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There is certainly no shortage of trailblazers, innovators and community-builders when it comes to teaching and learning research at the ��ݮ����Ƶ����. We are on a mission to discover new knowledge, explore ideas and translate our discoveries into accessible applications that provide benefits to our communities. The pandemic and current world events have inspired a breadth of cutting-edge teaching and learning research projects that highlight a passion and commitment to enhancing student learning experiences.

Last year, Dr. Heather Jamniczky, PhD, an associate professor in the Cumming School of Medicine, joined the Taylor Institute as academic lead in teaching and learning research. She provides academic leadership for the ��ݮ����Ƶ���� and programs.

“The depth and breadth of scholarship around teaching and learning on campus is astonishing, and I’m continually inspired by folks’ enthusiasm for the work that they do,” says Jamniczky.

Since 2014, the ��ݮ����Ƶ���� Teaching and Learning Grants have awarded just under $5.5 million in funding to 251 projects to support the implementation, critical examination and dissemination of scholarly and culturally relevant teaching practices and approaches to student learning. Funded by the Provost’s Office and supported by the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, the grants seek to enhance student learning experiences across campus.

This year, approximately $637,038 was provided to a total of 26 projects. The projects cover a wide range of topics, from improving equity, diversity and inclusion, to exploring peer mentorship skills, measuring entrepreneurial thinking skills, implementing and evaluating experiential learning opportunities, and much more.

Bringing together critical race theory and transformative experiential learning

A team of two grant recipients from the Faculty of Social Work are focused on building a pedagogical model directly addressing issues related to race and racism and the historically entrenched systems and processes that render these issues invisible. Assistant professors Dr. Patrina Duhaney, PhD, and Dr. Liza Lorenzetti, PhD, have initiated a new project titled Advancing Critical Race Pedagogical Approaches in Social Work Education.

Recognizing that racialized people experience systemic and institutional barriers that are further compounded by deeply rooted racism, the focus of their work uses pedagogical tools that provide educators and students with spaces to facilitate difficult conversations about race, processes of racialization, power and oppression. An overarching goal for the project is the engagement and development of a generation of social workers who are well-prepared to practise from a place of knowledge about racism, as well as the courage to think and act as anti-racist social workers.

Part of the project involves implementing the very first undergraduate critical race theory (CRT) course in the Faculty of Social Work at the ��ݮ����Ƶ����. According to Duhaney, “CRT proponents recognize that systemic racism is endemic in society and interrogates the ways in which inequities are maintained and reinforced through social, economic and political processes.” The course will bring together CRT and transformative experiential learning, and will inform research on the effectiveness of this teaching practice in promoting personal transformation in the classroom.

“Recently, there has been heightened awareness of the relentless presence of racism both in Canada and globally,” says Duhaney. ”However, there is a shortage of research-informed transformative learning models within social work that explicitly focus on race and racism.”

The researchers believe that as a profession committed to social justice, social work education needs research-informed teaching practices to prepare students to address the marginalization caused by multiple interlocking systems of oppression, including racism.

“By developing this CRT course and pedagogical model, we hope students and educators can engage in high-level critical and courageous conversations to examine structural inequities,” explains Lorenzetti. ”By decentering the dominance of whiteness in our curriculum, we aim to create spaces where racialized people excel and experience a sense of belonging.”

2021 Teaching and Learning Grants recipients

The following is a complete list of recipients with projects across two streams: development and innovation, and scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).

“Nothing about us without us”: Co-Developing an EDI Informed Students-as-Partners Framework
Dr. Joanna Rankin, PhD, Dr. Tiffany Boulton, PhD, Dr. Drew Pearl, PhD, Amanda Denis, Mylan Soh, Alexus Cumbie, and Ashlee Woods

A Rose by any Other Name: Analyzing Metaphor Use in Geoscience Textbooks to Improve Science Teaching and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion 
Dr. Glenn Dolphin, PhD, and Dr. Brandon Karchewski, PhD

Advancing Critical Race Pedagogical Approaches in Social Work Education
Dr. Patrina Duhaney, PhD, and Dr. Liza Lorenzetti, PhD

Creating Pathways to Experience Positive Aging for Undergraduate Social Work Students: Lessons from Engaging with Older Adults and Reflecting on Students’ Own Later Life
Dr. Yeonjung Lee, PhD, and Dr. Lun Li, PhD

Developing Digital Instructional Literacy in Pre-service Teachers and University Instructors
Dr. Theodora Kapoyannis, PhD, Dr. Astrid Kendrick, EdD, and Dr. Patricia Danyluk, PhD

Developing Infrastructure for Student-Led 3D Digitization of Zoological Specimens to Advance Student Learning and Research opportunities
Dr. Mindi Summers, PhD, Kevin Duclos, Rob Alexander, Dr. Sarah Anderson, PhD, Dr. Marjan Eggermont, PhD, and Arminty Clarke

Development of an Innovative and Culturally Relevant Introductory Interprofessional Education Module for Undergraduate Nursing Students
Julie Jeffries, and Dr. Jessie Johnson, PhD

Development of Hybrid Assessments for Junior Electromagnetism Courses
Dr. Anna Harlick, PhD

Engaging Students in Information Literacy 
Dr. Justine Wheeler, PhD, Susan Beatty, Dr. Sarah Fotheringham, PhD, Dr. Diane Lorenzetti, PhD, Renee Reaume, Robert Tiessen, and John Wright

Enhancing Undergraduate Labs for Experiential Learning: Can We Design Labs to Better Teach Employable Skills in Core Mechanical Engineering Courses? 
Dr. Philip Egberts, PhD, Dr. Joanna Wong, PhD, and Miriam Nightingale

Exploring the Use of Virtual Simulations to Promote Cross-Disciplinary Teaching and Learning in Inter-Professional Education in Addressing Childhood Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence (CEIPV)
Dr. Angelique Jenney, PhD, Carla Ferreira, Jessica Mulli, Krista Wollny, Georgina Bagstad, Breanne Krut, and Jennifer Koshan

Ignitingale: Developing and Implementing a Technological Experiential Learning Approach with Engineering and Nursing Students 
Dr. Linda Duffet-Leger, PhD, and Dr. Mohammad Moshipour, PhD

Learning from the Land: The Application of Archaeological and Place-Based Learning as an Experiential Learning Tool for Building Intercultural Capacity
Dr. Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer, PhD, Kelsey Pennanen, and Jill Old Woman

Measuring Seven Entrepreneurial Thinking Skills in Undergraduate Students
Houston Peschl, and Dr. Nicole Larson, PhD

Peer Mentorship Skills Training: Online Instruction to Support Academic Resiliency
Dr. Diane Lorenzetti, PhD, Dr. Liza Lorenzetti, PhD, Dr. Michele Jacobsen, PhD, Dr. Lorelli Nowell, PhD, and Dr. Elizabeth Oddone Paolucci, PhD

Schooling Masculinities in Teacher Education: Disruptive Practices, Transformative Pedagogies in Gender and Education
Dr. Michael Kehler, PhD, and Chris Borduas

Supporting Preservice Teachers in Creating Positive Classroom Environments: Rethinking Classroom Management
Dr. Elizabeth McNeilly, PhD, Dr. Rose Bene, PhD, Kathryn Crawford, and Dr. Patricia Danyluk, PhD

Supporting Student Learning in Undergraduate Engineering by Transactional Curriculum Inquiry
Dr. Robert W. Brennan, PhD, and Dr. Peter Goldsmith, PhD

Teaching German Adjective Endings through Metaphorical Narrative Videos
Dr. John Scott, PhD, Santiago Albuga Ruales, Breanne Allcock, Daryl-Lynn Jimmo, and Alejandra Vivas

The Efficacy of Experiential Learning through Peer Feedback in Graduate Education Programs
Dr. Subrata Bhowmik, PhD, Dr. Anita Chaudhuri, PhD, Dr. Marcia Kim, PhD, and Christie Hurrell

Understanding Instructional Choices and their Impact on Students' Experiences of Test Anxiety
Dr. Jennifer Thannhauser, PhD, and Dr. Brenda McDermott, PhD

Understanding Undergraduate Students' and Instructors' Perceptions of and Experiences with Exemplars
Dr. Kim Koh, PhD, Dr. Eugene Kowch, PhD, Dr. Kimberley Grant, PhD, Dr. Rose Bene, PhD, and Dr. Shimeng Liu, PhD

Using Workshops to Develop the Simon Farm Field School
Dr. Tatenda Mambo, PhD, and Dr. Craig Gerlach, PhD

Utilization of a Digital Clinical Tracking Tool: A Novel Approach to Formative/ Summative Evaluation and Feedback in Undergraduate Nursing Education
Dr. Zahra Shajani, EdD, Dr. Catherine Laing, PhD, Amanda O'Rae, and Justin Burkett

Virtual Field Experience: A Simulated Field Trip for Accessible Experiential Geoscience Education
Dr. Stephen Hubbard, PhD, Dr. Paul Nesbit, PhD, and Dr. Glenn Dolphin, PhD

Visual Representation of Critical Reflections: A Mixed-Methods Study of a Photo-Sharing Social Media Pplatform in a Health Science Capstone Course
Dr. Fabiola Aparicio-Ting, PhD

The 2022 Teaching and Learning Grants applications will open near the end of June, providing extra time for those who want to work on their proposals over the summer and early fall. Check back with the in June for more information