Interdisciplinary Grad Student Designed and Led “Wicked Problem” Courses

Project Goals/Deliverables

Advance our PhD candidates’ professional development by engaging them in curricular design, development and implementation, with appropriate mentorship

Enhance our PhD candidates’ academic goals and personal well-being by creating communities of scholars

Provide Waterloo’s undergraduate students with additional course offerings with foci in critical, contemporary issues that spans disciplinary boundaries

Expose undergraduate students to (student) research and researchers, potentially motivating future studies

Develop a process and pathway for interdisciplinary course development

Create re-usable digital assets

Project Team

Anna Esselment, Associate Professor (Political Science) | Associate Dean, Graduate Studies (Faculty of Arts)

Bertrand Guenin, Professor (Combinatorics and Optimization) | Associate Dean, Graduate Studies (Faculty of Math)

Brian Laird, Associate Professor (School of Public Health Sciences) | Associate Dean, Graduate Studies (Faculty of Health)

Project Summary

This project aims to bring together a team(s) of PhD candidates to design, develop and offer a course related to contemporary “wicked problems” that catalyzes each PhD candidate’s research and disciplinary expertise while also offering them a meaningful teaching experience. The teaching team will receive mentorship and support with regard to course conception, design and integration by those with disciplinary and pedagogical expertise via the TII. The course will be offered to senior undergraduate students across the university as an elective, and collectively creates an interdisciplinary construct that fosters learning and an integration of knowledge, methods and ways of knowing that could not be achieved within a single disciplinary approach.

Upcoming Courses

Spring 2024 - The Wicked Problem of Precarity: Living in an Uncertain World

Fall 2024 - The Wicked Problem of Climate Change

Project Timeline

2021
1. Dec
  1. Project approved for (Beta) Teaching Innovation Incubator
2022
1. Jan
  1. Project plan developed
2. Mar
  1. Discussions with ASUs concerning course code options and financial models
3. Apr
  1. Decision: Use cross-listed Special Topics courses for pilot of course
4. Jul
  1. Recruit six PhD candidates (one from each faculty)
5. Aug
  1. Craft course description
6. Sep
  1. 12-week PhD candidate instructor training (facilitated by Centre for Teaching Excellence)
7. Oct
  1. Course open for enrolment
2023
1. Jan
  1. First course offering
2. Mar
  1. End-of-term symposium held to showcase undergraduate student work to general public
3. Jul
  1. Interim evaluation report written
4. Oct
  1. Precarity identified as next wicked problem for course
5. Nov
  1. Instructors recruited for Wicked Problem of Precarity
2024
1. Jan
  1. Climate change decided to be offered again for further insight into process
  2. Training program for instructors revised and offered (facilitated by CTE and past wicked problems instructors)

Project Updates

Seeking PhD candidates to teach an interdisciplinary course, The Wicked Problem of Climate Change

As part of the University’s strategic plans to develop talent for a complex world and focus on interdisciplinary scholarship, a team of PhD candidates will come together in spring 2024 to re-design and co-teach a course related to contemporary Wicked Problems. The course will be offered to upper-year undergraduate students from across the University to create a community of scholars, sharing different perspectives from the PhD candidate instructors and the learners in the classroom.

The course, offered in fall 2024, will focus on the Wicked Problem of Climate Change. We know there are brilliant doctoral researchers across the University who are immersed in studying climate change from interdisciplinary perspectives, addressing research on a policy, environmental, scientific, technological, and health perspectives, among others. Many of these researchers may also welcome the opportunity to be part of an interdisciplinary teaching team that will provide undergraduate students with a classroom experience where the academic content spans disciplinary boundaries.

The selected PhD candidates will work as a team to re-design the course (first offered in Winter 2023) and will receive training in the spring 2024 term from mentors in the Teaching Innovation Incubator. In the fall 2024 term, the team will collectively deliver the course to senior undergraduate students. Instructors will receive financial support for their contributions to the University’s teaching mission.

We encourage PhD candidates to apply using the online application form – details can be found on The Wicked Problem of Climate Change Innovation Incubator website. The deadline to apply is Monday, March 4, 2024, by the end of day.

The instructors for the Spring 2024 iteration of the Wicked Problem course "The Wicked Problem of Precarity: Living in an Uncertain World" have been selected. Read about our instructors, and the course that will be co-designed over the course of the Winter 2024 term.

Seeking PhD candidates to teach an interdisciplinary course, The Wicked Problem of Precarity: Living in an Unpredictable World

As part of the University’s strategic plans to develop talent for a complex world and focus on interdisciplinary scholarship, a team of PhD candidates will come together in winter 2024 to design, develop and offer a course related to contemporary Wicked Problems. The course will be offered to upper-year undergraduate students from across the University to create a community of scholars, sharing different perspectives from the PhD candidate instructors and the learners in the classroom.

The pilot course, offered in spring 2024, will focus on the Wicked Problem of Precarity: Living in an Uncertain World. We know there are brilliant doctoral researchers across the University who are immersed in studying precarity from interdisciplinary perspectives, addressing research on poverty, homelessness, housing scarcity, and food insecurity, all of which are contributing to a future defined by precarity. Many of these researchers may also welcome the opportunity to be part of an interdisciplinary teaching team that will provide undergraduate students with a classroom experience where the academic content spans disciplinary boundaries. We encourage PhD candidates to apply using the online application form – details found on The Wicked Problem of Precarity: Living in an Uncertain World Teaching Innovation Incubator website. The deadline to apply is Monday, November 13.