 |
Investing
in the power of teachers
to improve teaching and learning. |
     |
|
 |
McDowell Foundation Award Recipients
Angela
Ward
Angela Ward's educational career began in Britain where she graduated from Royal Holloway College at the University of London with a B.A. (Honours) in English Language and Literature. She turned to teaching as a profession and Canada as her home in the 1970's when she acquired a Preschool Teaching Certificate in Victoria, B.C., and then went on to earn a Professional Certificate in Primary Education from Simon Fraser University in 1976. She spent some 11 years teaching in the South Cariboo School District in Lytton, B.C. while continuing to define her teaching interests with further studies. These led her to an M. Ed in Reading from the Department of Language Education at the University of British Columbia in 1983, which was followed by a Ph.D from the Department of Language Arts at the University of Victoria in 1989. In 1990, she joined the Faculty of Education at the University of Saskatchewan and gradually climbed through the academic ranks to become a full Professor in July, 2002. Angela's academic achievements and honours are too extensive to list even briefly. She has developed and taught numerous teacher education classes related to reading instruction, literacy education, multicultural and Aboriginal education, participatory action research, and community education. She has acted as a supervisor, external examiner, or committee member for a large number of graduate and post-graduate students in education. She has to her credit a large body of published work, including books, book chapters, journal articles, technical reports, and conference papers. She is much in demand as a lecturer and presenter at conferences and has travelled extensively to share her expertise with educators in places as far afield as northern Canada, Kazhakstan, Guatemala, St. Lucia and Dominica. When the McDowell Foundation was created in 1991, Angela and her university colleague, Linda Wason-Ellam, were among the first to develop and carry out collaborative research projects with funding from the Foundation. Three McDowell projects have involved these two distinguished researchers: Supporting Literacy in Cross-Cultural Classrooms in 1995, Teacher Mentors: Teachers in Conversations in 1997, and Giving Voice to Intercultural Teachers in 1999. The keynote address at the first Learning from Practice conference was given by Angela, Linda and a team of teacher-researchers from Saskatoon schools. Angela has also given several other sessions at Learning from Practice, provided advice to other McDowell research projects, lent her presence to McDowell events, encouraged education students and teachers to engage in reflective practice and action research, and acted as an influential advocate for small-scale, classroom-based research. Angela has been known to say that the opportunity to work with teachers is spiritually satisfying - the heart of what she does. For teachers, the opportunity to work with Angela has been just as satisfying. It is for her collaborative approach, her consistent support for the McDowell Foundation, and her leadership as an educational researcher that the Foundation is pleased to present Angela Ward with the 2002 McDowell Award. | ||||||||||||||
Angela
Ward characterizes the McDowell Foundation as her "intellectual
home" because it embodies core values that she has come to
embrace as an educator and a researcher. These values include an
emphasis on collaborative research, a focus on the classroom, and
the belief that it's teachers who make a difference in the quality
of education for students. In her position as a Professor in the
Department of Curriculum Studies, College of Education, University
of Saskatchewan, Angela has provided enthusiastic support for the
McDowell Foundation and assisted in the building of a new, stronger
research partnership between the university and classroom teachers.