Glossary

A legal agreement between a group of workers or employees, who have organized themselves into a union or bargaining unit, and their employer. The bargaining unit must be formally organized according to relevant provincial labour laws.

The practice of creating online, digital, and print educational materials that are accessible to all, regardless of level of ability.

Outlines the requirements that all organizations must meet to identify, remove, and prevent barriers for people with disabilities.

A category of the Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulations; Requirements necessary to ensure a basic standard of accessibility in the following key areas of day-to-day life: Customer service; Information and Communications; Employment; Transportation; and Design of Public Spaces (Built Environment).

A means of preventing and removing barriers that impede students with disabilities from participating fully in the educational environment in a way that is responsive to their own unique circumstances.

Learning that involves feelings, attitudes, or values.

Measures a student’s ability to complete “real world” tasks; “authentic” refers to how closely an evaluation resembles what an employee in the field actually does.

The process to design a lesson, unit, or course by first determining what the final outcomes are and then planning assessment strategies and finally determining methods of instruction and assignments. It allows instructors to plan lessons and courses with a focus on student learning.

A hierarchical model that categorizes ways of learning by the domain in which learning takes place and the level of complexity of that learning.

Learning that involves intellectual capacity or thinking skills.

An outcomes-based approach to course design that involves identifying learning outcomes, designing evaluation methods, and teaching and learning activities that measure and support students’ achievement of those outcomes.

A person tasked with developing it redeveloping a course; designs the curriculum, content, and activities for educational courses.

Materials or resources the professor will use to carry out teaching activities (e.g., notes, PowerPoint slides, equipment, worksheets).

A document that summarizes essential course information, identifies responsibilities and expectations of students, professors, and the College, and represents a contractual agreement.

A document that outlines the topics, sequence, timing, resources, and evaluations in a course and supports the information provided in the course outline.

The process for developing (or re-developing) and ensuring alignment among the components or deliverables of a course; involves establishing context, preparing materials, checking alignment, and managing content

The way in which a course is delivered; face-to-face (web-facilitated), blended, or online.

A part of the MCU program standards; skills that are critical for success in any workplace or in day-to-day living and life-long learning; skills that are transferrable across any program or discipline.

Tool used to check for and ensure constructive alignment of outcomes and evaluation within a course.

Tasks or tool used to measure students’ achievement of the Course Learning Outcomes.

Learning through doing; includes work-integrated learning activities as well as collaborative assignments, undergraduate research, capstone projects, global learning experiences, and entrepreneurship activities.

Any response regarding a student’s performance or behavior; The purpose of feedback in the assessment and learning process is to improve a student’s performance.

Low-stakes evaluations (i.e., minimal marks); used to monitor student learning or progress throughout the course (e.g., quizzes, discussion questions, concept maps, lab exercises, project proposals, drafts of final reports).

A part of the MCU program standards; their intention is to ensure college graduates have been exposed to a discipline outside their own and increase their awareness of society.

Used to describe the process of sharing knowledge or original Indigenous methods of educating; encompasses ways of knowing, being, and doing that are actively practiced or learned.

A grouping of legal requirements established by the AODA that institutions must follow to help identify, remove, and prevent barriers faced by persons with disabilities.

Process of designing a course by considering the situational factors (e.g., delivery environment, student characteristics) that influence the decisions about the components of a course.

Activities the students will engage in throughout the course; includes how the students will interact with the course material and demonstrate their understanding of the Learning Outcomes.

Web-based system for creating, hosting, editing, and managing online learning resources.

Describe what the students will know or be able to do by the end of the lesson; align with and further clarify the Learning Outcomes.

Represent the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and experience that are taught and evaluated in a course

Communicate what accommodations students are eligible to request and use; contain exceptions to standard academic processes that help students overcome the unique limitations caused by their disability.

A principle of Universal Design for Learning; provide learners with alternative methods of demonstrating what they comprehend and different ways of managing information (e.g., assignments, multimedia presentations, concept maps).

A principle of Universal Design for Learning; connect with learners’ interests, supporting self-reflection of learning, fostering collaboration and varying levels of challenge (e.g., open class discussion, question and answer period, applied problem-solving, goal-setting).

A principle of Universal Design for Learning; provide learners with multiple ways to engage and comprehend information and experiences (e.g., video, audio, graphics, symbols, tactile objects).

Learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.

The way of teaching students, whether it is the theory or practice of educating.

The process for evaluating knowledge and skills gained through experiential and/or non-formal learning for the purposes of granting credit recognition.

Developed by Ministry of Colleges and Universities (MCU) for all college programs in the Ontario college system that lead to an Ontario College credential; help colleges across the province to be more consistent in what is being delivered in their programs; comprised of three parts: Vocational Learning Outcomes, Essential Employability Skills, and General Education Themes.

Learning that involves manual or physical skills.

A type of grading scheme used for evaluating students’ performance using a set of criteria; arranged in a grid structure; include the task or performance, criteria, levels of performance, descriptors for each level of performance (optional), and a score or grade.

An approach that supports students by starting the course with smaller foundational ideas, concepts, tasks, or skills; allows learners to more capably and confidently complete larger or more complicated assessments as they progress through the course.

Factors that may influence decisions made during the course development process (e.g., delivery method and environment, characteristics of students and professors, nature of the course content, relationship among the course and other courses in a program).

High-stakes evaluations (i.e., majority of marks); used to evaluate student learning after it takes place at the end of a unit or module or at the end of the course (e.g., midterm and final exams, major papers or reports, capstone projects); measures students’ achievement of the Learning Outcomes.

Activities that the professor will do throughout the course; includes how the professor will deliver the course material and check for students’ achievement of the Learning Outcomes.

A document that outlines the basic elements of a course including what topics will be covered, a weekly schedule, and a list of activities, tests, assignments, and their associated weightings and due dates.

A written description of a teacher’s values, goals, and beliefs regarding both teaching and learning.

A learner-centered approach to curriculum design to address learner variability or diversity and remove barriers to learning.

A part of the MCU program standards; developed for a specific program of study; represent the vocationally specific knowledge, skills, attitudes, and experiences that a student must be able to reliably demonstrate at the end of a program.

Learning through doing in a workplace setting; includes apprenticeship, field placements, mandatory professional practice, co-op, internship, applied research projects, and service learning.