This qualitative pilot study introduces and reflects on early development and implementation of the Zero Fee Tuition (ZFT) program in the rural, oil and gas town of Drayton Valley, Alberta, Canada. This innovative, primarily municipally funded program, implemented in 2019, provides local students with up to $5,000 in free tuition for select…

Intergenerational initiatives have the potential to bring generations together and can have a wide range of benefits for the health of older adults as well as for the development of young people. This paper presents a five-phase participatory action research protocol for the co-design and pilot implementation of a toolkit supporting…

Suicide prevention gatekeeper training is designed in order to enhance participants' recognition of persons in distress, enhance skills in responding, and referrals to help. In response to rising suicide rates in British Columbia, Canada, two standardized gatekeeper training programs were implemented by the Canadian Mental Health Association…

Public education systems are often large, diverse, fragmented, and historically very hard to change. While previous reforms targeted primarily school staff, large-scale policies now include a broader audience including non-system organizations (e.g., knowledge brokering organizations) that may influence directly or indirectly policy…

Many schools, school districts, and provincial education authorities in Canada are collaborating with Indigenous communities to indigenize content and provide progamming to improve Indigenous student success. With a focus on high school achievement in the area of Indigenous education at the cultural interface of Indigenous communities and…

Based on the concept of Communities of Practice (CoP), this study describes the design and implementation of an online academic conference, Pedagogy and Practice in Technology Enhanced Language Learning (PPTELL) 2021, as a backdrop for exploring how to effectively promote the development of academic citizenship within the PPTELL CoP. To address…

There are thousands of refugee students in Canadian schools and many struggle with distress and trauma symptoms. Even those not demonstrating overt distress may face adjustment challenges. This paper describes the pilot of the Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups (STRONG) program in ten schools. STRONG is a 10-session, manualized…

An increasing number of children and youth have mental health disorders. To address this issue, federal and provincial mental health policymakers in Canada have recommended: (a) improving the coordination of services, and (b) increasing the role that schools play in providing supports. One way to operationalize these recommendations is to…

Introduction: There is growing interest in the role and use of patient navigators within the health care system. Currently, qualifications and training expectations documented in the literature vary tremendously depending on context and patient population. This paper details the theoretical and pedagogical principles used to develop, implement and…

This instrumental case study explored some preliminary impacts of a 7-year blended learning initiative (BLI) at a medium sized Canadian university on student learning. Building on the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, two research questions directed the investigation: (1) What are the preliminary impacts of a BLI on student learning? (2) What…

Institutions in many jurisdictions are in the process of implementing Open Educational Resources (OER). This short paper is based on a report commissioned by Contact North/Contact Nord as part of their Pockets of Innovation series to better understand the impact of OER implementations at diverse institutions. The investigation looks into 13…

Although education research has shown collaboration to be of the utmost importance, schools continue to lack the necessary means to help them incorporate communities of practice (CoPs) to facilitate and sustain their development and growth. We analysed the process by which CoPs were successfully implemented, under the guidance of a…

There is an identified need in the research literature for the design, implementation, and evaluation of a conceptual framework for creating contextual, interactive mobile learning. This article details how the conceptual framework was implemented and tested in an online learning course for physicians, nurses, and healthcare professionals at…

Family-focused early learning programs aim to assist parents in supporting their young children language and literacy development. This study examined program access and learning opportunities for diverse families across a wide range of community-based settings in one eastern Canadian province. As well, the study examined practitioners'…

This paper, based upon our experiences starting a school, is part dialogue and part theory. The three authors have all played important roles in the design, creation, and ongoing support of an innovative public elementary school. The first part of the paper describes the impetus behind the creation of this "buildingless," environmentally…