Project Team
Stacy Denton, Arts First | English Language and Literature
Barb Bloemhof, Arts First | Economics
(Project timeline: September 2022 - August 2023)
Description
- This project proposes expanding the instructor/student relationship by adding a pedagogical partnership between students enrolled in first-year seminars and third-year students who have had an opportunity to integrate their first-year seminar experience into their subsequent coursework.
- This pilot case study aims to enhance enrolled and upper-year students’ identities within a specific classroom, discipline and university environment by leveraging three interlocking foci: novel student-centered pedagogic approaches in the first-year classroom; content co-creation’s effectiveness in fostering empowerment for first-year students; and reflective insights of upper-level students whose developing academic capabilities were first honed in the first-year seminar environment of Arts First.
Questions Investigated
- What can co-creative pedagogy look like in the first-year seminar?
- How can upper-level student partners help in this process?
Findings
- Many student respondents reported a new perspective on the value of collaboration and diverse perspectives, and there was evidence of an evolving sense of command over their positionality and authority in both independent and group activities involving transferable skills like writing, presentation, and critical thinking.
- As a result of our experience, we see merit in continuing to experiment with content co-creation in our teaching practice.
Dissemination and impact
- Informal conversations with individuals interested in trying the method and the intervention’s structure, including Clare Bermingham, Jirina Poch and Maša Torbica, which has helped inform new opportunities in Arts First peer tutor programming.
- Conversation with the Department of Economics Undergraduate Chair about the insights taken from the intervention, which may inform a program goal of introducing more discipline-specific writing earlier in the program
- Anticipate sharing the details of this experience in Arts First instructors check-in workshops; the project (among others) has already inspired initial steps towards a community of practice that supports instructor innovation in the Arts First classroom.
- Presented at the 2023 UWTL
- Congress presentation to the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education in May 2023
- Presentation at the North East MLA (NeMLA), March 2023.
Implications
- This project has left the recipients with significantly higher confidence with the forms and specifications of assignments to foreground student choice and support student agency.
- Furthermore, the grant has allowed the recipients to open their eyes to the possibilities and the limits of co-creation with students in Arts First and beyond.