Creating, Testing, and Assessing a Toolkit to Help Instructors Integrate the Student-Led Independently Created Courses Framework

Project Team

Mariam Mufti, Political Science

Wayne Chang, Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business

Katherine Lithgow, Centre for Teaching Excellence

Tracy Hilpert, School of Accounting and Finance

Narveen Jandu, School of Public Health Sciences

Elena Neiterman, School of Public Health Sciences

Mary Robinson, Faculty of Engineering

Steffanie Scott, Geography and Environmental Management

Diane Williams, School of Public Health Sciences

Brendan Wylie-Toal, Green House Social Impact Incubator

Jennifer Yessis, School of Public Health Sciences

Project Summary

This project will develop a ‘how-to’ toolkit for instructors interested in integrating a UW adaptation of the University of Edinburgh’s Student-Led Independently-Created Courses (SLICCs) framework into courses and to help students become effective self-directed, life-long learners. The project supports UW’s strategic plan ‘Developing Talent for a Complex Future’, aligns with the Future Ready Talent Framework, and builds on recommendations from a previously-funded LITE Grant Project. That project involved piloting the SLICC framework into UW courses, determining the impact SLICCs on students’ development of life-long skills, and identifying adaptations to the SLICC framework for the UW context. The project found that many students recognized the benefits of the SLICC framework, but many remained unclear about the purpose of SLICCs and struggled with implementation and self-assessment; i.e., they expected to ‘be taught’.  Furthermore, the project found that instructors struggled with the implementation of the SLICCs framework; i.e., they expected to teach.

References

Bovill, C., Cook-Sather, A., Felten, P., Millard, L., and Moore-Cherry, N. (2016). Addressing potential challenges in co-creating learning and teaching: overcoming resistance, navigating institutional norms and ensuring inclusivity in student-staff partnerships, Higher Education, 71, 195–208.

Healey, M., Flint, A., and Harrington, K. (2014). Engagement through partnership: Students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education. York, UK. Higher Education Academy.

McRae, N., Church, D., Woodside, J., Drewery, D., Fannon, A., & Pretti, J. (2019, July). Toward a Future-Ready Talent Framework for Co-operative and Work-Integrated Learning. In HEAD'19. 5th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (pp. 1255-1262).

Price, M., Rust, C., O’Donovan, B., Handley, K., and Bryant, R. (2012) Assessment literacy: The foundation for improving student learning. Oxford, UK. Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.

Riley, S. C., & McCabe, G. (2017) Student-Led, Individually-Created Courses (SLICCs): Enabling students to gain academic credit for extra-curricular activities during the summer vacation and take ownership of their learning. Transforming Assessment in Higher Education, 104.

Speirs, NM, Riley, SC & Mccabe, G (2017). 'Student-Led, Individually-Created Courses: Using Structured Reflection within Experiential Learning to Enable Widening Participation Students? Transitions Through and Beyond Higher Education', Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, vol. 5, no. 2. https://doi.org/10.14297/jpaap.v5i2.274