Consciously and Pedagogically Aligning a Tourism Program: Employing models of experiential education and integrated curriculum to increase faculty and student engagement

Grant recipients: Karla Boluk, Corey Johnson, Bryan Grimwood, and Heather Mair, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies

Project team: Karla Boluk, Corey Johnson, Bryan Grimwood, Heather Mair, Maggie Miller, Kelley McClinchey, and Victoria Lee, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies

(Project Timeline: January 2017 - December 31, 2018)

Mountain range

Image provided by Franco Vannini under the Creative Commons "Attribution-Generic " license.

Description

Our LITE Seed Grant supported Integrated Curriculum Design (ICD). The purpose of the project was to examine the students’ experiences, learning outcomes, authentic assignment products and community response to document our efforts and advocate for further integration. We integrated two courses in the Tourism Development Program: a first year Introduction to Tourism course (350 students) and a final year Advanced Seminar in Tourism, Well-being, and Community (22). After assessing the learning outcomes and considering the logistics (size, time offered, space needed, etc.) we identified three main points of intersection. Initially, first year students were tasked with carrying out a User Experience exercise before, during, and after visiting one of seven tourism attractions. Trip reviews (Travel Advisor, Yelp, etc.) detailing their experiences were passed onto our final year students who were challenged with developing a critical intervention in response to issues (crowding, admission prices, product differentiation, profit maximization etc.) identified. First year students kept in contact with the final year students via LEARN to dialogue about their experiences in more depth; responding to the potential solutions being developed. Finally, our final year students presented their critical interventions to the first year students and a panel of industry stakeholders. It is also worth noting that we involved our teaching assistants as teaching team members in an effort to mentor them in best pedagogical practices and as a place to problem-solve student issues. Post-class interviews indicated this was an extremely valuable form of mentorship and professional development.

Based on the success of our integrated efforts and the documented evidence collected, we have piqued great interest among our colleagues in the faculty of our department. Some of the most keen are the faculty associated with a recently revamped Tourism Development curriculum, which envisions using models of experiential education and integrated curriculum to unite core degree courses and continue to support deep learning opportunities among our students. Our experience with our pilot study illustrated that ICD is an innovative approach to teaching and learning, and clearly enhanced the learning experiences of different student groups with assessments that were relevant, purposeful (based on industry interests), and meaningfully embedded in our local community.  We are now seeking to add additional courses to the integration and involve the remaining Tourism faculty, role modeling how others might adopt our conscientious pedagogical framework.

Questions investigated

In our analysis of five CIQs disseminated in REC 380 throughout the semester in 2017, it became clear to us that our REC 380 students desired further mentoring on the research design process. As such, instead of trying to fit 380 in with the 1st and 4th year (which was our initial intension) we explored opportunities to provide mentorship for our 3rd years. Given that 663 was taught in the same term we intentionally planned the following:

  1. Drawing on the published work of our graduate students in our REC 380 course outline;
  2. Organizing a panel of graduate students to discuss their research design including research questions, analytic approaches, and any challenges faced in the process;  
  3. Coding workshop allowing for cross-mentorship between the two cohorts;
  4. Co-creating workshop whereby the two cohorts co-constructed products of analysis via Creative Analytic Practice. The result was the creation of a vignette reflecting the REC 380 data collected at Hack4Health.

Findings/insights

Based on the success of our integrated efforts and the documented evidence collected, we have piqued great interest among Faculty members within and outside of our department. In addition to our original ICD we have created a second ICD among 380 and 663. Beyond this, the Therapeutic Recreation Program has sought ICD mentorship from us in a redesign of their program, and Corey and I have both assisted with integrating two different courses in the School of Public Health.

Our experience with our pilot study illustrated that ICD is an innovative approach to teaching and learning, and clearly enhanced the learning experiences of different student groups with assessments that were relevant, purposeful (based on industry interests), and meaningfully embedded in our local community. Our full grant has supported the further integration of REC 380 with 663 which has provided our graduate students with the ability to practice, mentor, and model qualitative research design, while also exposing our undergraduate students to our graduate program.

Dissemination and Impact

  • At the individual level: We have collected undergraduate and graduate student reflections, as well as faculty insights on our ICD and our data revealed that our innovation has led to higher engagement levels amongst our students. We also learned from our mistakes and have reflected on this in the following publications:
    • Miller, M., Boluk, K., & Johnson, C. ‘Lift off!’: Employing an integrated curriculum design to increase student, faculty, and community engagement. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism (under review).
    • Boluk, K., *Muldoon, M., & Johnson, C. (2019). Co-creating an integrated curriculum: reports from the sidelines. Tourism Recreation Research, 44(2). (Invited) DOI: 10.1080/02508281.2019.1576962
    • Boluk, K., *Muldoon, M., & Johnson, C. (2019). Bringing a politics of hope to the tourism classroom: Exploring an integrated curriculum design through creative and reflexive methodology. Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism, 19(1), 63-78.  
    • Boluk, K., & Miller, M. (submitted 15 February 2019). Intergenerational mentorship in pedagogical design and delivery. Special Issue of Schole: A Journal of Leisure Studies & Recreation Education- The Evolving Experiences of the Contemporary Student
  • At the Department/School and/or Faculty levels: We have support from our chair to continue running our ICD into the future. We are looking into creating a contract with our new community partner (St. Jacob’s Village) and we plan to revisit this annually.
  • At the institutional (uWaterloo) level: Our team set up a booth at the AHS Teaching Fair in Winter of 2018 to showcase our ICD, as well as our international course integration. Corey Johnson has been both formally and informally presenting our work at the Ex: committee’s luncheons and showcase. Corey will present formally to this group in the winter term of 2019.
  • At the national and/or international levels: 
    • We were presented with the Innovation in Teaching Award at the Teaching and Research in Leisure Sciences (TALS) Conference for our ICD.
      • Boluk, K. & Johnson, C. (2018). Innovation in Teaching Award. Consciously and Pedagogically Aligning a Tourism Curriculum to Enhance Relevancy: Integrated Curriculum Design. Nominated by Professor Troy Glover, 30-09-2018. Received 27 February 2019.
    • Maggie Miller (former instructor of REC 280) and Karla Boluk were nominated for the 2018 ATHE: Innovation Awards for our ICD work in October 2018.
      • Miller, M. & Boluk, K. 2018 ATHE: Innovation Awards. Building Leadership & Management Capacity in the Visitor Economy. Integrated Curriculum Design: Bridging Students with their Community to Enhance the Visitor Experience. Nominated by Professor Nigel Morgan, 01-10-2018.
    • We have presented the findings of our research at three international conferences. This includes, The Critical Tourism Studies North America (CTS NA), The ATLAS Conference in the TEFI (Tourism Education Futures Initiative) Stream, in Copenhagen, Denmark and The Teaching and Research in Leisure Sciences (TALS) Conference in Orangeville, South Carolina.
      • Miller, M. & Boluk, K. (2018). Fostering deep learning: Employing an integrated curriculum design to enhance student, faculty and community engagement. Destination Dynamics, ATLAS Annual Conference Copenhagen, Denmark, 26-29 September.
      • Boluk, K., Miller, M., & Johnson, C.W. (2019). Intergenerational Mentorship in pedagogical design and delivery. TALS Orangeville, South Carolina, 26-1st February-March.

Impact of the project

  • Teaching: We plan to carry on implementing the multiple ICDs we have established in the Tourism Development program, with our grad program, two courses in School of Public Health and we hope to provide mentorship to the Therapeutic Recreation program.
  • Involvement in other activities or projects: Karla has been invited to help steer a committee entitled the Tourism Education Futures Initiative (TEFI) based on her pedagogical practices and scholarly research in the area. 

Our colleagues are committed to teaching in line with our ICD so there should be consistency in what we are offering no matter who teaches the courses. Our Department Chair has endorsed our ICD delivery. Furthermore, we are about to embark in mentoring the Therapeutic Recreation Program in their process of redesigning their content in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies.

Karla received a Waterloo International Grant in the fall of 2018 in order to consciously examine the integration of two community health courses between UW and a university in Kazakhstan.

  • Connections with people from different departments, faculties, and/or disciplines about teaching and learning: Karla is now helping Elena Neiterman integrate her Community Health course with a similar course in Kazakhstan.
Additional Information
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