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Headshot-style photograph of Dr. Joelle Rodway.

Joelle Rodway
PhD, OCT

Associate Professor

Faculty of Education

Contact information

Charles Hall - Room 306
Downtown Oshawa
61 Charles Street
Oshawa, ON L1H 4X8

905.721.8668 ext. 5666

joelle.rodway@ontariotechu.ca

Bio

Dr. Joelle Rodway is the founder and director of the NET Lab: Networks for Educational Transformation, a research lab that examines the role of social networks in mediating leadership and policy efforts for school and system improvement. In particular, she focuses on professional learning networks and how the exchange of social capital facilitates and constrains knowledge mobilization in support of educational change.

Joelle holds a BEd from the University of Alberta and an MA and PhD from the University of Toronto. She joined Ontario Tech University as Associate Professor in Leadership & Education in September 2023. Prior to this appointment, she was Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership Studies at the Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador where she received a School of Graduate Studies ROCKStar Award for exemplary graduate student supervision. She began her education career as an intermediate/senior French and English teacher in the Durham District School Board in 2001 and she taught in the International Baccalaureate Middle Years and Diploma Programmes at the Canadian International School in Singapore.

Courses taught

Graduate

  • Foundations of Leadership
  • Leadership for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Research and expertise

  • Social networks
  • Social capital
  • Professional learning
  • Knowledge mobilization
  • Educational change
  • Rodway, J., Liou, Y.-H., & Daly, A. J. (2023). Knowledge brokers as informal leaders in a multi-district learning ecosystem. In Yi-Hwa Liou and Alan J. Daly (Eds)., The relational leader. Bloomsbury.
  • Rodway, J., Cann, R. F., & Sinnema, C. (2023). In pursuit of community of learning: Investigating a cross-school leadership team. In Yi-Hwa Liou and Alan J. Daly (Eds.), The relational leader. Bloomsbury.
  • Sinnema, C., Daly, A. J., Rodway, J., Hannah, D., Cann, R. F., & Liou, Y.-H. (2023). Improving the relational space of curriculum realization: Social network interventions. Emerald Publishing.
  • Cann, R. F., Sinnema, C., Daly, A. J., Rodway, J., & Liou, Y.-H. (2022). The power of school conditions: individual, relational, and organizational influences on educator wellbeing. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 775614. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.775614 
  • van den Boom-Muilenburg, S. N., Poortman, C. L., Daly, A. J., Schildkamp, K., de Vries, S., Rodway, J., & van Veen, K. (2022). Key actors leading knowledge brokerage for sustainable school improvement with PLCs: Who brokers what? Teaching and Teacher Education, 110, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103577 
  • Sinnema, C., Daly, A. J., Liou, Y.-H., Rodway, J., & Cann, R. F. (2021). When seekers reap rewards and providers pay a price: The role of relationships and discussion in improving practice in a community of learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 107, 103474. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103474 
  • Rodway, J., MacGregor, S., Daly, A., Liou, Y.-H., Yonezawa, S., & Pollock, M. (2021). A network case of knowledge brokering. Journal of Professional Capital and Community, 6(2), 148–163. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPCC-11-2020-0089 
  • Sinnema, C., Daly, A. J., Liou, Y.-H., & Rodway, J. (2020). Exploring the communities of learning policy in New Zealand using social network analysis: A case study of leadership, expertise, and networks. International Journal of Educational Research, 99, 1‒16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2019.10.002 
  • Rodway, J. & Farley-Ripple, E. N. (2020). Shifting our gaze: Relational space in PLN research. In L. Schnellert (Ed.), Professional learning networks: Facilitating transformation in diverse contexts with equity-seeking communities. Emerald Publishing.
  • Cooper, A., Rodway, J., MacGregor, S., Shewchuk, S., & Searle, M. (2020). Promising approaches to measuring educational networks: A framework integrating social network analysis and developmental evaluation. In J. R. Malin & C. Brown (Eds.), The role of knowledge brokers in education: Connecting the dots between research and practice (pp. 90‒107). Routledge.
  • Rodway, J. (2019). Coaching as a knowledge mobilization strategy: Coaches’ centrality in a provincial research brokering network. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 14(5), 1‒18. http://journals.sfu.ca/ijepl/index.php/ijepl/article/view/864 
  • Rodway, J., & Daly, A. J. (2019). Defining schools as social spaces: A social network approach to researching schools as organizations. In C. James, D. E. Spicer, M. Connolly & S. D. Kruse (Eds.), The SAGE international handbook on school organization (Ch. 35). SAGE Publications Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526465542
  • Rodway, J. (2018). Getting beneath the surface: Examining the social side of professional learning networks. In C. Poortman & C. Brown (Eds.), Networks for learning: effective collaboration for teacher, school and system improvement (pp. 172–193). Routledge.
  • Cooper, A., Rodway, J., & Read, R. (2018). Knowledge mobilization practices of educational researchers across Canada. Canadian Journal of Higher Education/Revue canadienne d'enseignement supérieur, 48(1), 1‒21. https://doi.org/10.7202/1050839ar