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Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipients: Henry Daniel and Arne Eigenfeldt, School for the Contemporary Arts

Project team: Claire Carolan and Kyla Gardiner, research assistants

Timeframe: September 2013 to August 2015

Funding: $10,000

Course addressed: FPA 485 – Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Contemporary Arts or FPA 489 – Interdisciplinary Project in FPA

Final report: View Henry Daniel's final report (PDF)

Description: The objective of our initiative is to design a six-week intensive tri-modal course and workshop (lecture, lab/studio, stage) for undergraduate students interested in taking their artistic and creative ideas from brain to lab and from page to stage. Two Contemporary Arts professors and one graduate research assistant with production and design skills will prepare the material for the course, which is intended for team delivery in the May-June 2015 intersession period. The research from proposal to post delivery will be a two-year process. It is foreseeable that this six-week intensive tri-modal course and workshop will function as a template, to be delivered by a rotating team with the requisite skills. It is also hoped that this will be an incentive for the School to develop a summer program that can satisfy the needs of a wide range of students as well as professionals within and outside the School of Contemporary Arts and SFU.

Questions addressed:

• What are the current teaching and learning practices used by the instructional team and how can these be adapted to support the learning goals of the new 6-week intensive course?
• What are the teaching and learning practices used by other instructors in the School and how can these be used to support the learning goals of the new course?
• What kinds of physical resources and personnel and support staff would be needed for the new course and how could these be best utilised?
• How effective is the new course design, with the following subquestions?
• Which students benefitted most from the 6-week intensive course in terms of where they are in their program?
• What approaches, methods, strategies used in the course were best suited for a group of interdisciplinary students, some of whom may have no expertise in traditional performance forms and/or techniques.
• What additional methods, strategies, or processes could be implemented based on student feedback?
• What additional resources would be needed to expand this course to include graduate and post-graduate students and outside professionals for an annual event at an international level?

Knowledge sharing: We plan to share our practice and findings from this investigation with colleagues at the annual FCAT and TLC exchange forum ‘Leaning into Learning.’