Co-led by Maysah Eid and Deb Nielsen
About the Curriculum CoP (CCoP)
The Curriculum Community of Practice (CCoP) is a community of practice for educational developers and others in higher education institutions in Ontario who support program-level development and analysis. This group is open to anyone who engages in curriculum development and quality assurance processes, whether it is their primary role or a portion of their responsibilities.
The CCoP typically meets virtually once a month to discuss topics of interest. Sometimes these monthly meetings have a particular theme, or a colleague may present something of interest to the group; other times it’s simply an opportunity for networking and general open discussion.
The CCoP is coordinated by one or two members who take responsibility for setting meetings, working with the group to determine agendas, etc. Determining coordinators for the group is an informal process — typically one or two people volunteer to coordinate, often for a period of two or so years. The current CCoP Coordinators are Maysah Eid and Deb Nielsen.
CCoP Listserv
The Curriculum Community of Practice has a dedicated listserv for members of the group to share questions, ideas, and resources. If you would like to join the listserv, please send an email to owner-coed-curriculum@uwo.ca.
Once you’ve joined, emails can be sent to listserv members using coed-curriculum@uwo.ca.Join the Curriculum CoP Meetings
Our group meets every month for check-ins, which are responsive to the membership’s current questions. It’s also a time where we connect and celebrate successes and share challenges. Over the past couple years we also had a number of themed sessions; for example, we recently discussed strategies for “saying no” and the role of the initial consult meeting on boundary setting in our work. The COED Curriculum CoP has over 90 members and is always accepting members. To join, email owner-coed-curriculum@uwo.ca. For a list of upcoming CCoP meeting times, visit the COED’s Important Dates page or consult the list below.
Upcoming Curriculum CoP Meetings
- TBA
CCoP at the COED Fall Meeting 2022
At the annual curriculum working group meeting in November 2021, the Curriculum group responded to the theme “The Times are Urgent; Let Us Slow Down” by revisiting the “Learn-Serve-Act” framework. We addressed a number of questions around curriculum and decolonization, and the work we are both compelled and requested to do in our institutions.
Past CCoP Event: Decolonizing Your ED Practice Retreat Series
Rather than the typical ED retreat where we focus on our constituents — the faculty we support, the students we serve — these mini-retreats are about us. Our aim is concise, but not simple: to give attendees the time, space, and freedom to re-centre educational development toward (or for) social justice. Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) scholars and experts challenge us to think about how our choices perpetuate colonialism and white supremacy (see: bell hooks; Sara Ahmed; Eve Tuck & K. Wayne Yang; Tema Okun, and many others). Educational developers are not exempt from this essential introspection, and the results can be uncomfortable.
Fitting in EDI work around educational development work can feel daunting, particularly when almost none of us have recovered from the chaos of last spring. But EDI experts like Malinda Smith, Vice Provost-Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of Calgary, challenge us to analyze how we think about time. In deferring EDI work until “later,” Smith says we’re actually showing that someone else’s human rights don’t matter as much as our priorities (2021). Additionally, we should not jump straight into the “problem-solving” or “doing” that educational developers know best, but rather create spaces for pause. Smith explains that the only way to unsettle is to come to understand how universities have played, and continue to play, a role in creating and sustaining colonial structures. Before we can contribute to (let alone lead) the decolonization of campus curriculum, or support our faculty with their EDI work, we must first analyze our roles in creating and perpetuating ongoing systems of oppression, which is what these retreats are intended to create space to do.
Retreat 1: Anti-Racist Approaches to Decolonizing your Educational Development Practice
July 20, 2021, 12–2 pm
What is the educational developer’s role in creating an anti-racist classroom? Where does anti-racism intersect with both decolonization and online pedagogy? This highly participatory workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to reflect on strategies that allow educational development to benefit from a diversity of experiences and knowledge. Significant attention will be paid to locating ourselves and our work in relation to our intersecting identities and in relation to eurocentrism and colonialism so that, by the end of the workshop, participants will be able to articulate their own next steps for building an educational development practice that values multiple ways of knowing.
Preparation for Retreat 1
In advance of the session, participants will prepare an introductory slide which illustrates their relationship to settle colonialism, and reflect on how community and family have contributed to their understandings of educational development practice (~1 hour of prep). Click here to access a Google Drive folder which includes a document with complete instructions.
Retreat 2: Indigenous Approaches to Decolonizing Curriculum and Pedagogy
August 17, 2021, 12–2 pm
“Indigenization of curriculum requires much more than adding Indigenous content. In an education system that has, since its inception and into the present day, valued Western ways of thinking almost exclusively, Indigenization of curriculum requires us to bring Indigenous ways of thinking, being, and learning into course design. This section provides a discussion of Indigenous epistemologies and pedagogies and how these can be interwoven in curriculum design and development.” (Pulling Together: A Guide for Curriculum Developers).
Using discussion prompts from Pulling Together and drawing on their experiences and reflections from Retreat 1, participants will discuss their key take-aways, muddy points and opportunities to continue the hard work of indigenizing and decolonizing our work as Educational Developers.
Preparation for Retreat 2
In advance of this session, participants will review the material from Section 2 of Pulling Together (~6 hours of prep).
