‘Lift off!’: Employing an integrated curriculum design to increase student, faculty, and community engagement

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to appraise the value of employing an Integrated Curriculum Design (ICD) in a Tourism Program. Drawing on data collected from undergraduate students, course instructors, and teaching assistants, we outline opportunities and challenges that may accompany ICDs, as well as offer recommendations for educators who may wish to use an ICD. Analysis revealed that integration across courses fosters deep learning through peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, community engagement, and real world application. Such insights indicate that ICDs support students in becoming better collaborators and empower them to make a difference in the classroom, their communities, and society.

First holidays abroad: Authenticating the learning environment through memories and storytelling

“…Higher Education providers have a lot to gain from authentic learning through joint engagement with students, academics and external stakeholders. This would enable the development of a curriculum within a culture that acknowledges the importance of academic research, sustaining and underpinning opportunities of practical application and reflection (Alstete & Beutell, 2016;Miller et al, 2019;Paddison & Mortimer, 2016). This raises questions of how to foster authentic learning and what makes it effective.…”

“…This enables students to develop a systematic, integrated and critical understanding, allowing for knowledge transfer and the synthesis of information within different contexts (Lombardi, 2007). It is a culture of both practical engagement and academic rigour that enables this to be achieved (Miller et al, 2019;Paddison & Mortimer, 2016;Tochon, 2000). It is argued here that learning should be concerned with developing knowledge within educational institutions and also the process of reinventing, refreshing and renewing the culture within communities of practice.…”

“…Understood as circumstances that resemble the complexity of the reallife application of knowledge (Elobeid et al, 2016;Godfrey et al, 2005;Smeds et al, 2015), authentic learning "focuses on educational activities related to real-world problems and issues" (Deale, 2008, p. 57). Although support for the development of an integrated approach to the curriculum is evident (Barnett & Coate, 2005;Currie & Knights, 2003;Steiner & Watson, 2006), especially in tourism education (Miller et al, 2019;Stergiou et al, 2008;Zahra, 2012), there is a lack of congruence between business practice and the University curriculum, with a danger that tourism education becomes constrained with little relevance for practitioners (Duane, 2012). This has resulted in the encouragement to situate tourism education in the context of authentic learning through a community of practice (Albrecht, 2012;Dredge et al, 2012;Elobeid et al, 2016).…”

Measuring tourism and environmental sciences students’ attitudes towards sustainable tourism

“…Furthermore, little to no attention was being given to which competences students had and how they felt about sustainable tourism and environmental education before and after the courses ( Camargo & Gretzel, 2017 ). This is relevant to determine whether there is a need for more awareness of sustainability in tourism academic courses and the teaching of specific topics within the scope of their programmes ( Miller, Boluk, & Johnson, 2019 ). In recent years, concepts such as strong and weak sustainability have gained a grounded theory space in tourism studies, mostly related to educational and sustainable tourism ( Cotterell, Benckendorff, & Zehrer, 2017 ; Cotterell, Hales, et al, 2019 ).…”

Intergenerational Mentorship in Pedagogical Design and Delivery

“…In 2016, a core team of faculty members at a Canadian University co-designed an immersive, integrated project that was employed across two core-curriculum courses in their tourism program (Boluk, Muldoon & Johnson, 2019a;Boluk, Muldoon & Johnson, 2019b;Miller, Boluk, and Johnson, 2019). We, Junior Scholar (Karla -Assistant Professor) and Grad Student (Maggie -Lead Teaching Assistant and PhD Candidate), were integral to the team, as well as the success of the first iteration of this integrated curriculum design (ICD).…”