As an educator, workshop presenter and writer for the past 34 years, Denise has been nominated twice for Teacher of the Year due to her innovative ways of teaching.  Her students ranged from Kindergarten up to Grade 8 as well as adult learners.  Within her school board, she was involved in writing curriculum for the subject areas of Health, the Environment, report card comments and play-based learning.

 

She has also led numerous student and teacher workshops at the Peace Tree Conference, Together We're Better Conference and The International Language Teacher’s Program.  A highlight of her career was presenting her own workshop, 'I Own It - Power of Identities', at an annual Quest Conference in 2018.  In the same year, Denise created the ‘I Own It’ Campaign as a positive approach to bullying.  Outside of the board, Denise has presented a report card workshop to teacher candidates at York University, numerous ETFO 'Re-Thinking White Privilege' workshops to teachers around Ontario and effective teaching and assessment practices to teachers in Shenyang, China and Busan, South Korea.  

 

Shortly after the birth of her son, she began writing and is now a published author of two picture books, ‘My Shoe’ and ‘Go Ahead And Sneeze, I Need Another Shower, Please’. Denise has presented author visits both online and in person to schools across Canada and the USA.

 

Denise’s biggest venue to date was reading her first book, 'My Shoe', to 2,000 students online; a picture book which supports the ‘I Own It’ Campaign.  This book has been published in different languages around the world.  In her spare time, Denise is an avid photographer, world traveller and watercolour painter.