Precapstone courses

Before you undertake the Thesis or Synthesis project, you must complete CCT698, the Practicum. This does not necessarily involve supervised practice. As indicated by its subtitle, "Processes of Research and Engagement," this course provides an opportunity for students to research, design, and pilot an application of your learning to your own professional or personal needs in the form of, say, a workshop series, a curriculum unit, or a business plan.
The other required pre-capstone course is CCT693, "Evaluation of Educational Change," which addresses practices of evaluating and facilitating growth in critical and creative thinking in oneself and others. Permission may be granted to take this course at the same time as the Synthesis seminar.

Planning your use of the "Practicum," Evaluation, and Syn/thesis Sequence

These courses are flexibly structured so as to be used by you in a variety of ways, depending on your background, your work outside CCT, and when you take the courses. To organize your thoughts about how best to use the courses, consider the following ideal sequence of a CCT student's development. Some of you will proceed through all the steps during your CCT program, but others might aim to get as far as, say, steps v or viii.

The letters in parentheses indicate which courses are the most suitable context for undertaking each step (P = Practicum; E = Evaluation; S = Synthesis). From these letters it will be clear that the Practicum, Evaluation and Synthesis courses can serve overlapping purposes.

i. Research into background of some issue; report on this. (P)
ii. Design a trial or "pilot" engagement or educational change to promote critical and creative thinking in your area of interest; report on this design. (P, E)
iii. Implement the pilot engagement. (P, E)
iv. Evaluate the success or effectiveness of the pilot engagement; report on this. (E)
v. Report on the whole process (i-iv) and directions for further work. (P, S)
vi. Technical training through other courses or extra-curricular work (independent study)
vii. Additional research into background of some issue; report on this. (P)
viii. Design actual educational engagement/change; report on this. (P, E, S)

ix. Implement the engagement/change. (P or independent study)
x. Evaluate the success or effectiveness of the pilot engagement; report on this. (P, E)
xi. Report on the whole process (i-x) and directions for further work. (P, S)

Some other notes towards designing your Practicum, Evaluation, Syn/thesis sequence:

* The Practicum and Evaluation of Educational Change courses are designed to accommodate a range of students, and so might not match the specific needs of some of you. If you have a clear conception of your work, the expectations and requirements of the two courses can be negotiated and adjusted.

* Few students have time to actually carry out more than a trial or pilot engagement and evaluation during the Evaluation course, but there is an opportunity to do more during the Practicum semester.

* If the Practicum is done early in your program, it serves as an introduction to processes of research and engagement, and the project undertaken need not be the same as your synthesis project. If you take the Practicum in the middle of your CCT Program, it makes sense to use the course to complete a proposal for your synthesis project. If you take it late in your CCT program, it makes sense to use the course to complete the literature review or first version of your synthesis project. In all cases, the Practicum course must be completed before the Synthesis.

updated: 5-06-02