MIRRA Member Mikael Hellstrom presents at International Metropolis Conference 2019

MIRRA’s support allowed Mikael Hellstrom to attend the International Metropolis 2019 conference in Ottawa, June 24th-28th. Hellstrom attended two panels. The first was organized by MIRRA member Michelle Lam and focused on innovative approaches to immigrant retention in remote communities. Hellstrom’s presentation focused on past research on refugee reception in New Brunswick and the conversations and collaborations he had with settlement agencies during that time. The second panel was organized by Mohamed Bagha, director of the Saint John Newcomer Centre, and asked the question of whether immigrants ever could become locals. In this context, Hellstrom presented on past experiences of innovative pedagogical approaches in the classroom, particularly game-based learning, and ask if this type of course design could be used to enhance training for the Canadian citizenship test.