CALS 692 is designed to engage you in a personal course of study (COS) as part of your portfolio learning. This course supports you as a leaders of your own learning. The focus of the COS you design, should be relevant to your specific learning needs and professional goals within the field of climate action leadership. It should also demonstrate a consideration of not only what you want to learn, but how you want to learn and how this is grounded in either/both Western and Indigenous learning styles and epistemologies The types of opportunities each student will create will vary and can include mentored learning (i.e., experiential directed studies), working on a community or organizational project, critical reflection on prior learning, learning through participation in MOOCS, Webinars, and other informal or less formal learning opportunities. In each case you will be called on to critically reflect on these experiences in order to synthesize and integrate the learning and demonstrate the competencies acquired through that learning by producing knowledge products (e.g., reflective blogs, journal articles, reports, digital stories).
This is a flexible-credit course where each 3 credits reflects 99 (33/credit) hours of learner effort; therefore, your proposal must represent the equivalent hours/credit for the credits you are hoping to claim (3, 6, 9). You will estimate this based on your own sense of what the learning entails, or in the case of prior learning, with evidence for what that learning required in terms of learner effort. Learner effort includes reading required resources, attending scheduled student-faculty advisor meetings, and completing assignments. The course faculty advisor will review and help you refine your estimate as needed prior to giving their approval. CALS 692 is assessed through demonstration of competencies and completion of agreed upon learning activities, as well as faculty advisor review of assignments. The course is graded on a Credit Granted (CR) basis. Assessment Criteria are outlined here.
There are no units for this course given its individualized focus on your personal COSA. You will define the structure of the course of study with a timeline and specific learning activities, identify the relevant competencies, and link these to your deliverables.
Course Activities
There are five main components to this course. These components are designed to help you shape a course of study that reflects your personal and professional learning goals, and the learning activities that will help you attain those goals. In order you will:
- COURSE OF STUDY: You will start by developing a Course of Study (COS). For this COS, you will identify and articulate your approach to learning, and describe the key learning opportunities you wish to include in your COS. These learning opportunities will relate to specific learning goals and competencies, and scholarly outputs (e.g., paper, report, blogs, Ted-talks). The nature of these activities and outputs will be decided by you with input and advice from your faculty advisor. They should be commensurate with the credit load you are climing (3, 6, 9 graduate credits). Your COS will build on the high-level plan you developed during the CALS 691-Designing a Practitioner Portfolio course. Review Assignment 1 for details on what your COS should include, and consult with your faculty advisor as you design it.
- COSA AGREEMENT: Once you and your faculty advisor are satisfied with the COS, you will be asked to sign a COS agreement (COSA) and upload that to the appropriate dropbox in Moodle.
- LEARNING ACTIVITIES: Once a signed COSA is in place, you will pursue the agreed upon learning activities outlined in the COS. During this period of self-directed learning, you will also be expected to contribute to/participate in the course Community of Practice (see below).
- LEARNING OUTPUTS: As you engage in the learning activities you will develop and deliver the agreed upon scholarly outputs as outlined in your COSA. Learning is often emergent, and there may be opportunities to amend the learning outputs to better reflect the learning activities in which you are engaged. Any changes to these outputs should be discussed with your faculty advisor. Consider these ouputs as an opportunity to share your learning in useful ways. This could include a range of outputs (e.g., academic blogs, a project report, a Ted-talk style presentation, podcast(s), a scholarly paper).These outputs constitute Assignment 2.
- REFLEXIVE BLOG: A reflexive blog can be used to track, evidence, and monitor your learning over time, like a journal. There are two components to this – (1) your informal, immediate and ongoing reflections, and (2) Assignment 3: your formal reflective blog output. You can decide how frequently you choose to engage in this reflective practice, but you are encouraged to do so regularly as you engage in the activities outlined in your COSA. Doing so will help you capture your reflections about what you are learning (and how) with more immediacy. Each entry need only be short and informal. You may want to note specific literature associated with this learning for use in the development of Assignment 3 which will include and refer to 3-5 of these informal entries. Review Assignment 3 for details on this blog.
Community of Practice
This course includes a learning component in which you will work online with other self-directed learners, sharing knowledge, and receiving and giving peer support and feedback. Your role in this regard is to engage in and contribute to a student-led Learning Community of Practice (CoP). The purpose of this CoP is to provide peer support and feedback as you work independently on your COS. The Individualized nature of the learning in this course provides you with flexibility in the design of the learning activities and the outputs to meet your personal and professional learning and career goals. The CoP provides you with opportunities to check in periodically with each other, contributing to some social learning in what is largely an individual learning environment.
Faculty Advisor
The role of the faculty advisor overseeing this course is twofold: to support you in creating a structure for self-managing your own learning and contributing to the learning of others through the CoP. The faculty advisor will also work with you to assess and assign a credit load to the learning activities, and review and assess the agreed upon learning outputs to grant credit. The faculty advisor will not lead the CoP but will serve as a sounding board and contribute to the CoP with their own reflections.