Belonging is a basic human need. It is important that a student feels a connection to the educational environment but equally important is the sense of belonging for faculty and staff. People who can bring their authentic self to the workplace are more likely to be engaged and thus contribute to the success of the organization and the individuals therein.
Our 16th Annual LCEEQ Conference will take the importance of “belonging” to the next level with the theme, Enriching a Culture of Belonging.
In February 2024, we agreed that our educational institutions need to be places where all people, young and older alike, belong. We wish to continue to pursue such to support both student success and improved wellbeing for all.
Keynote Speakers
Marc Brackett
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Marc Brackett, Ph.D. is founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine at Yale University. His research focuses on the role of emotions in learning, decision making, creativity, relationship quality, wellbeing, performance, and organizational climate; the measurement of emotional intelligence; and the influence of emotional intelligence training on key life outcomes As an award-winning researcher for 25 years, Marc speaks to tens of thousands of people each year and has been the keynote speaker at over 700 conferences around the world, including the White House, U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Defense, the Surgeon General’s office, the New York Times, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as dozens of education conferences. Permission to Feel inspires a new mindset around the power of emotions to transform our lives. Using science, passion, and lively storytelling, Dr. Brackett guides us to understand our own and others’ emotions, as well as provides innovative strategies for developing emotional intelligence in adults and children so that emotions help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being. |
Monique Gray Smith
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Monique Gray Smith is an award-winning, best-selling author. Her books cover a broad spectrum of ages, topics and emotions. Woven into all of Monique’s writing, speaking engagements and online courses is the teaching that Love is Medicine. In March 2024, she released her 5th children’s picture book, Circle of Love. Monique’s novel, Tilly and the Crazy Eights was longlisted for Canada Reads 2021. Monique graduated from the Psychiatric Nursing program at Douglas college in 1990 and has worked in various capacities in community and as a consultant since 1996. Her focus has been weaving history, resilience and trauma informed training for educators, social workers, and health care teams. She is an appointed member of the Board of Directors of Royal Roads University. Monique is Cree and Scottish and has been sober and involved in her healing journey for over 33 years. She is well known for her storytelling, spirit of generosity and focus on resilience. |
S. Bear Bergman
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S. Bear Bergman is a storyteller, the author of nine books, founder of Flamingo Rampant Press, and frequent consultant in equity and inclusion to business and government. Bear began his work in equity at the age of 15, as a founding member of the first ever Gay/Straight Alliance and has continued to help organizations and institutions move further along the pathways to justice ever since. Bear’s work in equity education has brought him to sporting arenas, field offices in actual fields, code-named government buildings in unplottable locations, and many unremarkable boardrooms in which great and lasting change has begun and continued. These days Bear spends his time making trans cultural competency interventions however he can and trying to avoid stepping on his children’s Lego. His latest book is Special Topics In Being A Parent, and his popular new show is The First Jew In Canada: A Trans Tale. |
Featured Speakers
Julian Barling
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Dr. Julian Barling is the Borden Chair of Leadership at Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, and the author of Brave New Workplace: Designing Productive, Healthy and Safe Organizations (2023) and The Science of Leadership: Lessons From Research for Organizational Leaders (2014) both of which were published by Oxford University Press. |
Jean Clinton
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Dr. Jean Clinton of McMaster University is one of four renowned experts to advise the Ontario government on bold reforms to the province's publicly funded education system. The clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine is a specialist in child psychiatry. Her expertise is in the development of young minds and she is recognized internationally as an advocate for children's issues. Her special interest lies in brain development, and the crucial role relationships and connectedness play therein. She is equally committed to ensuring that children’s and youths’ needs and voices are heard and respected, and she actively promotes the celebration of National Child Day. Dr Clinton holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Education and a medical degree and Fellowship in Psychiatry from McMaster University. Jean’s greatest accomplishment is being the mother of 5 great kids and 9 grandchildren. |
Katie Cohene
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Katie Cohene, PhD, has worked as a classroom and resource teacher in both the inclusive and specialized school settings for over 20 years. Currently she is working as a co-coordinator for the Centre of Excellence for Autism as well as a consultant at the Lester B. Pearson School Board. She completed her doctorate degree at McGill University and continues to collaborate in research projects with the university. |
Zmira King
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Dr. Zmira King is a clinical psychologist working at the Lester B. Pearson School Board for over 20 years and is the co-coordinator of the Centre of Excellence for Mental Health. She is also involved in mental health promotion, providing workshops and consultations to schools, educational staff and parents. In addition, she has worked extensively supporting students’ mental health and has expertise in treating anxiety and depression as well as working with parents. |
Petros Kolyvas
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Petros is (at least in part) a product of the Quebec english-education system. Born in Montreal, he's had a life-long interest in digital technology with a focus on general purpose computing and networking. Petros studied Communications, Linguistics and Classical Piano and has a degree in Philosophy from Concordia University. He started his first business building database-driven websites in 1996 at the age of 16, and was a very early adopter of software-defined-networking—using general-purpose computers to replace expensive single-purpose networking hardware. Through a sheer stroke of luck, he began working closely with the ELA Evaluations team of the Ministry of Education from 2004 until 2018. He was a strong advocate for producing classroom situations that reflected the real-world use and consumption of technologies by learners to help better meet them in their current contexts. He was also part of the team that began building out LCEEQ's online presence starting in the late 00's. After co-founding a real-time online learning platform in 2015, he went to work for several tech unicorns in the cloud infrastructure and cloud monitoring spaces. While there, he worked with some of the world's largest businesses and financial institutions to help with their transformations to cloud-native workflows. He is currently working on a stealth-mode startup, which includes complex use cases of LLMs, focused on helping teams make better decisions. He was an early tester for OpenAI's GPT4 model before it was publicly available. He believes that understanding some of the technical "magic" behind these new tools is one of the keys to being able to use them effectively. |
Juli K. Dixon
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Dr Juli Dixon is Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Central Florida. She has worked with hundreds of teachers across Quebec as part of the Summer Institutes and regularly scheduled webinars. She has published numerous books, textbooks, and articles. Dr. Dixon delivers keynotes, presentations, and workshops throughout North America. She is an author of HMH’s Into Math, GO Math, AGA, Math180, and Waggle. She is a leader of DNA MATH, author of Solution Tree’s The Fact Tactics™ Fluency Program: Building Reasoning Skills for Multiplication in Grades 3-6, and co-author of the Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching K-12 book and video series. She published A Stroke of Luck: A Girl’s Second Chance at Life with her daughter, Jessica Dixon. Especially important to Dr. Dixon is the need to support each and every student. This is accomplished through her leadership on HMH’s intervention, adaptive learning, and core instructional resources |
Ainsley B. Rose
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Ainsley has over 49 years as an award-winning educator. He began as a high school teacher and progressed to be an Elementary and Secondary Principal, finally a Director of Education in Quebec, Canada. He was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award for Demonstrating Outstanding Leadership in Education by the Association of Administrators of English Schools of Quebec. He has served as chair of most of the provincial educational committees in Quebec and named to be on the Advisory Board for English Education by the Minister of Education in Quebec. Now he is an author consultant, Keynote presenter, and facilitator of an extensive range of professional learning topics. He is President of Thistle Educational Development Inc. and professional development consultant with Solution Tree, Marzano Research, The Core Collaborative, Inspired Education. He is a contributing author for several educational publications and is currently working on his first book on the topic of Influence. A second book is also on the way co-authored with two colleagues. Ainsley is married with three adult children and six grandchildren all living in West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. |
Session Descriptions
View or download here
Evaluation Results & Handouts
View or download full conference report here
|
General Question |
Average Score |
|
The conference met my expectations |
4.5 / 5 |
|
The Conference will be of value to me in the future |
4.5 / 5 |
|
The Conference had enough variety to maintain my interest |
4.3 / 5 |
|
The Conference facilities were satisfactory |
4.4 / 5 |
|
Keynote Speakers |
Average score |
| Marc Brackett - Permission To Feel: The Power of Emotional Intelligence to Transform Lives |
4.9 |
| Monique Gray Smith - Leading and Living with a Light Heart |
4.6 |
| S. Bear Bergman - Justice of the Imagination, and the Power of Celebration |
4.4 |
The results of their workshop evaluation were shared with the local speakers. The LCEEQ Steering Committee has made the decision that these results will no longer be posted.
|
Workshops Block A - "The attended workshop was valuable to me" |
Average score |
| Julian Barling - Brave New Workplace - Powerpoint Presentation |
4.0 |
| Marc Brackett - Cultivating Your Emotional Intelligence |
4.6 |
| Raison D'Art - Fostering Belonging through Digital Art & SEL |
N/A |
| The Power of Mattering - Website Link |
N/A |
| “I actually felt believed in”: Taking a restorative mindset in schools |
N/A |
| Petros Kolyvas - Turning Artificial Intelligence Into Something Real - Handout |
4.0 |
|
Workshops Block B - "The attended workshop was valuable to me" |
Average score |
| Julian Barling - The Science and Art of Leadership - Powerpoint Presentation |
4.4 |
| Centres of Excellence - Enhancing Wellbeing Through Connection and Inclusion for Students with Exceptionalities - Handout |
N/A |
| Champlain College Millennium Certificate Program |
N/A |
| Petros Kolyvas - Turning Artificial Intelligence Into Something Real - Handout |
3.9 |
| Patricia Blackett & Angela Lionetti - Using Children’s Literature to Foster Antiracist Classrooms - Presentation |
4.7 |
| Ma place est ici!: Identifying as English-speaking, Bilingual and Québécois, c’est possible! - Presentation |
N/A |
| Making Modifications More Meaningful - Powerpoint Presentation and Inclusive Toolkit link (includes access to Lesson Plan template, Learner Profile Template and the FAQ) |
N/A |
|
Workshops Block C - "The attended workshop was valuable to me" |
Average score |
| S. Bear Bergman - Challenge by choice: getting ready for equity material |
4.3 |
| Designing Teacher Induction and Mentoring for Belonging |
N/A |
| Juli K. Dixon - Building Bridges: Creating Community Around Learning and Teaching Mathematics |
4.5 |
| Growing Up ‘Rural’ in Quebec – An LES for CCQ |
N/A |
| Ainsley Rose - Moving from Belonging to Believing in Creating Collective Efficacy |
4.6 |
| Equality, Equity, and the Opportunity Gap |
N/A |
| Petros Kolyvas - Turning Artificial Intelligence Into Something Real - Handout |
4.3 |
|
Workshops Block D - "The attended workshop was valuable to me" |
Average score |
| Unlocking Belonging: Escape Room Classroom Activities for Vocational Training |
N/A |
| Monique Gray-Smith - Weaving Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults Into your Class and Around Your Dinner Table |
4.6 |
| SOR With Us: Fostering a Sense of Belonging |
N/A |
| Ainsley Rose - Enlightened Hospitality: Building a Culture of Belonging |
4.0 |
| Welcoming and Integration Protocol at Ste-Foy Elementary School |
N/A |
| Dr. Jean Clinton - The Power of Belonging: Building Resilience Through Community - Recorded Workshop | N/A |