Develop and complete a project as an independent study working individually or in small groups with a faculty member(s).
Project Activities at Brock
Consider these examples of project activities designed by faculty and instructors at Brock.
Instructor: Dr. Pauli Gardener, Associate Professor
Course: HLSC 3P96 – Developing Healthy Communities
Program: Community Health, Public Health
through their eyes – the age friendly niagara project
In this hands-on, community-based, research project, students work in teams to conduct field research though “go-along” interviews with older adults. The intergenerational teams work collaboratively to assess the age-friendliness of St. Catharines using a healthy community model called Age-friendly Cities. The overall goal of the project is to provide practical experience and bring in-class learning about developing healthy communities to life.
Students maintain a reflective journal throughout the semester based on their experience during their research. Journals include three key sections: Personal Growth, Civic Engagement, and Academic Enhancement. A final version of the reflection journal is presented in video format at the end of the project. Click here to learn more about the reflection activities students engage in through the project.
The project culminates with a final community forum where student teams present their findings back to their older adult partners.
“Experience is at the root of understanding”
– Dr. Paula Gardner
Instructors: Dr. Jenn Salfi, Associate Professor
Course: NUSC 4Q90 – Foundations of Collaboration and Teamwork
Program: Applied Health Sciences
INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO INTERPROFESSIONAL COMPETENCY DEVELOPMENT
Foundations of Collaboration and Teamwork exposes and assists in the development of the “soft skillset” required for effective collaboration and effective teamwork. Using the National Interprofessional Competency Framework (CIHC, 2010) as a foundation, key areas of learning include collaborative leadership, team functioning, communication, role clarity, conflict management, and client-centred approach as it applies to a diversity of interprofessional settings.
This course provides an Intentional Interprofessional Experiential Education experience (IIEE)(Grice, et al., 2018) for students, which includes a variety of interprofessional case-based learning experiences and challenges (in-class), and a small group collaborative activity/project with a community partner. The variety of small group activities in a diversity of situations and settings facilitates the development of individual skills in interprofessional competence.
Course Outcome Measures
- GoPro Group Process Paper: In this assignment, students have the opportunity to observe and analyze their group’s functioning at two different points in time, as well as analyze and articulate their own role in the group noting behaviours that both facilitate as well as prevent, complicate effective collaboration. In small groups, students work through a problem case all the while video-taping the experience using a GoPro camera. The video provides the basis for reflecting on the experience.
- Community Collaborative Activity and Presentation: This assignment, which is the main project activity for the course, provides students with an intentional interprofessional experiential education (IIEE) experience that requires effective collaboration within their small groups (interprofessional collaboration), as well as with their community partners (intersectoral collaboration). Each group worked with a community partner over 4-5 weeks on a project related to health and wellbeing. The parameters of the project were determined in consultation with the community partner and the students worked collaboratively to meet the goals and expectations of the project. The project itself and the process of working as an interprofessional team were shared with the class and community partners at the end of the course.
- Reflection: Reflecting back & moving forward…: Through this assignment students reflect back on the knowledge gained in the course and their experiences working in a variety of small groups. In their reflection, students integrate the academic theories presented in the course and refer to the key competencies required in interprofessional collaboration (CIHC, 2010), while also commenting on the importance of being able to effectively collaborate and work with others on teams as they move forward in their academic and professional lives.
Feedback from students:
– By combining a group of individuals who are all studying different areas in school is the first step to creating something special.
– The first month was us all learning with our training wheels on and having full support from a grown-up, to the second month riding down the street, wheels off, with nothing but opportunities in the foreground. By giving us the freedom in the second group experience to learn as we go with help to fall back on, it really made me feel empowered at the end to know that we made the final product by ourselves.
– I now know that when working in the field of TR (therapeutic recreation) there is a lot of collaboration between all of the different caregivers who look after each patient. With knowing and learning all these new skills it can enhance the care I can provide for my future clients in all areas of the care they receive.
– During the six class lessons, the skills I learned taught me more about how a group of people can come together and work as a team, but also how I can enhance the team’s performance … using the skills I now have to push the team to be the best.
