Blending first-year Geography courses: provide students with flexibility while innovating multiple delivery and engagement methods

TitleBlending first-year Geography courses: provide students with flexibility while innovating multiple delivery and engagement methods
Faculty/College/UnitArts
StatusCompleted
Duration2 Year
Initiation04/01/2020
Completion06/15/2022
Project Summary

The project addresses a gap in courses being offered at UBC by focusing on blended Learning as an important innovative approach to teaching and learning. Blended elements within current courses taught at Vantage have been development and assessed, but there is a need to adapt these pilot models and offer them at a wider scale across first-year Geography courses. A blended approach also addresses the growing demand from students for regular and flexible offerings of Geography courses. The department is taking an active role in facilitating more blended and online courses, and GEOG 121 and GEOG 122 will be the pilots for the department. The implementation of this project is deeply rooted in work carried out by faculty over the past six years within the Geography courses at Vantage College, and through research carried out under SoEL, SoTL and most recently a CTLT Research Associates grant program.

Funding Details
Year 1: Project YearYear 1
Year 1: Funding Year2020/2021
Year 1: Project TypeSmall TLEF
Year 1: Principal InvestigatorSiobhán McPhee
Year 1: Funded Amount17,900
Year 1: Team Members

Siobhán McPhee, Senior Instructor, Geography, Faculty of Arts
Juanita Sundberg, Associate Professor, Geography, Faculty of Arts
Trevor Barnes, Professor, Geography, Faculty of Arts
Jim Glassman, Professor, Geography, Faculty of Arts
Mohammed Rafi Arefin, Assistant Professor, Geography, Faculty of Arts
Priti Narayan, Assistant Professor, Geography, Faculty of Arts
Aaron Obedkoff, Geography Undergraduate TA
Yujie Chen, Geography Undergraduate TA
Siobhan van-Gruen, Geography Undergraduate TA
Tamara Baldwin, Director, Office of Regional and International Community Engagement, Faculty of Arts
Susan Grossman, Centre for Community Engaged Learning

Year 2: Project YearYear 2
Year 2: Funding Year2021/2022
Year 2: Project TypeSmall TLEF
Year 2: Principal InvestigatorSiobhán McPhee
Year 2: Funded Amount6,800
Year 2: Team Members

Siobhán McPhee, Associate Professor of Teaching, Geography, Faculty of Arts
Priti Narayan, Assistant Professor, Geography, Faculty of Arts
Rafi Arefin, Assistant Professor, Geography, Faculty of Arts
Tamara Baldwin, Director, Office of Regional and International Community Engagement, Faculty of Arts

Project Report2021-TLEF-Final-Report-McPhee-WEB.pdf
Project Outcomes

The Conversation: What is ‘blended learning’ and how can it benefit post-secondary students?