Biography

My background as an elementary teacher and special education specialist brings a passion for helping learners and educators to thrive in the courses I teach and the questions I study. I invite students to work with me who share this goal and want to develop their skills in qualitative research.

Scholarly Interests

My research spans issues related to literacies, professional learning and mentoring, and curriculum design in contexts from elementary literacy education to health professions education. Drawing on sociomaterial and complexity perspectives, I explore how pedagogy and curriculum design might expand possibilities for learner and teacher agency and well-being, and the roles that space, time, and materials play in these processes. This focus on material agency includes attention to the unintended consequences of technologies in designs for learning. My current projects investigate how teachers are adapting and innovating their pedagogies for early reading instruction, critical literacy, and writing in response to transformative shifts in language curricula and generative AI. I also engage in multiple forms of qualitative and post-qualitative research with interdisciplinary collaborators. For example, I am a collaborator on a grant with bioethicists to improve informed consent for organ donation in Canada through participatory research and multimodal communication strategies.

Faculty & School/Dept

• Faculty of Education -

Courses Taught

• Language & Literacy in the Junior-Intermediate Divisions (ED/EDJI 1000)
• Language & Literacy in the Primary-Junior Divisions (ED/EDPJ 1000)
• Multimodal Literacies (GS/EDUC 5385)
• Narrative Inquiry (GS/EDUC 5220)
• Play, Language and Learning (GS/EDUC 5550)
• Research Into Practice (ED/EDFE 4200)

Selected Publications

• Ott, M., Pack, R., Cristancho, S., Chin, M., Van Koughnett, J. A., & Ott, M. C. (2022). The most crushing thing": Understanding resident assessment burden in a competency-based curriculum. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 14 (5), 583-592. doi:https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-22-00050.1.
• Ott, M., Kassen, J., & Hibbert, K. (2022). Magic and monsters: Collaborating with Google in 21st century literacies. Language and Literacy, 24 (2), 62-84. doi:https://doi.org/10.20360/langandlit29603 .
• Ott, M., Hibbert, K., Rodgers, S., & Lescheid, A. (2017). A well place to be: The intersection of Canadian school-based mental health policy with student and teacher resiliency Canadian Journal of Education, 40 (2), 1-30.

Professional Affiliations

• Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada: Co-chair, Preconference 2024

Partnerships/Initiatives/Centres

• Centre for Education Research & Innovation, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University: Centre Researcher