Physical Literacy Action Network Outreach Program
Project lead: Dr. Lauren Couture and Dr. Joanna Sheppard
The Physical Literacy Action Network (PLAN) is a proposed yearly outreach project which will activate UFV Kinesiology (KIN) undergraduate students, Kinesiology faculty, and community members in collaborative teaching experiences focused on fundamental movement skills (FMS). Based on the needs of our community partners, (ex. Preschools, elementary schools, community centres, and assisted living centres), and the availability of the selected students, they will be placed into groups of 4-6 in order to deliver FMS sessions within the local UFV community. FMS sessions will be timely (30 min in length) and progressive in nature (6-8 activity sessions/1 weekly or biweekly), therefore providing meaningful engagement between the KIN students and the community participants.
FIT-Final Report - Couture/Sheppard
Expanding the Creative Process Through the Art of Shinrin-yoku (Forest Bathing)
Project lead: Melanie Jones
The vision for this course is to immerse the student in the unique and varied landscapes of the Fraser Valley, with the intent of stimulating the creative process while engaging in physical fitness and self-care. The course is built around a series of "excursions" (or field trips} that will provide the opportunity to practice outdoor and survival skills, spend time in nature, and practice new methods for idea generation by keeping a detailed journal. The final outcome of the course will result in students preparing a capstone project - a self-directed form of artwork that can be experienced or viewed outdoors. For the instructor, the course will provide an opportunity to explore atypical teaching methods and engage in physical activity along with the students and provide a unique and deliberately gentle pedagogical approach.
Fraser Valley Mathematics Education Sq'ep
Project lead: Kseniya Garaschuk & Stan Manu
The Fraser Valley Mathematics Education Sq'ep is currently developed and intended to be an annual gathering for educators, researchers, teachers, and may also involve some students as well, from around the Fraser Valley region. Sq'ep is a Sto:lo word for meeting or gathering, and so the key objective of this mathematics education gathering is to foster a community of mathematics educators through sharing of ideas, examples, resources, teaching practices and research activities that incorporate Indigenous knowledge and world views of knowing into mathematical learning. The inaugural Fraser Valley Mathematics Education Sq'ep is scheduled to be hosted next year at the Gathering Place of our Chilliwack campus during UFV Winter semester's reading break and also to coincide with the surrounding school districts teachers' professional development programs at that time.
FIT-Final Report - Garaschuk and Manu
Student Experience Design (SXD) Lab
Project lead: Linda Pardy
This project builds off the work that was accomplished with FIT funding from 2016-17. The results of the 2016-17 project provided insight into successes and challenges facing UFV as it tries to move towards next-generation and knowledge practice learning. Also, as UFV considers ways to indigenize the student experience toward workplace capacity building and innovative practices the lessons learned during phase 1 can serve as the building blocks for preparing Indigenous learners for life beyond graduation.
The 2018-19 project is to create a Student Experience Design Lab, following the eCampus Ontario model. Using this model students, with support from faculty, will be empowered to lead open innovation projects to address complex problems facing learning at UFV and learning for the future world of work. For example students could tackle the following; 1) addressing the challenge of using Web 2.0 and cloud technologies in the UFV learning environment; 2) enhancing career awareness and mobility for liberal arts students; 3) exploring ways to embrace Indigenous ways of knowing as part of career development; 4) determining best practices for creating learning objects for gamification and/or problem based learning in the classroom; and 5) developing strategies for enhancing internationalization opportunities on campus.
The lab will use a “human-centered design process and tools to (re)design better student experiences” for learning both inside and outside classroom (eCampus, 2018, para 2). The students will also help to upskill faculty in their efforts to incorporate next-generational learning objects and practices into their classes. The lab will be structured as an experiential learning environment of making and doing! It will enable students to engage in innovation practices to lead, create and/or enhance systems, services, resources, and classroom practices.
Research and Experiential Learning Projects with Mission Outdoor Learning Laboratory (Mission Community Forest)
Project lead: Michelle Rhodes
The purpose of the Research and Experiential Learning Projects with the Mission Outdoor Learning Laboratory (or "Stave West Inventory Project") is to develop an initial inventory of potential forest-based educational opportunities and placements within Mission's forest lands. Stave West is the name given to the west side of Mission's community forest, and the area has been designated a provincial Interpretive Forest and an Outdoor Learning Laboratory. Planning in Stave West is overseen by a multi-stakeholder team, including the District of Mission, three First Nations, and government and educational agencies. Faculty leads and student researchers are working with the District of Mission and their Stave West partners to identify and prioritize project work needed for planning and forestry operations, and to link these projects to UFV courses, faculty, and professional placements (e.g. practicums).
Planting Reconciliation
Project lead: Melissa Walter
This project will build on the outcomes of the visions and proposals of successful learners emerging from the Winter 2019 offering of IDS 300. In Winter 2019, we will be offering IDS 300 as a project-based course on both reconceptualizing and relocating the Shakespeare garden previously located at the Chilliwack North campus. The course is described as follows: "a project-based course with the goal of redesigning the Shakespeare garden on UFV's CEP campus in a spirit of Reconciliation. When UFV moved its campus to the CEP site, the Shakespeare garden on the Chilliwack North campus was abandoned. The Friends of Theatre, responsible for the original Shakespeare Garden, have an affinity that has been disrupted by this abandonment. UFV is located, undeniably in the ancestral, and unceded Sto:lo territory. The goal is to design a garden that will be answerable to the historical, legal, botanical, emotional, spiritual, and aesthetic situation: to design a new Shakespeare and Reconciliation garden in a good way." The Winter 2019, course will focus on principles and functions of the design of a new Garden and its reconciliatory properties and will honour the Shakespearean vision of the Friends of Theatre. Our application to the FIT fund is to finalize the design and undertake the planting of the newly proposed garden at the CEP campus, through a second course offering, with the help of students (Agriculture, Biology, Arts), the Indigenous Affairs Office, UFV Facilities staff and gardeners, community volunteers and Elders. Drawing on the strengths of agriculture, biology, indigenous students, English and/or other Arts students, Facilities staff and gardeners, community volunteers, and Elders, we will create the garden space, which includes landscaping, planting, and establishing the garden. The work of the FIT-funded course will build on the reconciliatory vision coming forth from the previous IDS 300 class, and the creators of the garden will start by thoroughly understanding this vision.