[A Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Grant Project]

Project Directors: Shijing Xu & Michael Connelly

The Reciprocal learning in teacher education and school education between Canada and China Partnership Grant Project, involves two Canadian and five Chinese universities, two Canadian school boards and over forty Canadian and Chinese schools, and is advised by an International Advisory Committee from China, Singapore, Austria and the USA. The purposes of this project are to build educational knowledge and understanding from a cross-cultural perspective and to support new approaches to research on curriculum, teaching and learning in schools and teacher education programs in response to change brought on by heightened global awareness. This project integrates two programs: the University of Windsor-Southwest University Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Program and the Shanghai-Toronto-Beijing Sister School Network.  The overall Partnership program aims to draw on these two foundational programs to create a comprehensive cross-cultural knowledge base and understanding of school education, teacher education and the cultural contexts for education in Canada and China as well as the development of a communicative platform and methods of educational exchange of use in a broad range of settings. The Partnership consists of seven research teams, each with Chinese and Canadian team leaders, faculty membership, and graduate students: Arts and Humanities Education, General Education and Culture, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Language and Culture Education, Mathematics Education, Science Education, and Teacher Education. Research findings will be presented at public conferences and Annual General Meetings that rotate among Partner universities. The work will be mobilized for academic, professional and public audiences by traditional methods and by the use of an electronic communication platform developed by the ICT research team.

In June, 2013, Southwest University held a teacher education conference built around the Partnership.  At that meeting a Sino-Canadian Teacher Education Research Center linking Southwest University and the University of Windsor was unveiled.  Michael Connelly was appointed Honorary SWU Professor and Shijing Xu was appointed SWU Adjunct Professor and Affiliated Research Associate at the China National Research Center for Foreign Language Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University

One of our major purposes is to build a systematic educational partnership framework between Canada and China.  We want to create an educational knowledge base that fosters educational learning between Canada and China and we want to build lasting relationships among educators and a sustainable framework to foster future reciprocal learning.