Keynote Speakers

Rahimah Haji Ahmad

Dr. Rahimah Haji Ahmad is the founding director of Institute of Principalship Studies, University of Malaya and a professor in the field of principalship and instructional leadership. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Diploma in Education and Master in Education from the University of Malaya, and a Ph.D in Education (Educational Administration and Supervision) from the University of Southern California. She was a secondary school teacher before joining the faculty of Education, University of Malaya, as a lecturer in the then Department of Social Foundations of Education. On her return from her doctoral studies, she was placed in the Department of Educational Development (now Department of Education Management, Planning and Policy), appointed Associate Professor in 1983 and a full Professor in 1992.

Deborah L. Butler

Deborah L. Butler is a Professor in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education at the University of British Columbia. She currently serves as Associate Dean, Graduate Programs and Research in UBC’s Faculty of Education. Her research interests are in the areas of understanding and supporting strategic, self-regulated learning by students in inclusive and support classrooms at the intermediate, secondary and postsecondary levels. Her research also focuses on how professional development can be structured to support teachers making meaningful and sustained revisions to practice.

Kieran Egan

Kieran Egan was born in Clonmel, Ireland in 1942. He was brought up and educated in England. He read History (Hons) at the University of London, graduating with a BA in 1966. He worked for a year as a Research fellow at the Institute for Comparative Studies in Kingston-upon-Thames and then moved to the USA to begin a PhD in Philosophy of Education at Stanford University. He worked concurrently as a consultant to the IBM Corporation on adaptation of a programming method, called Structural Communication, to new computing systems. He completed his PhD at Cornell University in 1972. His first job was at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, where he has remained ever since. He is the author of about twenty books, and co-author, editor, or co-editor of a few more. In 1991 he received the Grawemeyer Award in Education. In 1993 he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada, in 2000 he was elected as Foreign Associate member to US National Academy of Education, he received a Canada Research Chair in 2001, won the Whitworth Award in 2007. 

His main area of interest is education. His work focuses on a new educational theory, which he has developed during the past two decades, and its implications for a changed curriculum, teaching practices, and the institution of the school. His work deals both with innovative educational theory and detailed practical methods whereby implications of his theory can be applied at the classroom level. His recent books include Teaching as Story Telling and Imagination in Teaching and Learning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), The Educated Mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our progressivist inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), An imaginative approach to teaching (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,2005), and Teaching literacy: Engaging the imagination of new readers and writers (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2006), and most recently, The Future of Education: Reimagining our schools from the ground up (New Haven: Yale University Press).

Mark Fettes

Mark Fettes is an Assistant Professor of Educational Theory at Simon Fraser University. His theoretical work is focused on understanding the dynamics or “ecology”, of language, imagination and community, and its implications for educational policy and practice.

Valerie Hannon

As Director of Strategy for The Innovation Unit, Valerie Hannon has led its work in developing its role as an innovation intermediary, designing methods and approaches to build the innovative capacity of organizations in the public services. She is responsible for The Innovation Unit’s Next Practice program and commissions The Innovation Unit’s stream of publications in thought of leadership. She is also responsible for The Innovation Unit’s future strategy.

Valerie was, until 1999, the Director of Education for Derbyshire County LEA. Formerly Deputy Director of Education in Sheffield, she has worked in a broad range of Local Authorities, and was an advisor to the Local Government Association. Before joining local government she was a senior research fellow in the University of Sheffield and a teacher. She is a former USA Harkness Fellow.

Valerie was a member of the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, which produced the report All Our Futures (1999, DfES, DCMS). She subsequently acted as advisor to the then DfES (now DCSF), the QCA and to the Creative Partnerships program, to promote creativity in learning, teaching and leadership.

Her interests include the contribution of other sectors (particularly the creative, cultural and third sectors) to the transformation of public services in the 21st century; the role of leadership; and international approaches to these issues.

Alma Harris

Alma Harris first trained as a secondary school teacher and taught in a number of challenging schools in South Wales. During her time as a teacher she completed her masters degree at the University of Wales in Cardiff and subsequently worked for the Welsh Development Agency in business development. She left teaching to start her own company and to complete her PhD studies. After completing her PhD at Bath University in 1993 she commenced her academic career and has held academic positions at the University of Bath, Open University, Nottingham University and the University of Warwick where she was the Director of the Institute of Education for four years before taking up her position at the University of London.

Debbie Leighton-Stephens

Debbie Leighton-Stephens is the District Principal of Aboriginal Education in the Prince Rupert School District of British Columbia.

Kenneth Leithwood

Ken Leithwood is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. His research and writing concerns school leadership, educational policy and organizational change and is widely published on these topics. For example, he is the senior editor of both the first and second International Handbooks on Educational Leadership and Administration (Kluwer Publishers, 1996, 2003). His most recent books include Distributed leadership: The state-of-the-science (2008), Leadership With Teachers’ Emotions In Mind (2008), Making Schools Smarter (3rd edition, 2006) and Teaching for Deep Understanding (2006). Professor Leithwood is the recent recipient of the University of Toronto’s Impact on Public Policy Award and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Daniel Muijs

Daniel Muijs is the Professor of Pedagogy and Teacher Development at The University of Manchester. He has researched and published extensively in the areas of effective pedagogy, school effectiveness and school improvement and leadership, and has an interest in research methodology, in particular quantitative methods. He is the Editor of the journal Management Abstracts, and has acted as Chair and program chair of the School Effectiveness and School Improvement special interest group of the American Educational Research Association. Daniel is involved in a large number of research and evaluation projects for charitable trusts, research councils and government bodies.

Viviane Robinson

Viviane Robinson PhD (Harvard), is a Professor of Education at The University of Auckland specializing in organizational studies, leadership and research methodology. She has published extensively on organizational learning, school organization and leadership and on the links between educational research and the improvement of practice. Since 2001, she has been the Academic Director of the "First time Principals Program", the national induction program for New Zealand's school principals. She is also the lead writer on the Best Evidence Synthesis on Educational Leadership - a government research contract investigating the impact of school leadership on student achievement. Viviane also heads the graduate program on educational management and leadership in the Faculty of Education. Her recent publications include a book on practitioner research that integrates the values of rigor and relevance (Practitioner Research for Educators, Corwin Press, 2006) and two award winning articles in the International Journal of Educational Management ("Descriptive and normative research on organizational learning: Locating the contribution of Argyris and Schön") and in the Journal of Educational Administration ("Lay governance of New Zealand’s schools: An educational, democratic or managerialist activity?")

Louise Stoll

Professor Louise Stoll (PhD) is a Past President of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and School Improvement, Visiting Professor at the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the Institute of Education, University of London, and at the University of Bath where, until June 2003, she was Professor in Education and Director of the Centre for Educational Leadership, Learning and Change. Previously, Louise has been a primary teacher and researcher in inner London; research director at the Halton Board of Education, Ontario working on the Effective Schools Project; and Coordinating Director of the International School Effectiveness and Improvement Centre at the Institute of Education where, with colleagues, she established the School Improvement Network. Her research and development activity in England and internationally over the last 25 years has increasingly focused on how schools, Local Authorities and national systems create capacity for learning and improvement. Author and editor of many publications including Professional Learning Communities (co-edited with Karen Seashore Louis, It’s About Learning (and It’s About Time) with Dean Fink and Lorna Earl, No Quick Fixes: Perspectives on Schools in Difficulty (co-edited with Kate Myers) and Changing Our Schools: Linking School Effectiveness and School Improvement (with Dean Fink), Louise presents and consults in many countries.

Lorna Williams

Lorna Williams is Lil’wat from the St’at’yem’c First Nation. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge and Learning at the University of Victoria where she is an assistant professor. Dr. Williams is an educator with many years of experience in Aboriginal Education, Aboriginal Language Revitalization, Curriculum Development, Teacher Development, Mediated Learning, Cognitive Education, effects of colonization on learning, and indigenous ways of knowing.