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  • Home
  • Research Areas
    • Social Innovation
    • Sustainable Architecture
    • Internet of Things
    • Systems Integration
    • User Experience Design
  • About
    • Broadcast-Broadband Convergence (B2C) Lab
    • Current Grants
    • News
    • Projects
    • Publications
      • Annual Reports
      • Humber Press
      •      SPARK
      •     Journal of Innovation in Polytechnic Education
    • Facilities
    • TAGFA & Eligible Expenses
    • Commercialization Statement
  • Centres of Innovation Network
  • Research on Learning (SoTL)
  • Innovation Management Analytics Program
  • Get Involved
    • Partners
    • Researchers
    • Students
    • Upcoming Events
  • Connect
    • FAQs
    • Our Team

HUMBER
RESEARCH & INNOVATION

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4 adults at a conference table

Research on Teaching and Learning (SoTL)

The Office of Research and Innovation (ORI) invites faculty to build news tools and research the impact of teaching practices in every aspect of their scholarly lives through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).

ORI views research and teaching as two functions that build on each other. These two functions are equally important to enrich the development and growth of faculty members’ journey as researchers and educators. The ORI team thrives on encouraging reflective and critical thinking by understanding and communicating that regardless of how research or teaching is being conducted, what is truly valuable for both teachers and students alike, is the opportunity to build new knowledge, to experience a novel understanding of the world surrounding them, to gain or perfect their skills and abilities. In short, to learn, unlearn and relearn.

circles with the words teaching and learning with arrows showing motion
Teaching and Learning go hand-in-hand

 

SoTL Projects

  • Concept image of well-being and mental health: flowers coming out of a face silhouette

    A Photovoice Study Exploring the Well-being and Mental Health of Students’ in the Child and Youth Care Programs

    Principal Investigator: Estefania Toledo

    Student Success & Engagement

    The Investigators will use photovoice methodology and participatory action research methods (Sutton-Brown, 2014) to explore the lived experiences of Humber college students and their well-being and mental health during the Fall 2022 semester. True engagement of Humber learners who are lavishing or thriving in their well-being is valuable for the design and implementation of student support services, as well as teaching and learning across the institution. This qualitative research study will explore the following questions: How does student mental health and well-being impact their academics and co-curricular activities? How do students describe the structural and systemic influences on their mental health and well-being in college? How do students express agency and sense of purpose to protect their mental health in college? Data will be used to build student capacity and improve student care and access to mental health support at post-secondary institutions.

  • Elderly individual with their caregiver looking at laptop

    Caregiver Training Workshop/Pilot Study – Online Version

    Principal Investigator: Adriana Salvia

    Faculty of Health Sciences & Wellness

    The Caregiver Training Workshop (CTW) Pilot Study – Online Version will consist of six (6) sessions, adapted from the 2019 in-person Caregiver Training Workshop (CTW) Pilot Study, aimed at determining whether the workshop/pilot study’s course design has a relationship to caregiver burden, as well as heightens caregivers’ care abilities at home. Findings from both of the 2019 research intervention, and now, the online version should help to inform next steps regarding online training delivery to family caregivers, either institutionally and/or through community providers.

  • Firefighting students gaining hands-on experience

    Exploring How Humber’s CPL Fire Services Executive Management Certificate (FSMC) Program Can Bridge Gaps in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Education and Training Provided to Senior Municipal Leaders in the Ontario Fire Service

    Principal Investigator: Phil Dawson

    Faculty of Health Sciences & Wellness

    Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) frameworks are being discussed and implemented across sectors, and meeting diversity leadership objectives in the fire service is no exception. As materials and/or strategies to address EDI become (or have become) available to senior leaders in the fire service, there are prevalent gaps in the knowledge, understanding, education, and training they receive that can be met within the CPL - Fire Service Management Executive Certificate program. To ascertain where those gaps lie, and to service them accordingly, the Investigators will survey senior leaders from departments of varying sizes throughout Ontario to learn whether and which specific issues under the EDI architecture warrant additional education and training.

  • People experiencing the metaverse.

    Harnessing Canadian Higher Education in the Metaverse

    Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Fenuta

    Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology

    The Investigators will build a prototype of a sample metaverse learning space in the context of a higher education setting. For example, depending on development with industry partners, they aim to create an “Ideation Meta Space” that will be usable by different disciplines, including FMCA, FAST and International. Courses that have metaverse content will be able to convene in our protoype to ideate further spaces, ideas and expansions. Possible partnership events can be hosted here for programs/ courses, as well as, international collaborations can utilise this space for collaboration. The space will offer programs, faculty and students a blueprint for what is possible and is intended as a starting point for a larger conception that is collective and ever-evolving.

  • Student writing at laptop.

    Humber Literary Review Student Spotlight

    Principal Investigator: Meaghan Strimas

    Faculty of Media & Creative Arts

    Humber College student writers frequently create exemplary work worthy of publication. This joint FLA-FMCA project provides them with publication opportunities, while also providing opportunities for other students to utilize the editing, communication, and marketing skills they develop in the Creative Book Publishing (CBP) program, the new Bachelor of Professional and Creative Writing (BPCW) program, and the Professional Writing & Communications program (PWC).

  • Person interacting with smart device

    Incorporation Of Emerging Technologies Into The Classroom

    Principal Investigator: David Neumann

    Faculty of Media & Creative Arts

    The Investigators are exploring the process, technology requirements, and pedagogical considerations needed to sustainably incorporate emerging technologies such as augmented and virtual reality into the curriculum. Through "proof of process" multi-disciplinary research projects they will bring a team of industry stakeholders, students, and faculty from different disciplines together and create a small project that investigates a specific potential opportunity for emerging technology to be incorporated into the curriculum within 1-2 terms. The project's success is measured based on the insights gathered about the challenges and opportunities a specific technology may bring to student learning. Most projects have multiple phases with workshops, faculty professional development, and other opportunities for staff, students, and faculty to engage with the project process as well.

  • Dog Strangling Vine

    Investigation of Various Manual Control Strategies for Controlling Invasive Dog Strangling Vine

    Principal Investigator: Lynn Short

    Faculty of Health Sciences & Wellness

    This project will test different approaches to manual control of Dog Strangling Vine in a hands-on real world situation in the Humber Arboretum. The student research assistants will have the opportunity to set up the experimental plots, perform the various manual control methods, collect and analyze the research data and prepare the summary report. They will also have the opportunity to share their findings with the larger community.

  • Person building Lego structure for coding. Photo by Sebastien Bonneval on Unsplash.

    Learning to Code using a Smart City built with LEGO™ Bricks

    Principal Investigator: Adam Thomas

    Faculty of Media & Creative Arts

    In this follow up research project, the Investigators will expand on the tangible programming activities by integrating improved equipment, coding practices, and objectives. These objectives aim to be much more aligned with real-life technology that students use on an everyday basis.

    For example, programming students would benefit from developing applications such as: Energy Grid Management, Automated Fulfilment Systems, Traffic Control Software, Autonomous Driving Technology using Machine Learning, Mapping and GPS Applications, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, Streetview and Smart Parking Systems.

    This research will have students develop applications from the list above using a LEGO™ constructed smart city. This environment will provide students with real-world physical computing opportunities at a fraction of the cost.

  • Student looking at fabrics.

    Library of Local Live Cases on Sustainability: Indigenous Design and Technology in Fashion

    Principal Investigator: Vladimira Steffek

    Longo Faculty of Business

    Since September 2019, the Investigators have been building a library of local cases of sustainability, BIPOC, fashion entrepreneurs (Humber alumni). So far, they have written four (4) such cases of variety of sustainable businesses: black entrepreneur, Sustainable denim entrepreneur, Indian-Canadian fusion wear entrepreneur, home décor entrepreneur. For this project, the Investigators will complete the library with one case on indigenous designer and one on fashion technology - all inspired by Humber alumni. Those cases will then be taught in the classroom in interdisciplinary, international settings through the prism of system design thinking.

  • Student coding on laptop

    Off-lecture support: exploring the impact of interactive programming exercise system on first year programming students learning

    Principal Investigator: Dina Sabie

    Faculty of Media & Creative Arts

    The Investigators are exploring how an interactive programming exercise system effects the coding skills of Game Programming students. Students can use the programming exercise system to answer and receive immediate feedback in terms of whether their code works perfectly, suggestions to improve the code, or if there is a syntax error. The following data will be collected as part of the project: the number of active hours a student spends on the online interactive programming exercise system (metric data collected from the platform), the number of attempts a student makes at each question in the exercise system (metric data collected from the platform) and students’ satisfaction with the exercise system (collected from end-of semester survey. The survey will include rating questions as well as short and open-ended questions).

  • Baby's hand being held. Photo by @alyssasieb

    On-campus breastfeeding facility as a platform to create capabilities and foster gender equality in TVET access in Kenya: a review of Sigalagala National Polytechnic’s experience through the KEFEP-02 project

    Principal Investigator: Nalini Andrade

    International

    KEFEP-02 is a project led by Humber College (Toronto, Canada), with Sigalagala National Polytechnic as one of the Kenyan partners, which with the administration of College and Institutes Canada -CICan- and the funding of Global Affairs Canada -GAC- has been implemented from 2017 to 2022 and aimed “to develop programs that will help increase employment and economic development opportunities for technical and vocational students in Kenya” (Shah, 2019, para. 2). Thanks to CICan’s formal request, as well as considering the relevance and alignment with the project’s goal and Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, Global Affairs Canada approved the allocation of part of the project budget to the renovation of an SNP’s building to be adapted as a breastfeeding facility, as a pilot in the Polytechnic institution in Kenya.  The first phase of the research aims to determine the process and rationale of the development of SNP’s breastfeeding facility, the level of usability by female students with babies at SNP, and how effective the breastfeeding facility has been at promoting female access to TVET education and decreasing the drop-out rate among mother and pregnant trainees in the Polytechnic institution.

  • Colleagues reviewing business plans/models

    Reinvention Case Studies

    Principal Investigator: Susan Kates

    Longo Faculty of Business

    How might we address the change in how business was conducted using reinvention tools to keep a business from failing. Cases are an effective way for students to learn not just theory but have theory applied in real situations. The cases that will be done for this project are based on reinvention methodologies and putting those concepts into practice. The central research question that will be investigated is: How did businesses reinvent themselves during the pandemic so that they would survive and how are they doing it now?

  • Students working together

    Successful Transitioning to College for Students on the Autism Spectrum

    Principal Investigator: Jo Anne Nugent

    Faculty of Social & Community Services

    International

    Many post-secondary institutions have created services to support young adults on the autism spectrum transition into their programs. However, these services are seldom comprehensive, typically consisting of a small number of services that are offered immediately before the student enters the school and/or during their enrolment at the school. As well, the services are usually based within the educational institution without the inclusion of community partners. This project will review the existing studies to identify the key elements of a support system for these students, including those services that are offered by community agencies before the potential students are accepted into the college, as well as the services offered by the school.

  • Child engaged in learning about and acknowledging the land.

    Two-Eyed Land-Based Play and Co-Learning

    Principal Investigator: Louise Zimanyi

    Faculty of Health Sciences & Wellness

    The aim of this study is to build on previous research that explores how a course in Two-Eyed land-based play and co-learning engages and impacts the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical realities of the learner and faculty. The initial research funded by the Teaching Innovation Fund (2022) explored this with students/faculty in a hybrid course delivery (online and face to face/on the Land due to COVID-restrictions at Humber. The proposed research will explore the research questions with students and faculty in a fully face to face/On the Land delivered course.

    It is hoped that this study will contribute to the early learning and play research that is largely dominated by Euro-Western epistemologies and worldviews (Warden, 2017) and demonstrate how Indigenous and non Indigenous educators can share a working relationship where worldviews and knowledge co-exist.

Funding Opportunities

ORI welcomes faculty applications for SoTL projects on an ongoing basis through the Seed and Cultivate funding programs. The Seed and Cultivate funds create pathways for emerging researchers willing to grow from curiosity in the classroom to crossing boundaries with discovery and application of knowledge in practical applied research opportunities. These new programs go hand-in-hand with the ongoing workshops and seminars that ORI offers and are focused on strengthening qualitative and quantitative research skills and sparking interest in novel ways of initiating, developing, and disseminating their work to share with future researchers.

Image of a seed

Seed Research & Innovation Fund

  • “Discovery-oriented”
  • Ideal for Emerging Researchers.
  • Funding amount: $1,500, up to $4,500

image of a sprouting plant

Cultivate Research & Innovation Fund

  • “Design-oriented”
  • Possibility of investigating with external partners.
  • Funding amount: $5,000, up to $15,000

A more in-depth description of these new funding programs and detailed standard operating procedures can be found online in the SoTL Handbook.

SoTL Handbook cover -  photo of small plants sprouting in soil