The MacPherson Institute contributes to strategic initiatives that have a direct impact on teaching and learning within the unit and at McMaster University more broadly. The work of supporting, enhancing and collaborating on teaching and learning would not be possible without strong partnerships that play a critical role in the success of these activities happening across campus.
This past year the MacPherson Institute worked closely with the Office of the Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning to identify areas and activities outlined within the Partnered in Teaching and Learning Strategy, also recognized as Priority 2: Teaching and Learning within the President’s Institutional Priorities and Strategic Framework, that could be supported and enhanced with contributions and leadership from the MacPherson Institute. A few of these key projects are outlined below.
Partnered in Teaching and Learning Strategy
Objectives |
Activities |
MacPherson Institute Contributions |
| Partnered and Interdisciplinary Learning | Design and implement structures that enable students to be active partners in the learning process and engaged through peer support, mentorship, teaching, research, and community learning. | Students as Partners Community Forum |
| Apply an EDI lens to teaching and learning activities, including developing strategies to ensure diverse perspectives and expansive ways of knowing are respected and valued. | Inclusive Teaching and Learning Resources | |
| Identify Land-based educational opportunities for Indigenous learners. |
The MacPherson Institute conducted an environmental scan using a holistic, University-wide view of where and how McMaster educators are addressing Indigenous sovereignty, history, and thought in classrooms and curricular environments. | |
| Diverse perspectives and expansive ways of knowing.
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The Indigenous Education Primer is a collaborative effort that began in 2020 between the MacPherson Institute, McMaster’s Indigenous Education Council, McMaster Indigenous Research Institute (MIRI) and the Indigenous Health Learning Lodge (IHLL). The resource aims to offer guidance and insight for faculty, administrators, staff, and students in their journey towards decolonizing and Indigenizing their roles within the academy. | |
| Design, implement and evaluate structures that enable students to be active partners in the learning process and engaged through peer support, mentorship, teaching, research and community learning. | The MacPherson Institute explored models for increasing engagement of student partners at curriculum and program levels and a proposal outlining 3 options for expanding the existing Student Curriculum Consultants program was presented. | |
| Holistic, Transformational and Personalized Student Experience | Enhance and expand teaching development opportunities for educators around student mental health, inclusion, accessibility, and safety needs (e.g., course design, compassionate response to student needs). | Accessibility Programming
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| Expand adoption of teaching development around student mental health, inclusion, accessibility and safety. | The MacPherson Institute partnered with the School of Graduate Studies to develop a new Graduate Supervision Pedagogy guidebook. The draft proposal included seven interrelated, research informed principles that commonly characterize high quality graduate supervision (spanning the areas of research, teaching, and service). Plans are underway to develop the resource as a new online module in the Learning Catalogue (Winter, 2025). | |
| Expand adoption of teaching development around student mental health, inclusion, accessibility and safety. | In partnership with the School of Graduate Studies, the MacPherson Institute co-authored a proposal to create a peer support network for disabled graduate students in order to meet an identified gap in services. A graduate student was hired to conceptualize the network through a student partner project grant. The student reviewed data from focus groups with disability-identifying graduate students conducted by SGS, performed a literature review and outlined a pilot series of workshops aimed at connecting disabled graduate students with supports and each other. | |
| Inclusive and Scholarly Teaching | Refine policies and processes to demonstrate that teaching is valued and recognized as a professional practice, including the establishment of a knowledge translation and exchange process to support research-based teaching practice. | Valuing and Evaluating Teaching Hub
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| As our learning environments and teaching approaches continue to evolve, further promote innovation and improvement in the assessment and evaluation of student learning, as well as in the evaluation of the quality, relevance and impact of teaching. | Various Teaching and Learning Conference and Events | |
| Refine policies and process to demonstrate that teaching is valued and recognized as professional practice. | The MacPherson Institute supported the Faculty of Social Sciences in developing a process for a new teaching awards. The MacPherson Institute helped facilitate conversations with the internal awards committee regarding award criteria, the nomination process, and other considerations. The first call for teaching award nominations happened in January 2024. | |
| Build a teaching culture that values innovative, experimental, playful mindsets.
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The McMaster Open Educational Resource (OER) committee, co-chaired by the MacPherson Institute and the McMaster Library, has made significant contributions to the exploration of new open education teaching approaches over the past year. Highlights include: Grant expansion with successful Strategic Alignment Funding, student savings of $700K+, Open Ed Week activities supported by eCampus Ontario funding, second edition of the OER By Discipline published, OER Committee co-chairs developing annual report. | |
| Develop meaningful, authentic assessments that reduce use of high stakes exams. | The MacPherson Institute has created several supports to help McMaster educators develop meaningful, authentic assessments including Assessment Development Workshops (ADWs) highlighting use of Generative AI, UDL, and other considerations for quality assessment design. These considerations will also be included in the Course Redesign Workshop. An “Introduction to Generative AI for Educators” online module has been added to the MacPherson Institute Learning Catalogue, including an “Alternative and Authentic Assessments” module. MacPherson Institute staff have also been contributing feedback regarding the new Assessment Partner, an AI tool for creating assessments. | |
| Active and Flexible Learning Spaces | Develop best practices for learning that are focused on the intentional consideration and integration of on-campus learning spaces (classrooms, labs, libraries, studios) online learning spaces, and community spaces for learning. | Generative AI Support and Task Force Outcomes |
| Develop and implement a clear Digital Learning Strategy that enhances and complements the face-to-face learning experience. | Online Learning Fellowship
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| Design all new physical and virtual spaces to be universally accessible: designed to be supportive, barrier-free, mental health positive, and adherent to policies relating to health, safety, accessibility, and inclusion and engage members of relevant communities in design discussions wherever appropriate. | Expansion of MacPherson Institute Studio Spaces | |
| Develop new spaces to be universally accessible. | The MacPherson Institute shared perspectives about online teaching with the Hybrid Teaching Technology Classroom Standards project working group. The hybrid and flexible online classroom is planned to be installed in summer 2024 for pilot roll out in fall 2024. | |
| Develop and implement a Digital Learning Framework. | The MacPherson Institute created an online course quality checklist in response to instructors seeking guidance on what elements online courses should include to foster a positive learning experience. The MacPherson Institute conducted a scan of online course evaluation frameworks and adapted and developed a checklist that aligned with Universal Design for Learning principles. | |
| Develop and implement a Digital Learning Framework. | As educators continue to consider ways to enhance flexible learning opportunities for students, the MacPherson Institute has updated the Blended Teaching and Learning: A Guide for Applying Flexible Practices to make it longer-standing and more broadly applicable with updated resources, additional recommendations and examples, and improved navigation to support educators with their blended teaching endeavours beyond the pandemic. | |
| Develop and implement a Digital Learning Framework. | The MacPherson Institute developed a plan to support the continued development of high quality online courses at McMaster. The plan includes support through the Digital Learning Strategic Framework for cohort-based training for faculty creating online and blended courses, as well as a menu of ongoing programming options for instructors related to creating online and blended courses. The proposed plans have been shared with relevant Deans and the cohort-based training is in development. |
Institutional Priorities – Operational Excellence |
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| Integrated Planning | Build out service delivery and governance platforms for core functional services on a cross-campus basis, creating platforms and communities to facilitate integrated planning and action and finding models that facilitate a decentralized delivery model while ensuring comparative effectiveness and efficiency among peers. | Course Outline Library |