Our Collaboration
This website was created as the application of knowledge component of our master’s project in Educational Technology. Our entire project was completed as a partnership between Kati Dreilich, an elementary school early literacy and learning assistance teacher, and Tiffany Kearns, an English language teacher for adult newcomers to Canada. At first glance, our teaching contexts and our learners may appear quite different. We are both literacy teachers, but we teach in different cities, with different programs, and with vastly different students. As we set out on our journey together, we began to see many similarities amongst our learners, despite the obvious differences in age, language, ability and life experiences. We soon discovered that our diverse, marginalized learners bring a wealth of knowledge, insights, creativity, resourcefulness, perseverance and motivation. Together, we can draw upon these diverse perspectives as they offer the greatest insights for innovation.
About Kati

I originally started my postsecondary experience at UVic in 1999 in Electrical Engineering before shifting my focus to Elementary Education. I graduated from UVic in 2005 with my BEd and immediately began Teaching on-call in the Sooke School District. I spent the next decade growing my family and TTOCing off and on while my children were young. When my youngest started Kindergarten, I enrolled in Vancouver Island University and earned my degree in Special Education in 2015. Shortly thereafter, I landed my first part-time contracts in SD#62 in various Learning / Behaviour / Integration support roles. I taught in several elementary schools (many at the same time) and had the opportunity to learn from a variety of colleagues and students. In the fall of 2018, I settled into my current school where I am typically known by the students as “The Reading Teacher” in my role as the Literacy Intervention Teacher. Another part of my job is to support students with learning disabilities.
Outside of work, I spend my time crafting, cooking, driving my teenagers around, enjoying music and traveling (or thinking about traveling!) My family and I have been on many exciting adventures, including Costa Rica, New York City, Mexico, Bahamas, countless Disney parks trips, an all-expenses paid inaugural cruise abord the Disney Wish in the Caribbean and many visits to Manitoba.
About Tiffany

My teaching career began in Japan in the year 2000, just after I graduated with a BA in English Literature from Concordia University in Montreal. When I arrived in Tokyo I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, but began teaching English to students ranging from 3 to 75 years old at a private company – figuring it out as I went along. After gaining 4 years of experience, I returned to my hometown in Northern Ontario and continued to teach EAL as well as adult literacy, until I moved to Vancouver in 2006. By that time, I needed to get a TESL certificate to teach EAL and I decided not to stop there. I did my BEd. at UBC in 2010/2011. Though I did my practicum in high school English, I was hired by SD43 Coquitlam Continuing Education where I have been teaching adult newcomers to Canada in the LINC program – Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada – since early 2012.
Outside of work I keep busy taking care of my two kids, husband, and cat. We try to visit Japan each spring before it gets too humid, and Northern Ontario in the summer where we enjoy staying at my grandmother’s cottage on Lonely Lake.