"Miigwetch" for this award
Mackenzie Sayers, on-line Masters of Education candidate, is this year’s winner of the Joan Pedersen Memorial Graduate Award. Mackenzie is from Garden River First Nation and is currently teaching at a First Nations school on Manitoulin Island.
Mackenzie’s thesis centres on classroom-based approaches and processes in Aboriginal education. Her nominator writes, "Mackenzie is looking for ways to enrich student learning and provide more culturally relevant curriculum and pedagogy in the classroom and school. Working with Elders in her community, she has created and developed new materials and initiated new approaches to her own teaching based on the Ojibway language and traditions as understood in her locale. By honouring Mackenzie Sayers with the Joan Pedersen Memorial Graduate Award, the Faculty of Education would also be recognizing the importance of classroom-based research and classroom-based research in Aboriginal education."
As for the recipient, Mackenzie writes, "I truly appreciate all that I have learned through my growth in this program and am applying my newfound knowledge in educating young people. Miigwetch for this award; it is a tremendous honour to receive this."
