Niagara College and its partners have received more than half a million dollars in provincial funding to support digital learning.
Four unique Niagara College projects and two partnerships between Niagara College, Lambton College, Mohawk College, Fanshawe College, St. Clair College, Loyalist College, Seneca College and George Brown College received the funding as part of a $50 million investment by the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities to advance virtual learning across postsecondary institutions in Ontario.
“Niagara College is leading two types of projects. The Digital Content projects, helmed by faculty members, Wendy Ward and Alexander McGlashan will produce exciting new digital resources to support communications and fundamental electronics instruction,” said Natasha Hannon, associate director, Educational Development. “What’s even more exciting is that these are being designed as open educational resources, meaning that they will be available at no cost to NC students and can be adapted and adopted by other instructors and institutions across the province or even internationally.”
The newly funded programs include:
Niagara College Capacity Targeted – Instructional Design, Multimedia, Learning Technology
This funding will be used to hire a full-time, limited term instructional designer, engage multimedia production staff, and create new student positions. This funding will help the Niagara College team to develop and pilot a consistent in-take process for digital course development and renewal projects. It will also be used to create an Accessible Web Content and Learning Design Hub that will empower faculty, staff, and academic leaders with practical knowledge to create accessible digital content and teaching and learning experiences.
Open Educational Resources for Off-Campus Experiential Learning Activities in Electronics Engineering Technology
For this project, Niagara College has partnered with Seneca College. Funding will be used to develop a series of modular Open Educational Resources that support skill-based curriculum for Electronics Technology and will allow Niagara College and Seneca College to identify and design hardware resources that enable students to participate in off-campus experiential learning opportunities.
Jay Yatulis, professor, School of Technology, is pictured with the 3D printer being used for the curriculum.
“The objective of this project is to explore and develop means to start breaking down the barriers between a traditional on-campus technology lab education and remote learning opportunities, providing students with the best of both worlds; hands-on skilled training but with near anytime, anywhere flexibility,” said Alexander McGlashan, professor, School of Technology. “The project is leveraging advances in additive manufacturing and remote instrumentation to achieve these goals.”
Fundamental Communication Skills for Trades – Personal Care
This project will create an accessible resource that instructors and students can tailor for their use throughout their academic career and beyond graduation. Using modules, links to internal and external resources, self-analysis and reflection, the resource will compliment instruction with a communications course that will address essential employability skills in communications, critical thinking and problem solving, information management and interpersonal skills.
“These are very exciting times for Niagara College and NC students,” said Wendy Ward, communication professor, Department of Academic Studies. “Open Education Resources (OER) provide education materials at no cost for students and set the stage for inclusive and participatory learning. While many trades have communication texts specific to the profession, nothing currently exists for the hairstyling profession. The funding allows us to design this resource specifically for the personal care trade.”
Niagara College Capacity Targeted – Open Education Support
The Open Education Support funding will be used to hire staff to assist with project management and to free up our in-house NC Open Educational Resource expertise within the Library and Learning Commons. With the additional time available to them, they will be able to coordinate and develop an open education strategy and process at Niagara College.
Foundations of Effective Teaching Practice in Higher Education (partnership with Lambton College, Mohawk College, Fanshawe College, St. Clair College).
The primary objective of this project is to collaboratively develop a high quality, openly accessible, four-module short course with content common to the hybrid/online teaching practices of new educators across disciplines and institutions in Ontario.
Niagara College will take the lead on developing the Assessment Design module and will also support the quality review of the modules that are created.
Online Butchery Fundamentals Course – Enhance self-directed learning and hybrid delivery of culinary knowledge and skills (partnership with Loyalist College and George Brown College).
Butchery is a fundamental skill for culinary students and in high demand by Ontario’s food sector. This online course will use engaging technologies to accommodate flexible self-directed learning and practice of skills, thereby reserving lab-based hours for hands-on skill development. It will support greater consistency of butchery knowledge across culinary programs, expand opportunities for academic partnerships abroad, broaden exposure to North American approaches to butchery, and enable International students to learn about protein products to which they may now have limited access.
“The pandemic has required staff, faculty and students to explore and apply digital learning tools in a very intensive way and while many of us look forward to a return to campus life, a desire for more flexible, digitally-enhanced teaching and learning opportunities will persist post-COVID,” said Hannon.
“This means that whether we are teaching face-to-face, in a hybrid fashion, or fully online, learning technologies will become more and more essential to high-quality, student centered education. The eCampus VLS funding provides Niagara College will resources to build critical digital supports and infrastructure to continue to provide students will high-quality, applied learning in this evolving educational landscape.”
For more information on the eCampusOntario virtual learning strategy, please visit www.ecampusontario.ca/
