Projects - search

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. Performance+ provides tools and dashboards that unlock insights into course and learner data and effectiveness.

This project will evaluate the efficacy of this tool to determine how it can be used to better support UW students in their learning.

The University of Waterloo is currently developing initiatives to improve LEARN (D2L's Brightspace), our learning management system (LMS), based on feedback received in the LMS Review. 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. Creator+ provides tools that enable the straightforward creation of interactive course content. Performance+ provides tools and dashboards that unlock insights into course and learner data and effectiveness.

This project will evaluate the efficacy of these two tools and determine how they can be used to better support UW students in their learning.

No career is likely to be unaffected by climate change and sustainability considerations. Our graduates need core competencies and discipline specific knowledge of climate change and sustainability if they are to be global citizens prepared to thrive in an age of rapid change.

This project will aim to consider how curriculum offerings could be adapted to allow all students to develop foundational and discipline specific sustainability competencies. Our 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.

SLICCs are among a growing body of self-directed and experiential learning models in post-secondary institutions, which have been linked to improving students' ability to become effective, self-regulated learners. The traditional course structure is removed in a SLICC, with the instructor providing desired learning outcomes in broad strokes, prescribing little in terms of what will be learned and even less on how it will be learned. In a SLICC, defining these aspects of the course is in fact the student’s responsibility. A student’s plan outlines their proposed learning experience and how they will complete it. Additionally, they must audit the skills they currently possess and those they would need to develop to achieve results. And finally, students determine how they will assess themselves as they complete their proposed learning experience. Therefore, SLICCs offer a flexible, personalized, student-centered approach to learning that empowers students to actively participate in the co-creation and evaluation of their learning.

In 2020, a LITE grant conducted an initial evaluation of how the SLICCs framework can be adopted at the University of Waterloo. Since then, interest in integrating the framework has continued to increase across campus. A Faculty Learning Community that met biweekly in 2021-2022 focused on best practices for teaching SLICCs. It attracted 20+ participants from 4 faculties and 3 academic support units. Emerging from the discussions of the faculty learning community was another LITE grant (2022-2023) that developed an Instructor’s Toolkit for designing and teaching SLICCs. To date, 545 students have enrolled in SLICCs taught regularly by 9 instructors from 4 faculties. Five new courses are currently in development.

Findings from the LITE grants and discussions of the faculty learning community indicate that SLICCs are valued by both instructors and students at UW. The next step would be to scale up and offer SLICCs more widely across campus. However, to achieve scalability we need to first, centralize expertise and effort and second, legitimate SLICCs as a form of course delivery that is both recognized and rewarded by the University. This project therefore aims to address the following questions:

• How can SLICCs be recognized as a legitimate form of course delivery at UWaterloo?
• What are the institutional barriers to offering SLICCs and to what extent can these be addressed to make SLICCs available to students across campus?
• Do SLICCs promote more student engagement and student accountability for learning?
• How might SLICCs be implemented to serve as a vehicle for interdisciplinary collaboration and learning?

Accessible Education (Beta) Teaching Innovation Incubator project.

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.