Stewart West, MEd

During my teaching career I have completed extensive work in the area of Mathematics and Literacy having completed degrees of a Bachelor of Teaching, Bachelor of Arts, and Masters in Literacy Education.  A major component of the Master`s degree work focused on children’s literacy acquisition.  My extensive classroom experiences have had a focus mainly at the K-8 levels in a variety of classroom settings.   Among various teaching assignments there has a continual and intentional focus on dealing with students who have experienced significant difficulty in various aspects of their school work.  In conjunction with the New Brunswick Department of Education, at the school and district level, as well as with the New Brunswick Teacher’s Association, I have presented many workshops and seminars for practicing teachers.  Included in my career have been many opportunities to attend training in such locations as Colorado, Maine, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Toronto, Halifax and then to subsequently provide leadership in in-service sessions and workshops for throughout the region as well as  the Atlantic Educator’s Conference.  In addition to the above I have served on various Department of Education (Curriculum Development Advisory Committees) in areas such as Mathematics, Science, and Literacy.  In addition I have been either a presenter or participant at many workshop sessions and leadership training seminars both within and outside of New Brunswick.  At the school level my teaching team received a Reader’s Digest National Award for work with the middle school level students.

Throughout each of the courses there is a faith foundation and connections are developed in relation to the core content, interactions/relations with students as well as linking faith to everyday teaching and life skills.

At Crandall University I have facilitated studies which focused on Literacy Education, Developmental Literacy Education, Content Area Literacy, Mathematics Education, and Mathematics for Struggling Learners.  All of these courses focus on the importance of acquiring skills and strategies to meet the varying needs of students including those with exceptionalities.  These approaches focus on enhancing the existing skill levels and to move students to successively higher levels of proficiency.  Extensive work has been done on assessment of student learning through such devices as rubrics, the application process for incoming students, Professional Report Card for Education students, Internship coaching and various aspects of professionalism for the Education students.  Among topics researched recently studied was the utilization of memoirs which was recently presented at a Atlantic Provinces multi-university conference.  In all courses the students are encouraged to focus on the importance of continual life-long learning, personal and academic growth and seek to find ways to impact the lives of students.  Throughout my teaching here at Crandall University I have sought to engage students in the development of approaches to instruction so as to engage students in a constructivist approach to learning.  Research in a variety of formats has been a key component in enhancing my own skills which enables me to help develop the skill levels of pre-service teachers in their endeavours to become effective practitioners who will impact the lives of their students.