Kinundrum, now in development, is a multimedia tool that presents anatomy case studies and interactive exercises accompanied by virtual 3D models, animations, and illustrations. Supplementary to Elementary Human Anatomy, a core course for BKin students, Kinundrum will enhance knowledge retention, foster deeper understanding, and develop critical thinking skills.

Physical and Environmental Sciences (UTSC)

Using 3-D Visualization Technology for Enhanced Student Learning

To aid in 3D visualization of molecules and their chemical transformations, we have designed and developed a 3D augmented reality (AR) tool, called ARchemy. ARchemy will help students understand chemical interactions by using tactile AR markers to simulate molecular bonds in a 3D digital environment. For example, students are able to use their phone/tablet camera with this app to visualize 2D molecules drawn on paper, in 3D.

Molecular Genetics

Development and Evaluation of a Genomic Methodologies Course featuring Gamified Laboratory Simulations

Laboratory techniques in genomic medicine are advancing rapidly, requiring expensive infrastructure, and posing challenges to teaching in traditional settings. The project involves the development of a Genomic Methodologies course featuring the use of virtual lab simulations to teach advanced laboratory techniques, and testing whether a simulated environment can address the observed pedagogical obstacles.

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Kathy Vu

Discovery learning: An evaluation of case-based learning pathways

Students within the PharmD for Pharmacists Program are experienced pharmacists with expertise in providing patient care. They should benefit from discovery learning principles applied in curriculum development. The purpose of this project is to increase knowledge acquisition and enhance self-directed learning, through the use of case-based learning pathways.

Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences

Maker Revolution Meets Accessibility Needs: Making Laboratory Assistive Devices (LAD) through simple robotics and sensors for students with disabilities

This project involves enhancing the experiential learning capacity of students with disabilities in an undergraduate chemistry lab through laboratory assistive devices (LAD) via 1) automating the most meticulous procedure with precision and accuracy 2) incorporating sensory replacement features to existing laboratory equipment, allowing for the possibility of laboratory independence for students with disabilities.

Faculty of Music

Reimagining Undergraduate Instrumental Instruction with Live Video Playback and Recording

Live video playback and video recording—by encouraging multi-modal, self-reflection in students—are important tools in experiential learning. The project involves; designing a single instrumental-instructional classroom equipped with video technologies, assessing the technologies’ impact on student learning, and appraisal of the value of equipping all instrumental-instructional classrooms similarly throughout the Faculty of Music.

University of St. Michael’s College

Blending Training: An exploration of student training online and in-person

This project explores the value of the blended learning approach in training students in work positions within the Library. The purpose is to evaluate the training methods: online learning tools and in-person training. The project will measure the impact of both methods on their training and work.

L.S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Using Interprofessional, Student-Directed Simulation to Enhance Critical Thinking and Collaboration in Emergency Situations in Community Health Settings

Students from the Faculties of Nursing, Dentistry, Pharmacy, and Medicine (Physician Assistant Program) will be mentored to develop a student-led and facilitated interprofessional simulation and eLearning module pertaining to the emergency management of a patient in a community health setting. This project will enhance critical thinking, interprofessional collaboration and awareness of women’s heart health.

Centre for Teaching and Learning, UTSC

Development of needed functionalities of VEA2 to enhance English Language Learners (ELL)s’ learning experience and faculty ability to be assess learning more fairly

Having established VEA’s usefulness in helping ELLs understand course readings, expand their vocabulary and self-train in Academic English usage, we seek to develop further functionalities for students and faculty use. This application seeks to build dashboards and learning analytics for students and faculty use, and build structure needed for self-e-assessment.

Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning

Extending Pepper to Support to Large Undergraduate Courses

Pepper is an online discussion board platform developed at OISE-UT. Need support to i) complete the final stages of integrating Pepper into the Academic Toolbox, and ii) modify the software to better meet the needs of large undergraduate classes.

Biological Science (UTSC)

Quizzical 4.0

Quizzical is an on-line multiple choice question authoring and learning assessment tool that has been developed with prior ITIF funding. The LTI compliant software is currently used by multiple courses across the UofT campuses. Funding is requested to improve image selection and output pages and to solve minor problems to enhance user experience.

Dept. of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Interactive Visual Rubric Tool

The proposed tool will reformulate tabular rubrics into interactive displays to make assessment easier and more effective for different groups of users: instructors and students. The goal is to improve the impact of formative feedback by integrating and visualizing feedback information thus improving communication between the instructor and student.

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Clinical Faculty E-Development Program

The goal of this project is to enhance the preparation and development of clinical nursing faculty, who directly facilitate small groups of undergraduate nursing student learning in clinical settings, by moving to a hybrid delivery model that includes the creation of three self-directed, interactive, media rich e-learning modules.

Public Health Sciences

Technology-mediated learning for planetary health sustainability

This project involves developing a multi-media, bi-national, graduate-level course to provide Masters and PhD students from public health disciplines with the knowledge and skills necessary to meaningfully respond to the public and population health priorities of planetary health, including climate/environmental changes and sustainable human development.

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Unified Engineering Communications Instructional Toolkit: Improving Student Engineers’ Written Communication Skills through Highly Integrated Custom Diagnostic and Instructional Software and Online Learning Modules.

Engineering curriculum integrates communication instruction into core courses. While effective, this restricts the number of learning outcomes addressed and pedagogical approaches. We propose using Digital Reusable Learning Objects (DRLOs) that meet engineering-specific disciplinary requirements. A pilot project will develop and assess a DRLO combining innovative software and engineering-appropriate learning modules.

Office of the Dean, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering

Developing a Self-Sustaining Active Learning Community of Practice

The Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (FASE)’s new Centre for Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CEIE) features several technology enhanced active learning (TEAL) classrooms, designed to promote learning through activities and collaboration. To promote effective teaching in this new environment, we seek to support our instructors by expanding FASE’s TEAL Fellowship.

Faculty of Information

Flipping the classroom with video lectures

This project will produce videos introducing selected foundational topics in the 1st year Information Systems, Services & Design” grad course. These videos will range in length from 15-45 minutes, to partially flip the classroom. These videos will include interviews with domain experts, and will facilitate self-paced learning which is urgently needed for this 260-student technology “leveling” course required across 2 faculties and astonishingly diverse backgrounds.

Curriculum, Teaching and Learning (OISE)

CTAP – Connecting Technology and Pedagogy

The goal of the CTAP project is to pilot, assess and refine a set of principles and strategies (Drinkwater, 2017) to support the development of accessible, collaborative and engaging online or blended graduate-level learning environments, including pilot testing an online virtual teaching and learning tool, Zoom for Education.

In this project, the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education will be converting several courses to a hybrid model by first developing a standard framework and then building out the necessary resources. 

University of Toronto Libraries (Downtown and UTSC)

Undergraduate Information Literacy Modules

 In this project, Librarians will be working with instructors on the development of online information literacy modules  for Arts and Science undergraduate courses, including pilots in Art History and Social Psychology.

 Dentistry (Downtown)

Enhancing Dental Students’ Communication Skills Using an Integrated Online Formative Assessment Module

This project will incorporate student video review and benchmark videos in an online interactive formative assessment module to enhance student-directed learning and self-assessment of communication skills in clinical patient scenarios.

Chemical and Physical Sciences (UTM)

Lindsay Schoenbohn

Virtual field trips: enhancing student 3-D visualization and access to geological field sites

The project team will be generating a digital map of a site on Manitoulin Island. The immediate impact of this project will be to bring the field into the classroom, especially for students who may not enrol in the field camp courses because of economic constraints or physical disabilities. The project will also support the teaching of 3-D visualization in upper year courses. The long-term impact of this project will be capacity building for the use of 3-D visualization across the department.

Pharmacy (Downtown)

A Multimedia Resource for Health Professional Students on Providing Safe and Quality Patient Care

The unsafe use of medications can place patients’ health at risk and great financial burden on the health care system. More medication safety education components need to be integrated into our current health professional curriculum. This multimedia medication safety resource will be available for students’ self-directed learning.

Philosophy (Downtown)

Online Course Materials for Modern Symbolic Logic Courses

MSL is a technical course which attracts a large number of students from mathematics and computer science. As such, the background knowledge of students ranges dramatically. This project will create online video lectures and resources based on student feedback. 

This project will enhance student learning and assessment through the development of a student-directed, technology-enabled, interactive module pertaining to arterial blood gas (ABG) interpretation. The focus of the module will be on powerful assessment: evaluating students‰Ûª understanding and ability to interpret ABGs using a case-based, interactive approach. The module will be embedded within specific skills-based courses in the Undergraduate Nursing, Nurse Practitioner and the Physician Assistant Program. In addition to its assessment purpose, students will also be able to access and review the material throughout their programs.

Virtual Interactive Cases for Enhancing Formative Feedback over Routine Tools in Pharmacy Students (VIC-EFFORTS)

We are applying to ITIF to fund the creation of a catalogue of Pharmacy cases using the Virtual Interactive Cases software, adapted to learners of different capabilities. Our goals are to improve development and assessment of Pharmacy Students‰Ûª clinical reasoning skills within the undergraduate curriculum, and during their experiential training.

Nutritional Sciences

Nutritional Sciences: The Researchers & Research Video Series Project

The development of 12 short videos, intended for viewing by medical students and university undergraduates. The videos will feature faculty members of the Department of Nutritional Sciences, responding to the following question: What would you like future health care providers and policy makers to know about your nutrition research?

Adaptive Formative Assessments for Large Classes

We will produce an adaptive online formative assessment tool for use in large courses. The tool will use Item Response Theory (IRT) and a database of questions categorized by learning goal to create assessments, which adapt in real time to a student’s ability level and areas of greatest confusion.

A toolkit to boost active learning of geophysics

A toolkit tailored to course learning outcomes will enable students to visualize, model, process, and analyze geophysical data. It will expand active learning in a lecture-based course (JGA305, jointly offered by ANT and ESS), include real-time data analysis in the companion field course (ESS450), and incorporate hands-on geophysics exercises in an archaeology lab course (ARH312).

Integrated Quizlet for Collaboration (IQC)

This project would create an online Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) system, for use in weekly tutorial assessment. The Integrated Quizlet for Collaboration (IQC) would work on any Internet connected device, and would provide improved retention of course materials, and increased student engagement. IQC could be used in a wide variety of courses at the university.

Quizzical 3.0

Quizzical is an on-line, multiple-choice question writing and learning assessment tool. This proposal focuses on enabling full implementation of learning tools interoperability (LTI) code to increase its flexibility, adding optional features to permit an instructor to customize course offerings, and improving image selection and output screens to enhance student user experience.

Encouraging and Assessing Engagement with Digital Achievements

Digital achievements are an effective tool to motivate engagement, assess and promote effective learning behaviours, and provide instantaneous feedback in online environments [1,4]. Furthermore, achievements can be awarded automatically, saving TA hours. This project will develop and evaluate an achievement system built to work with tools already in use at UofT.

Centre for Teaching and Learning

Vocabulary Expansion Accelerator (VEA) Essentials

Given the many graduates/undergraduates needing Academic English support, VEA empowers students of diverse Academic English proficiencies to directly address their needs in vocabulary, syntax and familiarity with academic writing in their disciplines. VEA functionalities will enhance quality of learning engagement based on multidisciplinary leading edge research on language learning/acquisition.

This project will enhance large classroom learning through the development of a student-directed, re-useable, interactive content module pertaining to the administration of substances by injection. The module will be housed within specific skills-based courses in Nursing, Pharmacy and the Physician Assistant Program, and made available to students throughout their programs.

Tutorials are an integral part of large courses used to personalize learning experiences for undergraduate students. As increasing numbers of courses are delivered online, we propose a fundamental change in the approach to tutorial delivery across Arts & Science. Our model plans to exploit the increasing use and availability of online technologies by implementing re-usable deliverables and seminars to help train virtual educators (i.e. teaching assistants) to engage students in collaborative online environments in order to provide outstanding learning experiences.

St. Michael’s College Library

Students work together to create a multi-touch digital exhibit with the aim of educating their peers from the Book and Media Studies program and the SMC community on the Rare Book Collection. In the process, students will develop stronger research skills and learn how to develop an educational digital exhibit.

Our goal is to promote engagement in two large physiology courses. Interactive activities will be developed for use during lectures with a software program. LectureTools allows professors to view/display student answers and annotated diagrams. Students can also ask questions via their own electronic devices enabling immediate clarification.

This project is a first step towards the development of a rich media portal for Chinese studies. Initially, this will be developed in a first year Chinese course to build capacity to ultimately support Chinese instructors and students across 5 courses at 3 different levels with the longer-term goal of providing hybrid

We wish to develop a series of How-To instructional videos intended to help students better understand the most difficult fundamental concepts in introductory linguistics, topics that would benefit from a clear, concise explanation, illustration, and example. These videos would be high-quality reusable objects intended to support excellence in student learning.

Implementing a course within the environment of an Active Learning Classroom (ALC) requires a full course redesign with a focus on outcomes and activities that align with the space. This project will identify key supports for faculty teaching in ALCs and will produce material to support the transition to an ALC environment

Our project aims to provide digital tool kits for undergraduate and graduate education, and support digital literacy research related to contemporary drama, theatre and performance within a participatory and community-based framework. The Mobile Digital Technology Labs will aim to better serve the needs of current “digital native” students and better attract incoming students.

Computer and Mathematical Sciences

We propose to develop TAid — a mobile application to aid University of Toronto teaching assistants and to facilitate coordination between teaching assistants and course instructors. The application has great potential to save valuable teaching resources in a large teaching team.

We will combine Twitter with Blackboard discussion tools for IMC200, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, to allow small-group discussions in a large class of up to 500. The course is a high priority for the Impact Centre, giving students the skills needed to apply their university education upon graduation.

This project involves the development of three systems that try to achieve the objective stated in the tile. All three systems allow for multi-part randomized algorithmic questions. They also allow (or can easily be extended to provide) other question types such as MC, T/F, short answer, and in conjunction with a new assessment, which has been recently developed by a colleague (Graded Response – GR test), this tool will permit not only objective online evaluation but also support the development of Critical thinking skills. The exact types and the variety differ from tool to tool.

Chemical Engineering

Greg Evans

ITIF funding will support enhancement of on-line resources to support instruction of teamwork skills in large courses. Specifically ITIF support will bring together and extend work on the development on-line resources already underway as part of a PhD thesis funded in part through HEQCO and a three-year project funded through the Engineering Instructional Innovation Program (EIIP).

Biomedical Communications

Jodie Jenkinson

Biology students struggle with reconciling the random nature of the molecular world with the perceived efficiency of the cell, often developing misconceptions. We propose the development and evaluation of MolWorlds, a simulation-based, problem-solving mobile game that facilitates understanding of the relationship between molecular causal mechanisms and complex cellular systems.

Human Biology

Maria Papaconstantinou

This collaborative project proposes to develop innovative computer-based animations and computational 3D models to improve the classroom and learning experience of students in large introductory genetics courses. These multimedia resources are aligned closely with institutional and program goals and represent interactive learning opportunities for students allowing the development and use of higher-order learning skills.

Chemistry

We propose to develop and implement wireless access to modern computational chemistry based assignments for our large undergraduate chemistry courses. The implementation of the proposed courseware will leverage the recent Wi-Fi infrastructure installed on campus allowing the students to use their own laptops for advanced calculation in class and in the laboratory.

Cell and Systems Biology

Melody Neumann

Group Quiz Tool for Synchronous Online Learning

This project relates to an online group work tool (Group Quiz tool) to facilitate group dynamics and student-student interaction is proposed. Proper user and administrative tool interfaces, together with proper availability of the tool, could improve student learning in a range of online courses.

Nursing

Monica Parry

Developing Clinical Reasoning Skills in Large On-Line Classrooms using Virtual Interactive Case Presentations

The goal of this project is to collaborate to develop 50 virtual interactive cases (VIC) to build clinical reasoning skills in a large national on-line learning classroom for graduate Nurse Practitioner (NP) students and to facilitate the shareability and transferability of VIC to our interdisciplinary and inter-professional partners.

Biology

Sanja Hinic-Frlog

Interactive Biology Lab Manuals by UTM SEARCH Group

We will develop a template for interactive lab manuals in core biology courses. The template will allow for implementation of adaptable content and testing sensitive to individual student learning needs, and peer collaboration. This learning and teaching tool will improve student performance and engagement and allow for convenient yearly customization for developers.

Geography

Yuhong He

Developing an Effective Web-Based Platform for Large-scale Geospatial Learning

This project aims to develop a web-based geospatial learning platform that will enhance the undergraduate learning environment for a large number of students by increasing opportunities to access virtual geospatial labs when physical labs are not available or difficult to access. This virtual lab platform can reach across tri-campuses and beyond, to practically any student with internet access and an interest in geospatial education. The benefits of this platform include an improvement in our teaching abilities, transfer of knowledge, better quality learning strategies, and skill acquisition for students.

We will create a tri-level internet-based course framework, with open and paid modules, modifiable for use with other occupational therapy content. The exemplar content, Cognitive Orientation to Occupational Performance (CO-OP), will be provided at three levels: basic knowledge (public); paid theory/application (free to OT/PT UofT students); certification modules (health professionals).

This is a digital display device for electronic academic posters, with a low-cost computer backed and touchless controls. By promoting the conversion of posters to digital form, we hope to increase the quality and content of posters as well as provide new opportunities for sharing and archiving them.

SMARTEST is an automated goal setting and monitoring system for student researchers that stands for Specific-Measurable-Attainable-Relevant-Timeframed-Evaluation-System-Toronto. Based on principles of “Task Motivation and Incentives” first established by Locke, SMARTEST will enable students, mentored by faculty and librarians, to establish clear criteria to track progress and achieve success.

Two increasingly important domains in linguistics are the study of Heritage Languages and the analysis of large corpora of natural language data. Our Linguistics Department has professors who do both. This project improves the necessary instructional infrastructure to scaffold undergraduate and graduate class assignments teaching relevant theory and research skills.

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) performed by the treating physician is a becoming a widely accepted diagnostic tool for rapid real-time assessment of patient status. A large demand for training in this field now exists. This project will create interactive online teaching modules that can be incorporated into these training programs.

In order to bridge theory and practice, case studies are an important curricular priority in graduate and undergraduate teacher education programs university-wide. In this project, video-captured, enacted case studies which can be used online in conjunction with discussion forums, will be developed and made

UofT health professional faculties accept students from various academic backgrounds. It is unusual for them to have knowledge across basic sciences, social sciences/humanities, learning principles, and research principles. To address this educational gap we will develop relevant online courses for prospective health sciences school applicants and new health sciences students.

We propose to develop a standard operating procedure for converting Blackboard-embedded courses into “course cartridges” that can be used on other LMS platforms. We aim to create interoperability standards for UT-developed courseware, which will assist in the development of new online courses as well as maximize value from current offerings.

Once online, the entire archive of 219 manuscripts from the Ethiopian monastery of Gunda Gunde will serve as a unique collection of primary sources for students, researchers, and scholars to study, interact with, analyze, and evaluate Ethiopian history and culture. The digitized corpus, derived from close collaboration between Prof. Michael Gervers, the Digital Scholarship Unit (DSU), and UTSC’s IITS department, will contribute to active student learning and research.

We propose an innovative and engaging content delivery and feedback system to be included within the new, full service ophthalmology website. Content delivery will be done through an online case conduit utilizing the Virtual Interactive Case System (VICS) as a platform. The current project will also add value to the VICS eLearning platform through a novel feedback tool.

The goal of this project is to develop a general purpose software package for use in assessing correctness of students’ computer programs — a general purpose “auto-tester”. The auto-tester can be used in any course (Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, etc.) that involves programming assignments, exercises, programming labs, etc.

The Open Language Learning Textbook allows students and instructors to work through lessons and activities simultaneously, during lecture, tutorials or office hours, without additional cost to students. The interactive textbook will be used in first year French, Italian, and Spanish courses in the Department of Language Studies (LS) at UTM.

Creation of an interactive website allowing ESL students in all disciplines to acquire and practice using core academic vocabulary needed for the level and volume of reading of university courses. Provides students, instructors and writing centre staff with a practical tool to support students with rapid, targeted enhancement of academic vocabulary.

Tablet computers will be integrated into a Biochemistry laboratory course curriculum to enhance student learning and collaboration by providing direct access to online resources, the ability to actively share and discuss results, and promoting impromptu instructor-facilitated dialogue in the lab as experiments are conducted. Tablets would also serve as a platform for delivery of reusable course content.

We will create a series of videos on core mathematics, statistics and data management topics to help students gain numeracy skills required in their courses. Many instructors find their students lack fundamental skills, and we find these are required by a number of different courses across various departments at UTM.

Quizzical 2.0

We propose to develop a student authored, on-line multiple choice question writing and learning tool called Quizzical. Quizzical will assist in building a question bank that students can access and use for self testing. A key feature is a statistical interface that allows students and faculty to measure engagement and progress.

Paediatric Hematologist/Oncologists (PHO) are required to have an understanding of laboratory tests for diagnosis/management purposes. Our project will create an electronic, cased-based laboratory educational resource that will be accessible to Canadian PHO trainees. PHO staff/trainees can work with an administrator to create new modules, thus allowing for a self-sustainable curriculum.

The goal of this project is to actively engage undergraduate nursing students in their learning and ultimately in their clinical practice by enabling them to use smart devices to gather multiple sources of evidence/information in the classroom, clinical and simulation laboratory setting.

The Department of Mathematics is developing an online series of multimedia lectures synchronously intertwined with slide decks and hypertext elements, including short online assessments. These lectures will be built using the VedaVox Web Course platform, which is itself built on the KBasix Content Management System, all developed by DoM.

A wiki with enhanced capabilities will assist in providing student feedback on both quantity and quality of participation in asynchronous collaboration. It will help create a safe in-class learning environment for active student engagement. This technology is scalable for different size cohorts and has potential application for interprofessional education.

This project will involve the development of an online continuing education founded on principles of active and collaborative learning for Canadian and internationally-educated physical therapists (IEPTs) who wish to develop the knowledge and skills necessary for the appropriate and effective utilization of diagnostic imaging in the management of musculoskeletal conditions.

We propose a fundamental shift in introductory instruction in statistics in Arts & Science. Our model embeds online modular lectures on statistical methods within discipline-specific active-learning course sections. These multimedia lectures exploit the potential of new online technologies to enable collaborative, cross-disciplinary virtual team-teaching that provides a meaningful, resource-efficient, and engaging introduction to statistical practice.

This project will prototype and pilot new assessment tools for instructors and learners using Pepper, a research-based peer-to-peer (P2P) online discussion platform used in OISE courses. P2P discussion can provide opportunities for distributed practice, more equitable participation, increased reflection time, and more persistent access to key ideas. Yet, problems providing meaningful feedback and assessment within P2P discussion can limit its perceived value for both students and faculty. The project will deliver a set of open-access assessment tools that support responsive teaching and active learning in courses that involve peer-to-peer collaboration.

The Institute for Optical Sciences and Physics Department offer a multi-disciplinary course, where science and art students create holograms together, using complementary strengths. We propose an integrated system where students produce collaboratively the digital content, get the instructor’s feedback to ensure a successful hologram and have a high-quality hologram produced.

We propose the continued development and evaluation of Vascular Invaders, a web-based study aid with integrated gaming elements geared towards supporting undergraduate anatomy students understanding of human vascular anatomy. The game quizzes students’ knowledge of nomenclature, vessel supply, and anastomoses with access to an interactive and anatomically accurate 3D model of vasculature. Currently, one module on thoracic vasculature exists and we would like to expand the game to include vasculature of the head and neck, a particularly challenging area for students.

In programming courses, instructors often demonstrate techniques in lecture, but classroom response aids like iClickers are not sufficient to support in-class programming exercises. This project will produce a tool that enables the deployment, real-time monitoring, and analysis of programming activities during lecture.

AIRLab represents an exciting new teaching and learning opportunity in which students work together as members of multidisciplinary teams toward the completion of interdisciplinary research projects. Instructional software and electronic component modules will herein be developed to improve teaching by facilitating AIRLab student learning and permit increased course enrolment.

The University of Toronto French Proficiency Test will be a web-based tool designed to evaluate second language learners’ French vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Funds requested here are for test content development (Part A) to be undertaken in parallel with the web interface creation (Part B).

Early years instruction is at the forefront of educational policy. Our project leverages expertise at OISE and digital media to create effective and engaging multimedia resources targeting early learning instruction. We will provide resources to enhance teacher candidates’ ability to engage in evidence-informed early years instruction.

The goal of this project is to transform the current History Engine – an interactive online repository of student research and writing – from a US-based project into a truly international collaboration that supports interdisciplinary teaching and research. The outcome will be a web-based interactive tool that significantly enhances undergraduate experiential education by providing a suite of digital resources that foster applied research and writing skills and expose students to the methods and practice of digital scholarship.

The study of World History provides a fruitful paradigm for the understanding of human society and cultural interactions, but poses challenges to both instructors, who must teach outside their areas of study, and students, who must navigate a broad range of material over a very short period of time. Marshalling expertise from diverse disciplines and areas of interest, this project will create a digital multimedia resource to clarify and illustrate “connection” as a central concept in World History.

This project intends to prototype, evaluate, and produce an inexpensive, mobile toolkit for measuring and increasing awareness of body balance. Many performers struggle with posture-induced tension problems, which lead to injury and hamper the finely tuned multi-sensory processes associated with producing music. Investigators will create a fixed laboratory in which custom software and readily available equipment can be configured to produce a user-friendly and easily distributable tool with which students can effect permanent changes in their postural balance.

Existing teaching methodologies in the health sciences are being enhanced by the availability of a range of new technologies, and yet faculty are often not aware of, or comfortable with, the role of these in teaching and learning. Students, staff and faculty will collaborate in the development of online, digital faculty-development materials that will permit a diverse body of health-professional instructors to access current instruction in technology-enhanced and student-centred teaching, at any time, from anywhere. Students will be recruited to serve as researchers and content developers for the faculty-development modules, learning about instructional design, production, and implementation; this will give medical residents and training health-professionals the opportunity to reflect on their future roles as teachers and faculty themselves.

This project will involve students in the production of immersive, collaborative, and visual applications to support T-Zone, the University of Toronto Mississauga Library’s experimental touch- and gesture-based computing laboratory. Faculty will benefit from the opportunity to experiment with and consider the potential of a variety of touch-based computing interfaces and gesture-based applications as part of teaching, learning, and research, while students across all the disciplines will gain invaluable hands-on experience with innovative technologies that will shape the future of work, research, and daily life.

This multi-disciplinary initiative will invite faculty and students from across the university to collaborate in the creation of mobile applications to support teaching and learning in ten undergraduate courses. In addition to its immediate impact on the faculty and students enrolled in the classes for which applications are designed, this project will benefit the students involved in application creation, developing valuable experience in project leadership, interdisciplinary collaboration, and design for mobile computing platforms.

A project to create high-quality, accessible digital animations to illustrate fundamental concepts in calculus. Students will be able to access and review videos, facilitating deeper learning at a comfortable pace, accessible anytime, from anywhere. Digital clips will be made available at no cost to all instructors and institutions, for use in class or as supplementary material.

Drawing on the archives of Representative Poetry Online and the Library’s own extensive collection of digital resources, this project will invite students and faculty to collaborate in the creation, editing, annotation, and sharing of customized digital poetry and prose anthologies for use in the classroom. By engaging students directly in a collaborative process of text selection and editing, this project will transform the role of the anthology in the teaching of literature, and the role of the student in the university classroom. The open-source Anthology tool will be available throughout and beyond the University of Toronto.

This project will build capacity in the use of remote collaboration technologies among faculty and student participants in flex-mode courses, combining traditional classroom instruction with technology-supported distance instruction and learning. Virtual interaction with remote collaborators is essential for the CIDE Centre, whose main focus is to compare and support education projects in the developing world, and students will benefit from the opportunity to connect with overseas peers, learn from distance faculty, and network with development professionals in the field.

<Language a la Carte> will create a portal service to support the pedagogical use of maps and web-based mapping tools in language studies. Using maps to visualize and articulate the cultural aspects of the language is an important part of second-language learning, and live web mapping tools afford students a low-cost, highly accessible immersion in the language and culture of study. Using Creative Commons Licensing, teaching materials will be made available to other instructors in French Studies, and the project can be readily transferred to other language courses at the University.

UTSC’s WebOption Lecturecast system serves thousands of undergraduates at the Scarborough campus, providing recorded lectures for review and enhanced learning. This project will augment accessibility, providing automated captioning for each of the 500+ lectures captured annually. Using a wiki model, student contributions will subsequently bring the automated transcripts from 80% to 100% accuracy. Collaborative captioning will provide students with an innovative, active learning mechanism to review and engage more deeply with in-class course material, benefiting not only the viewers of the captioned video, but the caption contributors themselves.

Interlinked online profiles designed to reflect and support academic interests and achievements will facilitate student navigation of their academic environment and interests, and their educational and professional goals. In large and dispersed faculties and departments, this initiative will foster greater access and interaction between faculty and students, and promote a sense of cohesive community focused around a discipline that has relevance in the academy and in the wider world. Based on outcomes of the initial 2-year project in History and the Department for the Study of Religion, the network can be extended to other faculties within and beyond the University of Toronto.

A project to introduce and evaluate collaborative digital storytelling as an alternative to traditional coursework and assessment. UTM hosts a large number of students belonging to communities with a strong oral tradition or a resistance to argumentative writing; nontraditional students, particularly those who navigate multiple languages and linguistic registers in their daily lives, may find more ease and comfort in expressive discourses involving personal voice. The long-term objective is to create a reproducible training tool that will enable digital storytelling to be incorporated into the curriculum in Historical Studies and other disciplines, expanding not only the range of assessment opportunities in the Humanities, but also the range of voices heard in the academy.

Instruction in mindfulness-oriented self-care practices are invaluable to students in intensive health, social service, and educational professional programs, but given the demanding schedule and high pace of such programs, personal-development courses can be difficult to access and accommodate. The online delivery of mindfulness courses, using a self-paced approach, the discussion space, and guided meditations, will improve student access to self-care training, providing essential personal connections while imparting valuable skills to combat stress, avoid burnout, and promote feelings of engagement in their education and professional service training.

Robotics, Cognitive Science

Drama, English, R.E.E.D., Library, Geography

Historical Studies, Library, Computing Services