Catch a Fire: Fuelling Inquiry and Passion Through Project-Based Learning

Theresa Armstrong completed her Bachelor of Education degree in the spring of 2018 from Red River College and the University of Winnipeg. Her teaching focus is business, technology, and mathematics. Before entering education, Theresa earned her accounting designation and has worked for over fifteen years in private and nonprofit organizations. Theresa turned to education, after two years of teaching postsecondary business courses, to learn the essential pedagogy necessary to be an effective teacher. Theresa’s passion for teaching comes from a desire for all her students to succeed in 21st-century competencies.

Dr. Eva Brown is a passionate teacher educator at Red River College in Winnipeg and the University of Calgary. She has over thirty years of teaching experience in various disciplines at the junior and senior high school level, and in higher education. Her focus is seeking leading and learning opportunities for her students and herself that will have an impact on education. Eva demonstrates her strong belief that educators must model their learning to their students. Her research interests include designing learning for technology-rich collaborative learning environments and the development of research skills in new teachers so that they can become teachers as researchers.

Will Burton is currently a Grade 10 Advisor at Maples Met School. He was born into a farming family in the United Kingdom before moving to rural Manitoba in the early 2000s. Will has been teaching in Winnipeg since 2013 at the elementary and high-school level. He is currently working on his thesis for a Master’s in Education for Sustainable Development and Well-being from the University of Manitoba.

Jonathan Dueck teared up a little when watching the movie Home with his family. He knows at least three jokes that he shares relentlessly with his students. Once, when he was five, he tried to bungee jump out of the maple tree in his front yard. He has been taking small risks ever since, learning from each mistake along the way.

Bonnie Ferguson-Baird is a wife, and mother of three. Her background in social work, education, and intentional parenting has led her down a path (surprisingly) toward homeschooling. With the eldest in university, one near graduation, and a creative 12-year-old bringing up the rear, her reflections about what, how, and when we learn, and how we address group work and project-based learning, come from a unique perspective.