Effie holds a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology, specialization in Inclusive Education. She began her work as a Learning Specialist at Dawson College in the Winter 2011. Her mandate is to work with students, both with and without learning disabilities, who are having difficulty acquiring French as a second language. Prior to arriving at Dawson, she worked as a learning coach and diagnostician.  As of the Fall 2011, she has been fortunate to also collaborate with two faculty members of the French department. They have obtained release time to work on a specific project to research and gain an understanding of the impact of learning disabilities on learning French as a Second Language (FSL). This has led to a reevaluation of the course planning and teaching approach. Together with Effie, they have formed l’Équipe CLÉ, a team whose goal is to create inclusive classrooms by incorporating the UDL approach in teaching FSL at the college level.

Contributions to Dawson’s Community:

Effie has frequently given workshop sessions at Dawson’s Ped Day event to faculty members. In addition, she presented (along with two other Dawson colleagues) a panel discussion at the FLS Symposium hosted at Dawson College entitled “La conception universelle en action!”.

Publications

• Laure Galipeau, Catherine Soleil & Effie Konstantinopolous. “Changing Attitudes Changes Everything”. ProfWeb-Real Life Stories, February 10th, 2014.