Grant recipients: Sean Geobey, School of Environment, Enterprise and Development
(Project Timeline: May 1, 2017 - April 30, 2018)
Description
According to Prince (2004), “[active] learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process. In short, active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing.” Active Learning Across Disciplines (ALAD) is an instructor-focused community of practice whose premise is that each academic discipline interprets active learning differently and that exposure to active learning tools outside our core disciplinary experiences can provide new insights into how we conduct our own teaching. This approach developed after environmental scan undertaken as part of the CTE LITE Seed Grant suggested a broadening of the tool set under consideration to active learning of all types while narrowing the application to classroom uses, a pivot from an initial workshop facilitation skills community of practice. So far the ALAD pilot has involved four workshops with two additional workshops scheduled for Spring 2018.
Intended purpose of teaching enhancement
The goals of the grant upon application were to:
- Build a community of practice focused on workshop facilitation
- Promote transdisciplinary teaching, research and service
- Provide workshops and a database-compendium of facilitation skills
However, the nature of the project is such that pivots were anticipated and these are outlined in the Findings/Insights section.
Findings/Insights
There was a strong element of co-creation with the intended members of the community of practice which involved an environmental scan to find aligned faculty and initiatives. An environmental scan identified 71 faculty, 12 on-campus non-student organizations, and 6 student-run organizations which were identified as possible users of workshop facilitation tools. However, a wide range of terms was used to describe these practices, necessitating a series of 32 interviews to verify these findings. Two high-level findings emerged:
- The critical requirement for maintaining a successful long-term community of practice is enthusiastic support from a few professors representing a diverse range of faculties across campus
- There is no common language that holds across disciplines to describe “workshop facilitation tools”
From the environmental scan, interviews, and two co-design sessions a reorientation towards a new research question was made:
- What is a problem that can engage faculty from a variety of disciplines in an ongoing community of practice?
For this a working hypothesis was developed:
- Providing pedagogues with different disciplinary backgrounds a low-staked forum to demonstrate-use active learning tools and discuss their application will encourage the use of active learning across campus.
This pivot constrained the community of practice to the classroom, but kept the use of workshop facilitation as a type of active learning tool. That said, there was support for a series of workshops on active learning techniques so this has become the defining feature of the ALAD Community of Practice.
Dissemination and impact
- At the individual level: Since the grant was to support the development of an instructor community of practice much of the dissemination has been part of the core research pilot. There were six workshops delivered under the ALAD umbrella in 2018 and each have had attendees from multiple faculties.
- At the institutional level: A presentation on preliminary findings from the grant was presented at the University of Waterloo Teaching and Learning Conference.
Impact of the project
- Teaching: Based on workshops delivered by other faculty members, changes have been made to the INDEV308: Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship course.
- Connections with people from different departments, faculties, and/or disciplines about teaching and learning: The nature of this workshop series and community of practice has led to many additional connections with people across campus by its very nature. Additionally, such connections have led directly to teaching collaborations including hosting Applied Health Sciences and Engineering faculty as guests in one of my courses and being a guest participant in an Engineering colleague's course.
References
Project Reference List (PDF)