University of Toronto - case study
Making big feel small: University of Toronto’s foundation programs
With more than 55,000 students spread over three main campuses, it might be easy for a first-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto to get lost in the crowd.
But it’s hoped that a plan to create more small-group learning opportunities for new students will help forge long-term learning and social connections that will see them through an exciting and fulfilling degree experience.
The latest example is the expansion this fall of two successful “foundation programs” that have given first-year students early exposure to an interdisciplinary program featuring small-group learning mixed with lectures and plenary sessions with guest speakers. Beginning with the “Vic One” program at the university’s Victoria College in 2002, the approach expanded to Trinity College (Trin One) in 2010 and, this year, to U of T’s University College (UC One).
With evidence showing students in the Vic One program garnered higher grades and had more success in subsequent years, “we’ve decided that we’re on to a good thing,” says Jill Matus, University of Toronto’s vice-provost, students. Work is under way to spread the program to all of U of T’s downtown campus colleges in the arts and sciences, as well as to its campuses in Scarborough and Mississauga.
Each program will “do something slightly different,” depending on the character of the college says Dr. Matus. The constants, however, will be emphasis on academic skill development along with leadership, social and co-curricular opportunities that help to build a sense of community and engagement. Each college will typically offer a choice of several different thematic streams and class groups of 25 or fewer.
The UC One program, themed “Engaging Toronto” will give students the choice of four different, year-long courses looking at various aspects of the dynamics and life in Canada’s biggest city, from citizenship to health and well-being. In the fall, courses will include weekly faculty presentations in conversation with guest speakers from the community, followed by a group luncheon and a discussion-based tutorial. The winter term offers small faculty-taught research seminars, as well as field trips and research projects for students to take what they’ve learned out into the community.
The university also continues to operate its “first-year seminar” program, tackling the same challenge of ensuring a small-group learning experience for the first-year student. These full-credit or half-credit seminars, named “199s” after their course code, focus on issues within a single, or sometimes several, disciplines, such as the history of energy, roots of Western ideas, or computers and thought.
Admitting that offering small-group experiences for all first-year students “has taken a considerable amount of institutional energy,” Dr. Matus says it is nevertheless “a priority for us, to make sure our first-year students are going to have the best experience possible and that the first-year training will set them up for success in later years.
“We don’t want them to be sinking or swimming.”
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