Traf Voices

List of 1 news stories.

• When Students Lead: The Trafalgar-McGill CoLab

  4/10/2026
  Amy Allison
  Version française ci-dessous
  
  The music room at Trafalgar School is usually filled with the sounds of instruments playing and students singing. But recently, those notes were replaced by dynamic conversations about the future of education. Clusters of Secondary I students sat surrounded by groups of pre-service teachers from McGill University’s Faculty of Education. The questions and answers flowed quickly as notes were furiously written. 
  
  

  What’s unique about this scene is that it’s the students who were leading the discussions. 
  
  

  The university students were visiting to learn more about the process of teaching through guided and open inquiry: How does it feel to have a say in your own learning? How do students decide what they want to study? Do they feel more curious about science because of this unique process or less?
  
  

  The students answered without hesitation. They explained how their science class operates and how their teacher, Christianne Loupelle, has shown them how to ask good questions, be curious about the world around them, and feel a sense of ownership over their learning. For this hour-long discussion, the teens are the experts and the future educators are the learners. 
  
  

  This scene is only one example of how the Trafalgar-McGill CoLab is shifting what educational research can be. 
  
  

  “We’ve taken the idea of collaboration to be more than just research in a classroom and taken it to other forms of knowledge mobilization.”
  
  

  Anna Landry and Rachael Diamant share the role of being Trafalgar’s CoLab Coordinators. Their mandate is to work with their counterparts at McGill to coordinate research projects, pre-service teacher training initiatives and the Open Classroom opportunities, like the one hosted recently with Secondary I students.
  
  

  Started in 2019, the partnership between Trafalgar and McGill— now known as The CoLab- was conceived to help bridge the gaps between educational research and classroom practice. Trafalgar’s Head of School, Katherine Nikidis, approached Lisa Starr, who was, at the time, Chair of  McGill’s Department of Integrated Studies in Education. Ms. Nikidis asked if Dr. Starr would be interested in collaborating to change the way research is conducted. “There has been expansion beyond just research since then,” notes Ms. Diamant. “We’ve taken the idea of collaboration to be more than just research in a classroom and taken it to other forms of knowledge mobilization, like the Open Classroom Series.”
  
  

  Early meetings brought faculty members from both institutions together and were expanded to include graduate students, administrators, and Trafalgar students. The aim was to develop a model for collaboration, held up by three key pillars.
  
  

  “Connecting innovative research and practice was the first pillar,” explains Ms. Landry. “Cultivating collaborative practice and research hubs was the second, and creating scalable and sustainable partnerships was the third,” she continued. “Those core ideals are still there in the current CoLab model.”
  
  

  Both Ms. Diamant and Ms. Landry point out that the CoLab is not simply an institutional partnership, with Trafalgar on one side and McGill on the other. It is faculty members, classroom teachers, graduate researchers, and adolescents working together.
  
  That distinction matters. 
  
  

  “There are relationships at the center of this project—both between the institutions and between the faculty, the teachers and the students as well.”
  
  

  At the outset of the project, there were some concerns that the traditional model of Lab Schools is one where the university is the lead and the pre-secondary institution is a place where researchers parachute in with a study, collect data, and leave. Trafalgar needed to be an equal partner in all aspects of the CoLab. 
  
  

  “Our model is substantially different,” says Ms. Diamant. “There are relationships at the center of this project, both between the institutions and between the faculty, the teachers and the students as well.”
  
  When educators on both sides gathered to discuss the collaboration openly, the project became less abstract. People saw one another not as representatives of institutions, but as colleagues invested in the same questions: How can we improve learning? How can we better prepare teachers? How can research serve, rather than burden, schools?
  
  Word of mouth spread. More educators opted in. What began as a small circle expanded organically. “We’re currently going to the various departments at the Faculty of Education and trying, for lack of better words, to pull more people into our professional circle,” says Ms. Landry.
  
  One of the roles that Ms. Diamant and Ms. Landry take is coordinating the vetting process of potential studies. “We want to have a good vetting process,” says Ms. Landry. ‘We want to make sure that the projects we take on share our values.” 
  
  

  “We start with an idea, usually coming from someone from either McGill or Trafalgar. One of our criteria is that there is always a representative from both institutions. From there, a proposal is sent into the CoLab,” explains Ms. Landry. “The review committee takes a look at the proposal to ensure the basic requirements are met for a study. If the proposal is accepted, it is reviewed by several committees at Traf, including School Life, the Academic Team, Department Heads, and even Student Council.” 
  
  

  Ms. Diamant, who is pursuing her PhD through McGill, is currently conducting a multi-year research project on student motivation. She was particularly impressed with the questions raised by the students during the project vetting process. “They had great questions! Like, ‘Have you thought about this?’ or ‘How is that going to work?’” notes Ms. Diamant. “I was so impressed with their take and the lens through which they looked at the proposal.” 
  
  “Something we emphasize in the CoLab is feeding any knowledge gained from research projects back into the school.”
  
  The CoLab’s long-term vision extends beyond a single school-university pairing. There is talk of scalable models, of city-wide or even global networks that honour the same principles. “I would love to see other institutions from around the world reference it as a model of collaboration,” says Ms. Diamant. 
  
  Presentations at international gatherings, including one at the International Association of Lab Schools (IALS) in Finland, will take place in April. Additionally, a second CoLab showcase will be held on May 1st, which will bring members of the wider Trafalgar and McGill communities together to discuss the work being done and spur new projects as well. 
  
  “Something we emphasize in the CoLab is feeding any knowledge gained from research projects back into the school. So that's why we have had researchers come back and share their preliminary findings, or we've had them showcase posters at events”, adds Ms. Landry.
  
  Back in the music room, as the lunch-hour discussion winds down, a McGill pre-service teacher thanks a Secondary I student for her candour. The student smiles, then adds one more thought about how inquiry has changed the way she approaches problems. Not just in science, but in other subjects, too.
  
  It is an unscripted moment, but it speaks volumes.
  
  Research and practice are often described as parallel tracks. Here, they share the classroom.
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