This teaching note describes the use of a pilot peer feedback assignment in an undergraduate BSW Interviewing Skills Course. Two cohorts of students over two years (n = 47) answered a brief questionnaire and/or participated in a small focus group inquiring about their experience of this assignment and its impact on their learning. Student…

The use of writing to learn mathematics at the university-level is a pedagogical tool that has been gaining momentum. The setting of this study is a second-year differential equations class where written assignments have been incorporated into the course. By analyzing survey results and students' written work, we examine the extent to which…

A multi-disciplinary academic unit at a Canadian university completed an evaluation of course syllabi used in its undergraduate programmes over the previous five years. This paper examines the reasons for the evaluation, the processes employed to collect and analyse the data, and how the results will be incorporated into the next steps of the…

Studies of university writing assignments demonstrate inconsistencies in the elements examined, making it difficult to achieve a clear understanding of the range, frequency, and characteristics of assignments that students might encounter. In this research study, syllabi from one university college were analyzed to determine the types and…

If a liberal arts education should prepare our students to participate in a meaningful way in democracy, what does that mean for how we design our courses across disciplines? In this paper, I first address the question: who should teach democratic skills? Using an upper-level course in Canadian politics, I then illustrate how to explicitly…

The School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism at Lakehead University offers a third-year course on ecological literacy. The course evolved from one with a predominant scientific approach to studying the bioregion to one that embraced a broader epistemological stance, giving greater authority, voice, and presence to nearby landscapes. This…

Various approaches to introductory courses in social work research in Canada are described. Objectives of the report are to promote informational exchange among instructors in schools of social work, to provide data on common practices employed in the instruction of introductory research, to encourage innovation and experimentation, and to aid in…

The document describes various approaches to advanced courses in social work research in Canadian Universities. Following an introduction to the report in Section I, Section II presents course outlines for the master of social work degree. Outlines are arranged according to categories of advanced design, evaluation research,…