchewan towards furthering improvement of student learning through teacher learning and leadership in Saskatchewan.

All the above is conducted in what Michelle calls her “spare time,” as son Nicolas, now nine years old, daughter Ella, now seven, and husband Tim are her main focus. For Michelle, the births of her children and making plans for their lives had a dramatic effect on the way she approaches teaching, her expectations of herself as a professional and her vision for education in Saskatchewan.

We are pleased to present the 2010 McDowell Foundation Award for Contributions to Educational Research to Michelle Prytula.

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