MEd in Curriculum Studies

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MEd in Curriculum Studies

Health, Outdoor, & Physical Experiential Education (HOPE)

This cohort will likely be offered again for a September 2023 start date. If you are interested in beginning studies prior to 2023, you can apply for the non-cohort model of this program through the Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy’s HOPE Ed offerings.

The program has been designed to cater to the needs of professionals whose roles have an educational component and/or some educational responsibility.

The cohort’s core focus of experiential education provides a platform from which all cohort members may begin to explore philosophical connections amongst beliefs, intentions, actions, ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies that will be further developed in the other cohort courses. The program has been designed in a way that allows cohort members to develop depth in their specialist knowledge/stream and breadth of understanding by engaging with a core course in another stream.

With the program’s focus on experiential education and learning, participants will gain insight into facilitating opportunities for participation in and commitment to health, outdoor, and physical education. The potential for participants experiencing shared research is promising, not only in courses but also in the final project. There are rich and productive collaborations that occur within and between the fields of study, and these draw from faculty expertise and collaborations.

This program is offered by the Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy

Application Deadline: TBA

Start Date: Sept. 2023 proposed
Length: 7 terms, 30 credits, part-time
Format: TBD
Domestic Tuition: TBD
International Tuition: TBD

Upcoming Info Sessions



Program Details

Program Streams

Health Education

The health education stream offers a boutique of courses that invite those enrolled to engage in timely and relevant conversations about the complexities of doing ‘health education’. Framed within constructivist perspectives, participants will be asked to interrogate societal shifts in health education.

The social determinants of health will be considered, including an examination of how the intersection of gender, race, sexuality, social class, nationhood and age shape health status. The pedagogical approaches used in this course will be inquiry based and highlight a criticality that can enliven health education moving it beyond a behaviourist approach, while avoiding thinking of health in binary terms (e.g., fit/unfit, healthy/unhealthy or obese/normal).

Outdoor Education

The inherently interdisciplinary outdoor learning setting invites educators to (re)consider curricular and pedagogical approaches and methodologies beyond classroom walls and school confines.

The outdoor learning courses explore themes such as: experiential learning, environmental education, indigenous principles of learning, local learning, place-based learning, socio-emotional learning, STEM, sustainability, and holistic wellbeing through critical and emancipatory lenses.  The Outdoor Education stream welcomes formal and in/non-formal educators interested in increasing time spent outdoors in their practice.

Physical Education

The three physical education stream courses are designed for physical educators who are ready to move up a gear by refining and expanding their ideas of teaching, learning and knowing.

Using some of the innovations in PE such as Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU), Inventing Games, Physical Literacy, and Sport Education as a catalyst for thinking about ontological and epistemological issues in PE, teachers will start to explore experiential, constructivist, student-centred and holistic approaches for their own practice.

Schedule

2019 Cohort Schedule

Date Course Title Course Code
July 2019 Experiential Education in Health, Outdoor, and Physical Education EDCP 585
July 2019 Summer Institute: Stream core courses #1 See below
September 2019 Introduction to Curriculum Issues and Theories EDCP 562
January 2020 Research Methodology in Education EDUC 500
Summer 2020 Summer Institute: Stream core course #2 See below
Summer 2020 Summer Institute: Stream core course #3 See below
Summer 2019 or 2020 Summer Institute: Elective (taken from other core streams) TBD
September 2020 Knowing, Learning and Teaching EDCP 501
Jan-April 2021 Review of Research in Curriculum and Pedagogy: Writing Educational Research EDCP 508B
May-June 2021 Graduating Project EDCP 590

Core Courses by Stream

Health Education

  • Approaches to Health Education, EDCP 325
  • Seminar in School Health Education, EDCP 534
  • Seminar in Curriculum and Pedagogy: Researching Health for Social Justice, EDCP 585

Outdoor Education

  • Health Promotion, Wellness and Life Skills in Outdoor Settings, EDCP 531
  • Theories and Dimensions of Place-Based Learning: Ecohumanist, Critical & Indigenous Lenses, EDCP 532
  • Explorations in Curriculum and Pedagogy for Local Outdoor Learning, EDCP 423

Physical Education

  • Curriculum Innovations in Physical Education, EDCP 530
  • Seminar in Curriculum and Pedagogy: Physical Education – Early Year (K-7), EDCP 533
  • Seminar in Curriculum & Pedagogy: Physical Education – Beyond Early Years (8-12), EDCP 585

Requirements

All students must meet the admission and application requirements of both the Faculty of Graduate Studies and the program, which include:

  • Normally two years’ teaching experience, practice and/or other relevant professional experience.
  • A 4-year undergraduate degree with an average in the B+ range (76% at UBC) in all senior-level courses.
  • A resumé/CV.
  • A 600-word statement of intent clearly outlining your experiences and interests in Health, Outdoor, & Physical Experiential Education (HOPE-Ed) program. Specify your interest in one of the three streams and outline how the specialization in Curriculum Studies supports your professional goals.
  • Statements of support from three referees who can speak to your engagement with Health, Outdoor, & Physical Experiential Education (HOPE-Ed), teaching or other relevant professional experience including, whenever possible, professors familiar with your academic work.

Fees

Type Per Installment Total Tuition
Domestic TBD TBD
International TBD TBD

Graduate tuition is assessed as an annual program fee, which is divided into three equal installments due at the beginning of academic terms starting in September, January and May.

Students in this program will pay a minimum of TBD installments.

Student Fees

Student fees include fees established and authorized by the UBC Board of Governors and fees established and authorized by students societies. These fees are in addition to tuition fees. Please see the UBC Calendar for details on student fees.

Fees are subject to change annually. Only information in the UBC Calendar is official

Funding Eligibility

As this program is part-time, it is not eligible for student loans or other types of funding.

How to Apply

Application Status: CLOSED
Application Deadline: TBA


1. ONLINE APPLICATION

  • Navigate to grad.ubc.ca/apply/online/.
  • When you are ready to apply, click “Apply Online”.
  • Read the instructions, and either log in with your CWL or create a CWL if you have never attended UBC.
  • Once logged in, on the “Degree Program Selection,” type the 4-character cohort designation HOP2 or MEd in Curriculum Studies – Professional Cohort into the “Program Keyword” field.
  • Click the program name.  Ensure you select the version that ends with “Professional Cohort”.
  • Click the “Apply” button.
  • Fill out the application as indicated.

2. SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS

Please have these ready to upload when you apply:

References:

Referees may be academic or professional. Academic references are those who know you in an academic capacity (e.g. former professors). Professional references MUST be those who have supervised you in a work setting (e.g. Principal, Vice-Principal, or other non-educational supervisor).

Please encourage your referees to submit electronic reference forms. In cases where referees are unable to submit an electronic reference, sealed and endorsed reference letters or reference forms may be sent by mail.

Once you submit and pay for your online application, your referees will automatically receive an email with a link and instructions for completing the electronic reference form, or the link to the paper reference form.

A reference letter can take the place of the reference form as long as it addresses the questions posed in the reference form.

important Important: Please ask your references to include the 4-character cohort designation HOP2 when they submit their reference. All references must arrive in sealed envelopes with the reference’s signature on the seal.

For those choosing to submit paper references, please send to:


HOP2 Graduate Cohort
Professional Development & Community Engagement
UBC Faculty of Education
1304-2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC, Canada
V6T 1Z4


3. APPLICATION TIMELINE

After your application is submitted, all documents are uploaded, and references have been received, your application file is considered complete.

Once the application deadline for the program has passed, all completed application files are submitted to the Department for review.  Applications recommended by the Department for admission are then confirmed against Graduate & Post-Doctoral Studies requirements, and accepted applicants are notified. Any special case admissions require an additional review by Graduate and Post-Doctoral Studies.

The entire process generally takes 8 to 12 weeks.

NOTE:
This program is subject to minimum enrollment in order to run. We will advise applicants on the status of this program after the application deadline has passed.


4. ASSISTANCE

If you require any assistance with the application process, please contact:

Tasnim Al-Obaidi
Senior Program Assistant
604-822-5662
pdce.educ@ubc.ca

Testimonials

“I believe that the theme of the cohort has been engaging. It has awoken me to many deeper concepts than I would have thought about in HOPE.

I believe that I have become a more critical examiner of my teaching practice and where I would like it to go. I believe that I have become more aware of Indigenous relations and other big ideas that have been overlooked for far too long.

I believe that the way in which we are challenged in every course and assignment has made me want to learn more about HOPE and continue to grow as a teacher. I used to think that I knew a lot about PHE but I have become aware of how little I previously new and what information is available to those who want to become more engaged. I appreciated the opportunity to select which stream I wanted to be a part of and the flexibility in moving from one to the next. I began the course in the Outdoor Education stream but found the PE stream very interesting as well. I will now be working in both of them which I am very excited about.”

– A. Verheyen


“I appreciate the interdisciplinary approach to the program and have found it very relevant to my current teaching practice with the shift in the curriculum.

What drew me to the program was that it undertakes a non-binary perspective of the body in relation to health, outdoor and physical education settings.

I also enjoyed the philosophical perspective of curriculum that has been incorporated throughout the courses. The terminology we have learned to describe our experiences and roles in education has been quite beneficial to the overarching understanding of my professional stance as a teacher. I am currently in the health stream, but have appreciated the intersection of the other two streams which seem to complement the goal of interdisciplinary curriculum studies in the program.”

– A. Hundel


“I have never been motivated to return to school (no kidding, I guess, as I definitely am a lot older than most of the cohort…but this was due to family and coaching and cost!) but when several people passed the HOPE flyer to me and the informational meeting was at the same school I was coaching at in Lower Mainlands at a game break it was a serendipitous event for me. The cohort name itself was inspiring.

I feel gratitude (to my family and my athletes and students) that I can be a part of this professional development and had I realized it would be so awesome I would have done this much earlier.

– K. Finch


“Having a group to go back to and collaborate/communicate with through this journey has been extremely valuable. Meeting like minded people who I am able to work with to challenge me in my thinking as well as support me in my ideas.

I feel it has broadened my horizons as a PHE teacher and as a parent.”

– C. Baker


“I have been very pleased with the tone and theme of the program.

I felt some very critical approaches to the course structures have been taken and that the course material provides interesting theoretical material on which to have fruitful philosophical discussion.

I enjoy the principles of HOPE-Ed.”

– S. Campbell

Info Sessions

Meet the Program Advisor and Senior Program Assistant, and learn more about applying to become a UBC graduate student.

There are currently no info sessions scheduled for this program.


View the recorded online info session from November 2018:

 


Download the November 2018 presentation notes:

Other Resources:

Contacts

For program content questions:

Dr. LeAnne Petherick
Program Coordinator, HOPE
Dept. of Curriculum & Pedagogy
604-822-4671
leanne.petherick@ubc.ca

For application questions or assistance:

Tasnim Al-Obaidi
Senior Program Assistant
604-822-5662
pdce.educ@ubc.ca

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