In the Winter of 2020, my introductory Canadian politics class started to develop its own online, collaboratively-built, open-access, introductory "textbook" on Canadian politics. Drawing on the principles of critical pedagogy, the assignment engages students in group work to generate plain-language primers that can connect with an…

While universities are increasingly implementing programs to support international students' language development, fewer orientation programs have sought to provide explicit guidance on expected academic practices in Canadian institutions. Many such academic norms--including the expectation to complete weekly readings, the use of first names with…

Learning management systems (LMS) allow for a variety of ways in which online multiple-choice assessments ("tests") can be configured, including the ability to allow for multiple attempts and options for which of and how the attempts will count. These options are usually chosen according to the instinct of the instructor; however, LMS…

The authors investigated the effectiveness of online versus paper assignments using final examination scores in three cohorts of theory of finance. In particular, two cohorts were exposed to online assignments while another cohort was exposed to traditional assignments. The central result is that exposure to online assignments robustly leads to…

Flexible Learning (FL) is a pedagogical approach allowing for flexibility of time, place, and audience, including but not solely focused on the use of technologies. We describe Flexible Learning as a pedagogical approach in four courses framed by three key themes: 1) objectives and aspects of course design, 2) evaluation and assessment, and 3)…

Organic chemistry is a traditionally difficult subject with high failure & withdrawal rates and many areas of conceptual difficulty for students. To promote student learning and success, four undergraduate organic chemistry and spectroscopy courses at the first to third year level (17-420 students) were "flipped" in 2013-2014. In the…