ABOUT
Ken O'Connor
B.A. (Hon), 1965; Dip. Ed. 1966, University of Melbourne; M.Ed., 1973, University of Toronto
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Ken has been an independent consultant from 1996 to the present. He has been a staff development presenter and facilitator on assessment, grading and reporting in 47 states and 10 Canadian provinces and two territoryies and 35 countries outside North America. He has presented at many conferences in Canada and the U.S.A., including the Pearson/ATI Summer Institute, (1996 and 1998 to 2016), Pearson/ATI Grading Conferences (2006 to 2017), NSDC Annual Conference (2002), ASCD Annual Conferences (1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2018), NASSP Annual Conference (2001), ASCD Teaching and Learning Conferences in Nashville, in October, 1998, in Tampa in October, 2000, and in New Orleans in October, 2002, the iNacol/Aurora Institute Symposium in Palm Springs in October 2019, and the ASCD Educational Leadership Conference in National Harbor, MD in November 2019. He also was a keynote presenter at the EARCOS Teachers Conference in Bangkok in March 2003 and October 2015 and an institute presenter at AISA conferences in October 2005 and October 2007 and at the NESA Fall Conference in Bahrain in November 2006, the NESA Teachers Conference in Bangkok in April 2007, the NESA Leadership Institute in Kathmandu in October 2011, the NESA Teachers Conference in Athens in March 2012 the NESA Winter Training Institutes in Muscat, Oman in January 2014, and Chennai, India in January 2019 and the NESA Fall Leadership Institutes in Istanbul in October 2014 and Bahrain in November 2017. Ken presented a two-day pre-conference Institute at the ECIS Conference in Amsterdam in November 2013. He has also presented at a number of Solution Tree conferences including the Assessment Summits in Atlanta in October 2007 and 2008 and in Schaumberg in April 2012, and at the all Canadian Assessment Now Conference in Victoria, BC in November 2014. He was a member of the ASCD Faculty and the ASCD Understanding by Design cadre. He is a founding member of the Canadian Assessment for Learning Network.
His twenty-three year teaching career included experience as a geography teacher and department head at L'Amoreaux C.I. and Maplewood High School in Scarborough, Ontario (1976-90) and teaching at four other schools in Toronto and Melbourne, Australia (Grade 7-12) starting in 1967.
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Ken was a Curriculum Coordinator responsible for Student Assessment and Evaluation and Geography for the Scarborough Board of Education (and then the Toronto District School Board) from March 1990 to June 1999. He also worked (half time) as a consultant on Secondary Assessment at the Ontario Ministry of Education from November 1998 to December 1999.
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Ken is a sports fanatic. His lifelong sport is (field) hockey; he has been involved in administration, playing, coaching (his teams won two provincial high school championships and three of his players went on to represent Canada in the Olympics), and umpiring, including umpiring men's matches at the 1984 Olympic Games and the 1990 World Cup. More recently he has become a very keen golfer and he also enjoys playing pickleball outdoors in the winter in Florida and indoors in Toronto for the rest of the year.
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Ken lives in Scarborough (Toronto) with his wife Marilyn for most of the year and in The Villages in Florida in the winter. He has two children, Jeremy (who is married to Charlene) and Bronwyn (who is married to Rob Mason), and three grandchildren, Jeremy and Charlene's twins, Elliot and Vivian born in 2007 and Bronwyn and Rob’s daughter, Emmeline, born on New Year’s Eve 2016.