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Blue-sky thinking

Creating space for innovations and ambitions in teaching and learning. Explore these initiatives to inspire your own blue-sky thinking.

Students participating in a workshop

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ICON – The Transdisciplinary Classroom

University of Guelph, Canada

A project-based course that “brings together students from all years and disciplines to develop solutions to real-world challenges”.

  • Equips students with real-world experience and skills such as teamwork, collaboration, problem-solving and critical thinking. 
  • Allows students to apply their expertise and collaborate with community partners. 
  • Promotes students’ “competence and confidence as change-makers” to hone their ability to approach problem-solving and innovation through a multi-disciplinary lens.
Check out the ICON classroom
Student wearing VR goggles

Lab for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (LITL)

Concordia University

LITL’s mandate is to undertake pedagogical experimentation and prototype “next-generation” learning experiences.

  • Supports teaching and learning innovation activities in response to educational needs, institutional priorities, and partnership opportunities. See a video of a sample project: #Video Games and/as Theory - Minecraft and Modernity Edition. 
  • Brokers collaborations between Concordia faculty (internal and cross-institutional), educational researchers, teaching & learning innovators (e.g., entrepreneurs and educational tech companies), and industry professionals. 
  • Provides key pieces of institutional infrastructure to advance innovation — space, equipment, project management, RA support, technical support, and potential release time for faculty. 
  • Enables instructors to experiment using immersive technologies that support teaching and learning, such as virtual reality (VR).
Get the background on LITL
student reading evaluation

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Narrative Evaluations

Hampshire College, USA

A written evaluation of a student’s learning that describes their strengths, areas for improvement and how well they met the course learning outcomes.

  • Provides students with individualized and detailed feedback on their learning. 
  • Designed to spark critical self-reflection of what has been learned. 
  • Allows for a richer elaboration of intended learning for enhanced student accountability. 
  • Used as a teaching tool to prepare students for the real world “where they will receive performance reviews, not grades”. 
  • Used as a supplement to standard grades or as an alternative. See example at Yale University.
Learn More about narrative evaluations
student planting something

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InSTEM: Indigenous Youth in STEM Program

University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada

An outreach program from the Faculty of Applied Science “that collaborates with Indigenous communities to create and deliver high impact STEM programming.” The aim is to make STEM content accessible to all students by bringing hands-on curriculum and activities to classrooms and communities across BC.

  • Offers youth mentorship programs, “an online internship program for Indigenous students to help them develop professional skills as STEM instructors”, engineering and science workshops for grades K-12, and community summer camps. 
  • Includes Land-based Programing to collaborate with communities and “Elders to incorporate traditional knowledge with STEM programming”.
Get more on InStem
older students interacting in a classroom

Validation of Competencies

Centre for Continuing Education, Concordia University

A process designed to guide individuals through a series of steps that measure and validate their knowledge, skills, and experience as a means to accelerating their completion time for a diploma or certificate.

  • Individuals can gain credentials without having to take classes in subject-matter areas where they already have the knowledge, skills, and experience. 
  • Recognition of prior learning facilitates an expedited reintegration into the work force. 
  • Provides companies with capacity to guide their employees in their lifelong learning aspirations.
Find out more about Validation of Competencies
group of people working together

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The Pulte Institute for Global Development

University of Notre Dame, USA

A think-tank of “solution-oriented research” where faculty, international development practitioners, and researchers work collaboratively to “address global poverty and inequality through policy, practice, and partnership”.

  • Leverages multidisciplinary expertise and knowledge to advance solutions to complex development problems in areas related to sustainability, humanitarianism, effective states and development, business in development, and global health.
  • Translates the University’s research to impact and challenge systems contributing to poverty and inequality.
  • Involves undergraduate interns, graduate students and hundreds of faculty, staff, and administrators throughout campus.
Find out more about the institute
classroom where students are brainstorming ideas

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Pop-Up Courses

Stanford University, USA

Pop-up courses are rapidly developed courses to “offer students an opportunity to engage in new material, or activities not typically covered in the traditional curriculum”.

  • Address emerging areas “in academic fields and in society that have the potential to impact the personal, educational, and professional success of students and does so from multiple disciplinary lenses”. See example from California State Polytechnic University
  • Can take a variety of formats (a set of workshops to full semester) and credits (1-credit to 3-credit). 
  • Provide faculty the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues across disciplines to design and teach a course.
Learn more about pop-up courses
women from India play with VR

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Improving Students’ Foreign Language Skills with VR Apps*

Gujarat Technological University (GTU), India

A partnership between GTU and Mondly to improve students’ multilingual skills.

  • Mondly uses innovative technologies such as VR, AR, ChatBot and speed recognition to create language learning experiences and apps. 
  • Allows students to gain foreign language skills to have better job opportunities and become globally competitive professionals.
Learn how GTU works with mondly

*Faculty cannot compel students to register or pay for 3rd party apps in their course

For more information, contact

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