About Us
The Learning Bar is the creation of Dr. J. Douglas Willms and Patrick Flanagan.
Its activities are an outgrowth of the work historically undertaken by Dr. Willms' company, KSI Research International Inc., and Mr. Flanagan's company that he
co-owns with his partner, Kathleen Howard & Associates, Inc. Both companies recognized the opportunities inherent in taking standard monitoring and assessment in schools, and ramping it up to consider how schools compare with similar schools on a grand national or international level, and made conveniently accessible and in a timely manner through the internet. Thus was born Tell Them From Me.
Dr. J. Douglas Willms (CV)
is a Professor and Director of the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy at the University of New Brunswick (UNB). He is the Canada Research Chair in Literacy and Human Development, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Member of the US National Academy of Education, and a Fellow of the International Academy of Education.
Dr. Willms has published over two hundred research articles and monographs pertaining to youth literacy, children’s health, the accountability of schooling systems, and the assessment of national reforms. He is the author of Student engagement at school: A sense of belonging and participation (Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and Monitoring School Performance: A Guide for Educators (Falmer Press, 1992). He was the editor of Vulnerable Children: Findings from Canada’s National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth, (University of Alberta Press, 2002).
Dr. Willms played a lead role in developing the questionnaires for Canada’s National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Recently, Willms and his colleagues designed the Early Years Evaluation (www.earlyyearsevaluation.com), an instrument for the direct assessment of children’s developmental skills at ages 3 to 6, and Tell Them From Me (www.tellthemfromme.com), an interactive online school survey evaluation system, designed to help front-line educators and administrators improve learning outcomes for students.
Patrick Flanagan
is a partner and senior associate with Kathleen Howard & Associates Inc. and was until recently Youth Advocate for the Department of Public Safety in New Brunswick. He has an M.A. from the University of New Brunswick, and a Diploma in Social Policy from the University of Stockholm. His consulting practice has focused on social and human development challenges, largely in research, evaluation and program development. He has had considerable engagement with the voluntary sector, and has a long history of leadership in learning initiatives, both for adults and youth. These include president of the Canadian Association for Adult Education, adult literacy efforts such as the Saint John Learning Exchange, and Executive Director of Partners for Youth. He is past Chair of the Board of the Canadian Council on Social Development.
Richard Hon Shing Chan
is System Administrator at The Learning Bar. After graduating with a B.Sc., Richard pursued his Masters Degree in Urban Planning from the University of Hong Kong and a post-graduate diploma in Geo-information Systems from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2000. His experience and knowledge on GIS and programming serves him well in the on-going development of TTFM's online school survey system.
