General Information

Student Directed Seminars

The program of Student Directed Seminars is intended to provide senior undergraduate students with added opportunities to learn in small, collaborative, group-oriented experiences. It is also the program’s goal to ensure participants, as members of a self-directed group, have a high degree of control over their own learning experience. The UBC program is modeled on an established student-directed seminar program at the University of California at Berkeley.

The program works as follows. A student (or group of students) in their third or fourth year of undergraduate study, proposes a course not currently offered at UBC. Proposals go to an Advisory Committee for review and if the proposal looks feasible, the committee encourages further development. The student proceeds to develop a course outline under the guidance of their faculty sponsor (or in some cases, multiple faculty sponsors). Student coordinators also have the benefit of a preparation workshop conducted by the UBC Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth.  The Student Directed Seminar Advisory Committee considers course outlines for final approval. If approved, the student-initiated course is advertised to the general student body.

All upper-level students are eligible to participate and applicants are usually subject to a selection process. Normally the minimum enrollment for each class is eight, the maximum fifteen.  Students are only eligible to receive credit for one seminar as a participant and one seminar as a coordinator.

The Student Coordinator is not an instructor. The coordinator’s role is that of a facilitator. S/he is responsible for organizing the learning resources, such as guest lectures, reading materials, and films to be used in the class.  The Student Coordinator also sets the parameters of course content, structure, and evaluation procedures in conjunction with a Faculty Sponsor. The participants have an important role in refining the details of all of these elements during the first classes of the term.

The entire class is responsible to one another for ensuring that the learning experience has a quality and richness that benefits everyone.  Ultimately the faculty sponsor is responsible for the grades that are submitted for this course.

This course is subject to the normal rules and regulations, as appropriate, which apply to all UBC courses.

More details are available at the following URL: http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/get-ahead/student-directed-seminars/

Please contact Margot Bell, margot.bell@ubc.ca , phone: 604-822-9818 if you have any questions.