Artifacts and Stories from our Practice

The next set of competency-informed artifacts feature learning outcomes, activities, and assessments from the Undergraduate Competency Development (UCD) course, which is a first year course that all students in the Honours BBA program are required to complete. This first artifact was co-created by several faculty who teach the UCD course. As part of a curriculum making process, the Learning Outcomes of the course were revisited and reconsidered in light of the revised competency framework.

Learning Outcome (re)Development

In the UCD course, students are provided with a foundational introduction to the PSB competency framework and have intentional opportunities in each lesson to discover, develop, and reflect on their active and collaborative learning experiences.

This first artifact from UCD is completed during the second week of the course and requires students to self-reflect and self-report on their own experiences and capacity in each of the competency areas, creating a baseline that will be referred to throughout the course and again with their final video assignment.

Competency Development Reflection

In the first few modules of UCD, students are exposed to a series of concepts, frameworks, models, and theories related to collaboration and communication. This initial competency area (collaboration and communication) is experienced and enhanced through several intentional transformative-focused experiences that include critical reflection, disjuncture, and active and collaborative learning opportunities.

Students begin the course by delving into the Communication competency area. The slide deck below illustrates the introduction of the competency framework followed by a series of considerations and concepts connected to multiple forms of communication that they will strengthen through practice in the course.

Communication

The next slide deck features the introductory content that students experience related to collaboration as they build their vocabulary and exposure to the concept in preparation for collaborative team work that will span the majority of the course.

Collaboration

Students will experience various roles and responsibilities as part of a Kayak business simulation that requires ongoing and intentional reflection of their collaboration and communication competencies week to week. The Standard Operating Procedures Assignment (see below) offers a clear example of the type of activity and assessment that students engage in as part of their learning journey in this course as they intentionally develop competence in collaboration, communication, and reflective practice, amongst other competencies that are later introduced and strengthened in and across the 14-week course.

Simulation Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Assignment

100MPH thinking

In one of the final modules of the Undergraduate Competency Development course, students complete a module on creativity and innovation. One of the activities that students engage in to encourage a creative learning process is 100MPH thinking, wherein they are asked to make connections between lipstick and a cell phone. In doing so, they intentionally practice both divergent and convergent thinking. This is part of a larger lesson that speaks to Daniel Kahneman’s concept of slow and fast thinking and the differences and importance of having both/and in one’s competency toolkit!

Students complete a final video reflection assignment at the end of their course experience to synthesize and critically reflect on their journey of intentional competency development in the UCD course.

Final Reflection Video Assignment