Leslie Stewart Rose, Ed.D., is a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and director of The Play Lab. She is interested in how play enriches our lives across the lifespan.  Her current research seeks to understand the power of play and games for learning in the classroom and community organizations. She also has an interest in supporting and understanding play-lives of educators. Previously a school teacher, she is committed to collaborative inquiry with educators to help them harness the power of play pedagogies. In her role at the university, she teaches courses on play, games, creativity, and the arts, as related to education.  Other interests include assessment, teacher learning, and relevant, multidisciplinary, issues-based curriculum which promote critical and creative thinking.

Leslie’s Play Related Courses at OISE

• Play, Drama, and the Arts CTL 1104  Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Fall 2020

• Games and Learning CTL5046H Winter 2020

Ximena Martinez-Trabucco, is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology and Equity Studies of Education-Social Justice Department at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She is interested in  notions of  what “living well”  means from non-western perspectives. Her research interests focus on Indigenous Ecological Knowledge systems and environmental education. Her current dissertation project seeks to understand how Andean principles of relationality, complementariety, and reciprocity shape the relationships of people in their daily lives and how they may be applied to social relations in the school system. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked as a teacher and researcher for six years in the northern most region of Chile. As an educator her work was mainly with vulnerable population that included indigenous communities, migrants, youth in segregated schools, and incarcerated indigenous women. As a researcher, she worked collaboratively on investigations related to the area of intercultural and indigenous education, strategies for sustainable development in rural areas and health access in multicultural/multiracial contexts. She argues that play is a central force for living well and that living well is deeply influenced by the inter-play of nature-society.

Paul Darvasi is an educator, game designer, writer, speaker, and curriculum designer whose work looks at the intersection of games, culture, and learning. He teaches English and media studies, and his doctoral research explores how commercial video games can be used as texts for critical analysis by adolescents. His also writes about topics in VR, XR, digital culture, assessment in virtual spaces, autism and online communities, social and emotional learning with digital and tabletop role-playing games, and informal learning spaces. He has designed pervasive games that include The Ward Game, based on Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Blind Protocol, a cyber warfare simulation that instructs on online security, privacy and surveillance. Paul has worked with the US Department of Education, UNESCO, foundry10, Consumers International, iThrive, and Connected Camps and has participated in several international research projects. He recently wrote a working paper for UNESCO on how commercial video games can be used for peace education and conflict resolution. Paul’s work has been featured on PBS, NPR, CBC, the Huffington Post, Polygon, Killscreen, Gamasutra, Sterne, Endgadget, Edsurge, Edutopia, and MindShift. Most recently, Paul is the instructor for CTL5046 – Games and Learning at OISE/UT in the Curriculum, Teaching & Learning Department.

June Countryman is a retired educator with lengthy experience in K-12 music classrooms, choral settings and as a professor of music education at UPEI. Her research interests include children’s and adolescents’ uses of music in play.

Niall Ng is an educator, theatre artist, and games enthusiast.  He is a graduate student in the Master of Teaching Program with a concentration in dramatic arts at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.  He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Montclair State University.  He has been teaching acting classes for many years as a freelance teaching artist, and is now developing his career as a classroom teacher.  After spending a few years acting professionally and traveling across Asia and Europe, he took a leave from the United States to study abroad in Canada.  At OISE, he conducted research addressing gender binary and game culture.  He continues to seek ways to bring the educational benefits of games and play to as wide an audience as possible.

www.niallng.com