LFS Instructors Awarded Teaching and Learning Seed Funding
Aug 14, 2015
Each year, the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology grants a small number of research projects through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Seed Fund. One of the proposals submitted this year by Gail Hammond, Lecturer, Food, Nutrition and Health, and Alice Cassidy, First Year Seminar Coordinator was selected to receive funding that provides 80 hours for a SoTL Research Assistant, $1000 in discretionary funds, and substantial research support.
Their project, Negotiating Change: Determining the readiness of second-year students for self-directed learning, aims to understand ways to support self-direction in learning (SDL) early in students’ academic programs. More specifically, this project will examine what SDL means to FNH 250 students.
An online survey and focus group will be used to collect data from current and former FNH 250 students. Analysis of this data will allow the researchers to learn about second year students’ sense of readiness for SDL and help identify opportunities for incorporating SDL activities into the curriculum.
Hammond will integrate the findings with current theoretical thought on SDL to create more personalized learning opportunities for students, especially those in their junior years. “Listening carefully to the voices of the students is an integral component to developing greater personalized learning opportunities,” she said.
“Knowledge of junior students’ perceptions of SDL will inform the design of second year courses and contribute to offering a curriculum program that is more broadly responsive to the needs of junior students in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems,” said Hammond.