New UTM institute to help strengthen undergraduate education
The University of Toronto Mississauga is strengthening its commitment to enhancing undergraduate education with a new institute that will advance best practices in teaching and learning.
The Institute for the Study of Undergraduate Education (ISUP) will focus on the academic discipline of university-level pedagogy, identifying and applying innovations in higher education theories and approaches. Established in July, this new academic unit will engage in research, student instruction, faculty training and more to promote effective educational strategies, methods and tools.
“This is about studying the innovations in pedagogy that are already happening at UTM, and contributing to scholarly literature on this subject,” says interim Director Ruth Childs, a professor at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and the current Ontario Research Chair in Postsecondary Education Policy and Measurement.
The concept for ISUP emerged in part from UTM’s 2017 Academic Plan, which has as a goal inspiring student success by supporting a rigorous and innovative academic environment through, among other things, developing students’ communication skills and supporting evidence-based programs and curriculum. As well, when Meric Gertler became president of U of T in 2013, he set Three Priorities for the University of Toronto, one of which was to reimagine undergraduate education by exploring new pedagogical modes and technologies that can better prepare students for lifelong success.
ISUP will build on and bolster the efforts of UTM’s Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre, which guides students seeking to develop their academic skills, and faculty members wanting to optimize their teaching practices. Also falling under ISUP’s administration is the Teaching and Learning Collaboration, which conducts workshops, runs pedagogical reading groups and offers other resources to enable effective pedagogy.
A key aspect of ISUP’s work involve developing first-year Foundational Skills courses to strengthen the key competencies students need to excel at university. A first-in-Canada initiative, it has so far led to ISP100H5 Writing for University and Beyond: Writing About Writing, a course launching this fall that is mandatory for students applying in spring/summer 2021 to join major and specialist programs in Anthropology, Earth Science, Physics, and all Visual Studies programs as of Fall 2021; Computer Science will join in the next year, with other programs to follow.
A future foundational course will focus on core numeracy skills. As well, ISUP faculty members will conduct research on the scholarship of teaching and learning to identify techniques that work best in the classroom. ISUP has already hired four new faculty members to teach the Foundational Skills courses and will hire seven more in the coming year.
With UTM gearing up for an academic year consisting largely of remote education due to COVID-19, Childs says the timing for ISUP is ideal.
“The vision for ISUP emerged long before the pandemic, but there could not be a time when it is needed more,” Childs says. “We want to make sure we’re providing a high-quality experience to students learning online.”