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marni-binder

Marni Binder

Associate Professor Emeritus
EducationEdD
Areas of ExpertiseCreative arts; Arts-based education research; Holistic education (spirituality of children, mindfulness); Multimodal literacies; Child art, Visual narrative; Scholarship of teaching and learning.

Marni Binder is an associate professor emeritus in the School of Early Childhood Studies (ECS) at Toronto Metropolitan University. She has taken on several leadership roles including: learning and teaching chair in the Faculty of Community Services (2016-2017 and 2019-2020), and associate director, academic leadership, undergraduate, in ECS (2020-2023).

Dr. Binder was also an educator in Regent Park, Toronto, for 23 years. As an artist, teacher and researcher, her work is rooted in a holistic philosophy and explores poetic inquiry, creativity, visual arts and children, arts-based education, spirituality and mindfulness. 

She has presented at international conferences such as the American Educational Research Association, the European Early Childhood Educational Research Association, as well as Holistic Education conferences, the Canadian Society for Studies in Education and the Canadian Society for Education through Art. 

  • CLD 215: Creative Arts 1
  • CLD 314: Literacy in the Early Years
  • CS 8928: Transformative Literacy (graduate course)
  • CS 8934: Arts and Children (graduate course)

Research interests:

  • Arts-based education research
  • Creativity and the creative arts
  • Children’s visual narratives
  • Poetic inquiry
  • Spirituality in the lives of young children
  • Mindfulness and wellbeing
  • Holistic education
  • Multimodal literacies

Research projects:

  • Project: Artful languaging: A poetic and visual inquiry (For the Seventh International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry, Halifax, NS, October 3- 5, 2019).
    • Year: 2019
    • Role: Collaboration with Dr. Susan Walsh, Professor Emerita, Mount Saint Vincent University, Nova Scotia.
  • Project: Building faculty capacity in self-care using mindful practices to enhance and support their teaching-learning scholarship and student engagement
    • Year: 2018- 2019
    • Role: Co-investigator
    • Principal Investigator: J. Schwind
    • Co-principal Investigator: E. McKay,
    • Co-investigators: H. Beanlands, J. Martin
  • Project: Holding space for voice: Musings, metaphors, and creative openings in teaching and learning.
    • Years: 2015-2016
    • This self-study explores multimodal conversations of art-making and how this informs personal and professional risk-taking and role-modeling in the teaching and learning environment.
  • Project: Child perspectives on disclosure of adverse events in paediatrics.
    • Year: 2014- 2017
    • Role: Co-investigator
    • Principal Investigator: Donna Koller
  • Project: Mindfulness practice as a strategy in teaching-learning of university students
    • Year: 2014-2015
    • Role: Co-investigator
    • Principal Investigator: Schwind, J.
    • Co-principal Investigator: McCay, E.
    • Co-investigators: Beanlands, H., Schindel-Martin, L., Martin, J.
  • Project: The importance of the arts in the everyday lives of young children
    • Year: 2014
    • Recent cross-cultural research explored the importance of the arts in the everyday lives of young children in Bali, Indonesia. Six artists were interviewed in Bali, Indonesia from different art forms such as visual arts, dance, wayang (shadow puppetry), gamelan (music), mask- making and topeng (mask-dancing).
  • Project: Child perspectives on disclosure of adverse events in paediatrics: A pilot study
    • Year: 2013- 2016
    • Role: Co-principal Investigator
    • Principal Investigator: Donna Koller
  • Project: Multimodal meaning-making: Connecting children globally through digital postcards
    • Year: 2013
    • Principal Investigator: Reesa Sorin
    • Co-principal Investigators: Jason Nolan, Roger Wilkinson and Philemon Chigeza.This project explored the use of blogs through a cross-cultural arts-based collaborative project between two kindergarten classrooms in Canada and Australia.
  • Project: The stories children play: How storying empowers voice in young children
    • Year: 2011/12
    • This project examined the significance of a storytelling curriculum and the use of multimodalities with kindergarten children.
  • Project: How the visual arts transform literacy understanding of identity texts in young children
    • Year: 2009
    • Role: Principal Investigator
    • Co-principal Investigator: Sally Kotsopoulos

Binder, M. (2020). What is home? Belonging, longing, be coming. In M. Mosavarzadeh & K. Morimoto (Eds.), Making-Place: International postcardexhibition (p. 23).  (PDF file) InSEa Publications (external link) . 

Project: Artful witnessing: A poetic and visual inquiry process (For the Seventh International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry, Halifax Nova Scotia, October 2019)

  • Year: 2019
  • Role: Collaboration with Dr. Susan Walsh, Professor Emerita, Mount Saint Vincent University

Binder, Marni J. (2019). Ubiquity (photography, Puerto Vallarta, MX). In: Making time. A Delegates Digital International Art Exhibit. International Society for Education through Art Conference, (July 9-13, 2019). Audain Gallery, UBC: Vancouver, BC Canada.

Binder, Marni J. (2019). Tequila Sunset, (photography, Puerto Vallarta, MX).   In: Making time. A Delegates Digital International Art Exhibit. International Society for Education through Art Conference, (July 9-13, 2019). Audain Gallery, UBC: Vancouver, BC Canada.

Binder, Marni J. (2019). Striations, (photography, Puerto Vallarta, MX). In: Making time. A Delegates Digital International Art Exhibit. International Society for Education through Art Conference, (July 9-13, 2019). Audain Gallery, UBC: Vancouver, BC Canada.

Binder, Marni J. (2019). Ritual, (photography, Puerto Vallarta, MX).  In: Making time. A Delegates Digital International Art Exhibit. International Society for Education through Art Conference, (July 9-13, 2019). Audain Gallery, UBC: Vancouver, BC Canada.

Binder, Marni J. (2019). Just because… (photography, Ocean Grill, Cabo Calientes, Boca de Tomatlán, MX). In: Making time. A Delegates Digital International Art Exhibit. International Society for Education through Art Conference, (July 9-13, 2019). Audain Gallery, UBC: Vancouver, BC Canada.

Year: 2016 - Ongoing collaborative study with Dr. John Guiney Yallop, Acadia University, Nova Scotia Canada using ekphrastic responses with poetry and visual arts to explore questions around personal/professional identity, curriculum, early influences, creativity and the collaborative research process.

Year: 2014, I contributed images and poetic text to a research blog titled: We are not ourselves (external link) , created by colleagues at Southern Cross University in Australia to explore walking and mapping and “unravel the harmonics of collaboration in educational research.”

Podcasts:

Webinars:

  • Binder, M. (2020, November 10). Arts-infused teaching [Panel presentation]. The Teacher Education Program, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Books:

  • Miller, J. P., Nigh, K. Binder, M. J., Novak, B., & Crowell, S. (2018). The international handbook of holistic education. Routledge.
  • Binder, M. J. & Kind, S. (2017). Drawing as language: Celebrating the work of Bob Steele. Sense Publishers.

Chapters:

  • Binder, M. J. (2023). Finding the spaces in between. In N. Lemon (Ed.), Reflections on valuing wellbeing in higher education. (pp. 28- 40). Routledge.
  • Binder, M.J. (2021). The labyrinth of gratitude: A collage of memories, reflections and gifts in learning and teaching. In C. Shields, A. G. Podolski & J. Guiney Yallop (Eds.), Influences and inspirations in curriculum studies research and teaching (pp. 57- 68). Routledge.
  • Binder, M. J., (2021). Holding space for self and others: Exploring mindful presence and academic identity through the arts. In E. Lyle & S. Mahani (Eds.), Sister scholars: Untangling issues of identity as women in academe (pp. 229-240). DIO Press.
  • Binder, M. J. (2018). Part II: Teaching- learning-curriculum. In J. P. Miller, K. Nigh, M. J. Binder, B. Novak & S. Crowell (Eds.), The international handbook of holistic education (pp. 57-59). Routledge.
  • Binder, M. J., Martin J., Schwind J. K. (2018). Exploring mindfulness in teaching–learning scholarship through a reflective conversation. In N. Lemon & S. McDonough (Eds.), Mindfulness in the academy (pp. 83-96). Springer.
  • Guiney Yallop, J. J. & Binder, M. J. (2017). From the edges of lateness: Finding our place in the curriculum. In E. Lyle (Ed.), At the intersection of selves and subject: Exploring the curricular landscape of identity (pp. 153-162). Sense Publishers.
  • Binder, M. J. (2017). "I wanna tell you a story": Exploring the multimodal storytelling voices of children's lived experience. In S. Garvis & N. Pramling (Eds.), Narratives in early childhood education: Communication, sense making and lived experience (pp. 11-28). Routledge.
  • Binder, M. J. & Kind, S. (2017). Introduction. In M. J. Binder & S. Kind (Eds.), Drawing as language: Celebrating the work of Bob Steele (pp. xix-xiii). Sense Publishers.
  • Binder, M. J. (2017). In conversation with Bob Steele. In M. J. Binder & S. Kind (Eds.), Drawing as language: Celebrating the work of Bob Steele (pp. 1-12). Sense Publishers.
  • Binder, M. J. (2016). Spirituality and the arts: Interwoven landscapes of identities and meaning. In M. de Souza, J. Bone & J. Watson (Eds.), Spirituality across disciplines: Research and practice (pp. 285-297). Springer.
  • Binder, M. J., Sorin, R., Nolan, J. & Chu, S. (2015). Multimodal meaning-making for young children: Partnerships through blogging. In S. Garvis & N. Lemon (Eds.), Understanding digital technologies and young children: An international perspective (pp. 92-111). Routledge.
  • Binder, M. (2010). Places and spaces: Exploring social studies through architecture. In M. Blatherwick & H. Pearse (Eds.), What works: Innovative strategies for teaching art (pp. 21-24). The Canadian Society for Education through Art.
  • Binder, M. (2008). Experiencing multiple literacies through picture books. In D. Booth (Ed.), It’s critical! Strategies for deepening and extending comprehension (pp. 120-122). Pembroke Publishers.

Journal articles:

Book reviews:

  • Binder, M. J. (2016). [Review of the book Arts-based and contemplative practices in research and teaching: Honoring presence, by S. Walsh, B. Bickel & C. Leggo]. International Journal of Education through Art, 12(1), 227-229.
  • Binder, M. J. (2015). [Review of the book Emergent teaching: A path of creativity, significance, and transformation, by S. Crowell & D. Reid-Marr]. Journal of Transformative Education. 13(2), 186-188.

  • Provost's Innovative Teaching Award, 2016-2017.
  • Sue Williams Excellence in Teaching Award, 2013.
  • Co-authored article with Sally Kotsopoulos, Multimodal literacy narratives: Weaving the threads of young children's identity through the arts, in the Journal of Research in Childhood Education received an Honorable Mention in the Association for Childhood Education International's (ACEI) 2011 Distinguished Education Research Article Award Program.