The Collaborative Awarded a Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership Development Grant

March 23. 2018

The Collaborative is awarded a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant to support the development of the project in three phases. In the first of these three phases The Collaborative will develop the collaborative environment, including its online platform, connection coach instruction (an experiential learning course that can be integrated as part of postgraduate Humanities curriculum), collaborative philosophy, and prototype activities for collaboration across sectors. To this end, the Collaborative will engage in research with partners to develop and optimize its collaborative model.

In the second phase, The Collaborative will pilot the platform in Ontario to validate and refine the model of cross-sector collaboration developed in phase 1. One prototype activity The Collaborative is currently developing in partnership with the Canadian High School Ethics Bowl for this pilot is Reasoning Remix. In Reasoning Remix, high school teachers and post-secondary experts support students in engaging in high quality problem based inquiry grounded in challenging real world cases. Through such inquiries and by drawing on expert insights, students are aided in thinking and re-thinking issues of public concern toward developing solutions to pressing social, political, economic, and ethical challenges.

In phase 3, The Collaborative will refine the model piloted in Ontario and iterate it in Quebec, in partnership with Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST). Through these three phases of the project, The Collaborative aims to engage with stakeholders and learn through engagement how best to refine and scale the Collaborative’s model. At the end of the pilot phase, The Collaborative will be in a position to scale up, first at a national level, and then internationally with our international partners at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City and the University College Cork in Cork, Ireland.