The Teaching Innovation Incubator has been supporting the experimentation of teaching at the University of Waterloo since 2022.
This page provides an overview of the beta projects that started in the Incubator in 2022 as well as the projects selected to join the Incubator as part of the Incubator's inaugural open call for project submissions in Winter 2025. To learn more about the project team members, the project's timeline, applicable resources and engagement opportunities, click on the corresponding project title.
Beta Incubator Projects
The following projects started in the Incubator as beta projects in 2022.
Inaugural Open Call Projects
The following projects have joined the Incubator following the inaugural open call for projects in Winter 2025.
Adapting Student-Led Individually Created Courses (SLICCs) to Encourage Self-Directed Learning
This project is working to make SLICCs a recognized, legitimate form of course delivery in faculties across campus. Its goals are to determine if SLICCs promote more student engagement and accountability for learning, and position SLICCs as a vehicle for interdisciplinary collaboration and learning.
Accelerating Integration of Sustainability into the Curriculum
This project is considering how curriculum offerings can be adapted to allow all students to develop foundational and discipline specific sustainability competencies at Waterloo. Its goals are to create opportunities for collaboration, interdisciplinary work, and shared resources by reaching out to faculty, staff and students to better understand the range of supports programs may need to build these student competencies.
Accessible Education
This project is working to position accessible education as a road to better teaching and learning for everyone at Waterloo, not merely a regulatory approval matter. Recognizing that the disability community contributes to our diversity and re-imagining our teaching and learning approaches is required to fully include all identities, this project is working to create a truly accessible learning environment at the University of Waterloo.
Evaluating LEARN Tools - Creator+ & Performance+
The University of Waterloo is currently undergoing a process to determine the future of D2L’s Brightspace (LEARN) Learning Management System (LMS). The version of LEARN that we use at UW has many pedagogical features that are used frequently by instructors and to great effect. There are, however, additional features available that we have not yet licensed, nor have we investigated their potential efficacy for our institution. This project will evaluate the efficacy of these Creator+ and Performance+ to determine how they can be used to better support UW students in their learning.
Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Designed and Led "Wicked Problems" Course
This project brings together teams 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. This project will expose undergraduate students to (student) research and researchers, potentially motivating future graduate studies. Learnings from this work will also ideally lead to the development of a process and pathway for interdisciplinary course development.
Learning by Teaching a Large Language Model
This project will develop and evaluate a large language model (LLM) companion that students will use to enhance their learning experience. Unlike most AI systems that engage in some form of tutoring or question answering, we will flip the roles. The LLM agent will act as an ignorant virtual student, and the human student will be responsible for teaching concepts to the LLM companion.
AI Meets EDI: Virtual Simulations for Culturally Safe Indigenous Healthcare
This project will develop a virtual training module to equip healthcare learners with the skills and knowledge needed to deliver culturally competent care to Indigenous patients. Using generative AI and immersive virtual simulations, the module integrates expertise from Indigenous content creators, the Office of Indigenous Relations, and AI technology developed in partnership with Ametros Learning.
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI)-insights and CEE-Faculty partnerships to evolve Work-Integrated Learning at the University of Waterloo
This project will explore how CEE can leverage AI-insights and create new faculty partnerships to strengthen and evolve Work-Integrated Learning at Waterloo. It focuses on 1Mentor, an AI platform that analyzes job market data to provide personalized career guidance and real-time insights to institutions.
