For Slezak, however, the sudden transition to online courses during the pandemic exposed shortcomings in her approach to inclusion, particularly in virtual settings. Her doctoral research focuses on identifying ways to build inclusive digital environments that support equitable access to higher education.
In this Scholars in Education series interview, she reflects on the experiences that inspired her to pursue graduate studies at the University of Ottawa.
Tell us about your professional background.
I am a person who likes to connect with people. I rejoined academia after years working as an ESL and communications college teacher in Toronto and abroad. Early in my career, my work brought me into international contexts that were, in many ways, very unfamiliar to me, and I leaned into these opportunities to learn from the people and places around me. I don’t mean only in my role as a teacher. For me, embracing the unfamiliar means being with people and learning to listen and communicate across commonalities and differences.
It was around shared tables and in everyday conversations, including many meals (and karaoke!), that I began to understand more deeply different ways of being and knowing. These experiences impacted my teaching in the Canadian college sector and continue to shape how I think about belonging and relational responsibility in educational contexts. As a fourth-year doctoral student and emerging researcher, I reflect on and acknowledge my life experiences in relation to my work, which centres diverse student experiences in online higher education.
Take us through your PhD project.
My doctoral project explores the experiences of teacher candidates of colour in Canadian online higher education. Taking a narrative inquiry approach, I’ve designed a qualitative study where participants share their experiences of online undergraduate courses in and around the pandemic. Teacher candidates offer an interesting dual perspective where they draw from their past experiences, recalling those moments, feelings and impacts, while also reimagining possible online pedagogical practices as current and future educators.
It is exciting to collaborate with participants who are passionate about the possibilities for post-secondary online spaces. Their past experiences and our experiences together in this project will support the need to better prepare in-services and future educators to design online learning spaces that reflect and value the diversity of their students and their critical consciousness, — channelling a bit of Paulo Freire as they empower themselves, supported by their peers and professors.
Moreover, this project will support the need to reimagine how online learning is designed and engaged with, so that learning experiences feel like an ecosystem circulating and sustaining commitments to anti-racism, academic excellence, critical consciousness, community and love.
What was your inspiration?
In my role as a teacher in the Canadian college sector, my classes included diverse cultural and racial communities. As I became more aware that my teaching was not always inclusive, I felt uncertain about how to evolve my practice, which was very uncomfortable. Unlearning became a way of bridging my experience as an educator with a more critical and reflective approach to teaching, which required me to confront my assumptions, including those shaped by my positionality. This process continues to shape my doctoral work. My long-standing interest in pedagogy is grounded in a commitment to academic excellence and community building in online spaces, an interest that has deepened since the pandemic. With the affordances of distance, online learning is not inherently structured to offer all learners equitable access to the course experience and sense of community that in-person classes can provide. Building on this, I transitioned into my doctoral studies to pursue research that supports more equitable and anti-racist practices in online higher education, with a focus on centring and amplifying voices that are too often marginalized.
Who might benefit from your research?
The people who come to mind first are the participants I’m working with in my research study. By spending time with this group of future educators, reflecting on and discussing experiences with online learning in HE (higher education), my hope is that they will enjoy the process and benefit from this work in a couple of ways. Namely, that their experience directly informs new research and that our experiences together will inspire their own teaching practice and praxis to exercise confident imagination while grounded in equity and wrapped in care. Other possible implications of my study include informing the development of teacher training programs and instructional design. Professional development opportunities for in-service teachers, particularly training that includes more critical approaches to teaching and (online) learning are also areas my study will have impact. Importantly, my research aims to play a role in shaping future online pedagogies in Canadian higher education so that cultures are more sustained, and learning content and teaching methods are enlivened when grounded in inclusive and antiracist approaches, moving beyond mere multicultural awareness.
How has your thinking shifted?
The concept of unlearning was unknown to me until my grad studies. Unlearning, the ongoing process of questioning and unsettling what we have come to accept as normal in education. Scholars such as Freire and bell hooks remind us that learning is not only about acquiring knowledge, but also about critically examining what we have internalized. In my work, this also connects to Canadian scholars like Dwayne Donald, Timothy Stanley, Verna St. Denis and George Sefa Dei, who invite us to reconsider how histories, relationships and knowledge systems shape teaching and learning.
This concept has shaped me in ways I had not anticipated. Unlearning spaces are where some of the most difficult and necessary work takes place, both academically and personally. It is here, in this forward-thinking place, where perplexity and questioning move alongside feelings of guilt and shame, threaded with reflection, openness, and pause, and carried with love. These spaces extend Lugones’ (1987) notion of playful world-travelling into opportunities for respectful dialogue across difference, inviting intersections of identity, home, community and school. When cultivated in educational settings, they open critical pedagogical possibilities, shaping learning in ways that feel authentic and transformative.
Why uOttawa?
When I began the doctoral application process, I knew I wanted to join a university that recognized a PhD as more than a credential; it is a deeply meaningful and transformative chapter. From the beginning, the Faculty of Education at uOttawa made that clear through its warmth and openness. I quickly came to understand what an ethic of care feels like enlivened in evolving relationships with my supervisor, professors, and peers. Participating in stimulating and world-travelling conversations elicits diverse vantage points and encourage more engagement and pause to reflect and (re)examine who I am in relation to important issues in education and the world around me. Collaborating with faculty members who are leaders in educational research has strengthened my scholarship in meaningful ways. To me, uOttawa, and specifically the Faculty of Education, embodies diversity, intellectual rigor, and deeply human support systems. It is a community committed to peace, to unlearning and relearning, and to thoughtful progress. Why uOttawa? Because it is shaped by people who genuinely invest in one another and do significant work.
Learn more.
Vivien M. Slezak is a doctoral candidate in Education at the University of Ottawa. Her research interests include equity in higher education, online learning, student experience, and narrative inquiry.
