CoPE Grant

Two areas in the Department of LLC, namely French Studies and Greek and Roman Studies, have recently prepared or revised program learning outcomes, and require curriculum mapping. The curriculum maps constitute a required component of the two areas’ Institutional Quality Assurance Process self-studies, which need to be completed before the end of this academic year. Moreover, the maps are needed to refine the Faculty’s thinking about their programs, particularly their architecture and course offerings, and how well these allow students to attain the programs’ proposed learning outcomes.

The aim of the curriculum mapping is to ensure that the pedagogical and evaluation strategies are appropriately coherent and efficient. Further, the aim is to ensure that students are provided with the opportunity to obtain an acceptable degree of mastery of the learning outcomes and that they will continue to graduate from the programs feeling well prepared for their professional lives or graduate studies, despite the constraints imposed by the new four-course teaching loads.

Intended Outcomes:

• Obtain curricular data regarding staggered course content, objectives, evaluation strategies etc. to produce curriculum maps for French and Greek Roman Studies.
• Develop curriculum mapping in French Studies, Greek and Roman Studies.

This project is intended to help facilitate the process of renewing the B.Ed. program in the Faculty of Education following a recent Institutional Quality Assurance Process review and in preparation for the next Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) Accreditation renewal process. There is also a need for a more holistic orientation to programs and enhanced responsiveness to a changing and often uncertain world (e.g., especially in relation to Indigeneity and decolonization, environmental sustainability, and broad concerns of equity, diversity, and inclusion).

Intended Outcomes:

• Complete an environmental scan of all OCT-accredited B.Ed. programs in Ontario.
• Engage with faculty through a full-day retreat to develop consensus on the renewed B.Ed. program.

The project focuses on identifying best practices of incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing in the Engineering undergraduate curriculum. The project will research the Engineering courses taught across Canada that address Indigenous history, culture, and ways of knowing. The project will assess the collected data and evaluate opportunities to incorporate the best practices that are already taught in the Engineering departments.

The project enhances intentional and evidence-based approaches to the curriculum by collecting the data and using assessment methodologies addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion. The collected data will provide evidence about the existing gaps in the curriculum and identify opportunities to improve student experience.

Intended Outcomes:

• Complete an environment scan of courses that incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing, history, and cultures, across the Engineering programs in Canadian universities and colleges.
• Provide recommendations for awareness-raising and enhancing existing and future curriculum development in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Windsor.

The School of Social Work will undertake a pilot study in the child welfare stream of the Master of Social Work (MSW) program to assess whether experiential learning can be incorporated into all its programs: Bachelor of Social Work (BSW; in-person), MSW (in-person), and MSW for working professionals (online). Experiential learning, specifically case simulation with standardized clients, is currently not offered in most Canadian social work programs; therefore, there is little research evidence to utilize when incorporating case simulation in social work curricula. Social work, specifically child welfare work, is a unique field and requires commensurate opportunities for skill development. We aim to meet this need by allowing students to practice the skills taught in class through case simulation with standardized clients, in-person and virtual, before they begin their placements.

This pilot consists of incorporating a simulation component into SWRK 8630, Challenges in Child Welfare. The simulation will be offered both online and in person. To assess the feasibility of offering case simulation on an ongoing basis in MSW and BSW curricula, we will conduct a mixed method evaluation via an online survey. This evaluation will assess student satisfaction with the case simulation experience, in addition to their self-reported values and attitudes about their practice skills, confidence, and knowledge.

Intended Outcomes:

• Evaluate students’ engagement with simulation in child welfare curriculum and the impact to their values, attitudes, confidence, and knowledge in practice.
• Based on the evaluation, determine how the School of Social Work can scale up case simulation opportunities in both BSW and MSW curricula.
• Inform when/where case simulation should be offered/feasibility for BSW students.

The primary focus of this project is to review current practices and re-imagine new opportunities to enhance the EL and HIP that currently serve as core curricular areas and training in the SODA. The desired outcomes are directed towards deeper student learning through the integration of more inclusive and diverse content and training, and a more efficient and streamlined curriculum that prepares students for careers in theatre and theatre-related professions.

The goal of this proposal is to develop an industry-aligned and evidence-based program through student apprenticeships in production, design, and theatre administration which will merge theory and practice with more direct intention. This scaffolded University Players (UP) apprenticeship program will be co-created with students and will fulfill the UP-experiential learning requirement for all majors.

Intended Outcomes:

• Enhance the student experience at UP through the creation of an apprenticeship and lab program that connects students directly to the UP theatre season over their four years of study.
• Prepare students for graduate study and Master of Fine Arts programs in areas of theatre design and production.
• Provide a more meaningful experience for all students at UP by strategically streamlining areas of study with experiential practice making UP and SODA more unified.

The proposed project focuses on re-engaging in a curriculum mapping process for both undergraduate programs offered in the Department of Kinesiology (Bachelor of Human Kinetics – Kinesiology-Movement Science and Bachelor of Human Kinetics – Sport Management & Leadership). Since 2018, the department has revised the undergraduate programs and so the curriculum map requires significant updating. Further, the department is in the early stages of developing and introducing equity, diversity, and inclusion-related program learning outcomes in both programs. With the drafting of those new program learning outcomes near complete, curriculum mapping is required to map which courses would contribute to which program-level learning outcomes.

The Department of Kinesiology is also looking to engage in a strategic review and redevelopment of core aspects of our programs, including a review and redesign of the required laboratory courses, and a redesign of the Practical Theory Application (PTA) courses offered within the department. This project will allow for a reassessment of:

• how the lab and PTA courses fit within the broader undergraduate curriculum,
• whether prerequisite knowledge could be tied to enrolment in these courses as a means of ensuring that refined or mastery learning is taking place,
• how the experiential learning opportunities for students might be enhanced, and
• how these courses can best align with the current landscape of Kinesiology programming.

Intended Outcomes:

• The introduction of two EDI-related program learning outcomes with courses mapped to those outcomes.
• A redesign of the required laboratory courses with consideration for prerequisite knowledge and enhancing the experiential learning experience for students.
• A redesign of the PTA courses with consideration of curriculum pathways and broader curriculum alignment.
• An updated curriculum map for both undergraduate programs.

Windsor Law is investigating the creation of an ICPC in which students complete the experiential articling competencies required by the Law Society of Ontario for entry to practice, alongside the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (National Requirement) and Windsor Law competencies during their three years of legal education.

In this program, students would not need to article after law school because they have already met the Law Society of Ontario competencies. This greatly broadens the contexts in which students can work and reduces economic and other resource barriers to beginning a criminal law practice. This is particularly the case for defense counsel who typically do not have the same institutional supports as Crown counsel. Through this program, the goal is to attract the best students across Canada interested in criminal law.

Intended Outcomes:

• Develop a deeper understanding of the possible ways to meet the “law practice management” aspects of the experiential requirements.
• Creation of one to two new courses focusing on specific lawyering competencies required by the Law Society of Ontario’s experiential training program.
• Efforts to select and secure two sets of placements – one for credit and the other for pay.

The Faculty of Nursing has recently purchased a curriculum mapping tool, CBlue, designed for mapping program and course learning outcomes to competencies and graduate attributes relevant to a range of accrediting bodies and requirements (e.g., CNO, CASN, IQAP). This tool, in combination with potential features in the new LMS Brightspace, would assist the Faculty of Nursing in gathering, analyzing, and using key data to enhance Nursing curricula.

The goal of this project is to set up and establish a sustainable workflow and process for the Faculty of Nursing that will enhance the feasibility and ease of activities related to curriculum review and refresh as well as reporting requirements. Through these technologies, the Faculty of Nursing will be able to summatively report on and formatively monitor curriculum to enhance intentional, systematic, and evidence-based improvements of Nursing curriculum that supports student success and achievement of essential competencies.

Intended Outcomes:

• Maximize use of CBlue, a curriculum mapping tool, to track curricular data at a granular level.
• Where appropriate, integrate learning outcomes and assessment data from Brightspace.
• Facilitate accreditation reporting across accrediting bodies by creating sustainable workflows for data collection and management.
• Create a system and workflow to formatively monitor curriculum to review the success of curricular changes, and identify any gaps or bottlenecks in a timely manner – with respect to student achievement of competencies, performance, outcome alignments across accrediting bodies, etc.
• Provide a means by which to investigate gaps in the big-picture curriculum in terms of Indigenization, Anti-Black Racism and to gain insights into the effectiveness of recent curricular changes.

The purpose of this project is to begin the work of decolonizing the curriculum in a course-based international graduate program, ultimately creating a framework by which the University and other Universities throughout the country can remove institutional colonialism. Our goal is to establish our roles and responsibilities as settlers, to identify internalized colonial practices that exist within ourselves, and implement aspects of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action through developing definitions and tools for international students in Canada to work towards decolonization.

The proposed initiative furthers the University’s equity, diversity, inclusion, and Indigenization initiatives, develops a strategically important graduate program, and enhances the capacity to simultaneously pursue the strategic goals of internationalization and decolonization. As a systematic effort that draws on broad input and seeks to build sustainable community relationships, the initiative is evidence-based in its approach to curriculum renewal and inherently collaborative in nature. Significant attention will be given to identifying and triangulating against the successes of others to ensure that efforts are effective. The spirit driving the entire effort is one that seeks to move beyond “tokenism” toward genuine action that yields genuine, enduring change with an overall goal where Indigenous students and ways of knowing are included throughout the program.

Intended Outcomes:

• Establish structures and a process/system for identifying aspects of Eurocentrism within the Master of Management and all programs as a commitment toward decolonization.
• Build requisite relationships and partnerships and lay the foundation needed to sustain these relationships and partnerships.
• Collaborate with partners to embed aspects of Indigenization within the program leading to self-reflection among faculty and staff (e.g., work to decolonize how we create course outlines, assign readings, and assess coursework).

The Faculty of Science will soon be welcoming a new faculty member within the Integrative Biology Department who is a recognized Indigenous Knowledge Keeper in their community. The role of the new faculty member is to pursue community-based interests in research, teaching, and capacity development. In collaboration with the Indigenous Knowledge Keeper, we plan to build and develop new and innovative initiatives to further Indigenous-focused research co-production, education, and lifelong learning across the Faculty of Science. Moreover, the Indigenous Knowledge Keeper will provide counsel to the Dean’s Office to create further space for Indigenous knowledge and opportunities for partnerships in the Faculty of Science and beyond that will support Indigenous students, community members and allies to engage, learn and create.

To support the collaborative efforts of the Indigenous Knowledge Keeper, we propose conducting a Faculty-wide scan through 1) course syllabi reviews, 2) survey and focus groups with instructors, curriculum developers, program advisors, department heads/directors; and 3) consultations with Indigenous Elders and the Indigenous Curriculum and Pedagogy Initiatives Coordinator, Jaimie Kechego, and other experts in the Centre for Teaching and Learning. The purpose of the scan is to identify our current approaches of incorporating Indigenous knowledge in our curricula across the Faculty of Science.

Intended Outcomes:

• Better understand the current progress made in the Faculty of Science to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into our curricula across all departments (e.g., Integrative Biology, Biomedical Sciences, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Environment, Economics, Mathematics and Statistics, Physics, and Forensics).
• Build on our areas of strength so that we can work to fill in gaps, reduce barriers and overcome challenges, and recognize the advancements we have made in an effort to better engage Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, faculty, staff, students and the great Indigenous community.

The project will collect and analyze data from the past 10 years to investigate the current exchange program equivalencies. The results will be used to evaluate the current offerings and support the development of an Odette Dual-Degree/Degree Completion Program with one or more international partner universities.

Intended Outcomes:

• The Odette Dual-Degree/Degree Completion Program will provide Odette students with another option to obtain a dual-degree and/or complete their degree, combined with international and co-op experience.
• Identify the most suitable universities, programs, and courses and recommend pathways for the students of the Bachelor of Commerce (Honors Business Administration) International Exchange Program.
• Develop learning outcomes and curriculum mapping for an Odette Dual-Degree/Degree Completion Program.
• Identify any gaps or inequalities in the equivalencies currently granted for courses taken internationally.