Student-Led Individually Created Course (SLICC) Key Deliverables

As a student, you are responsible for 5 key deliverables during your Student-Led Individual Created Courses (SLICC) project:

• Learning Outcomes
• Proposal
• Reflections
• Interim Reflective Report
• Final Reflective Report

Learning Outcomes

Proposal

After reviewing the Learning Outcomes, you will be asked to complete and submit a proposal.

What should my proposal do?   

• Outline the experience/project and the topic you will be investigating throughout the project.  

• Explain how the experience and topic will help you achieve each of the Learning Outcomes, 

• Detail what you already know about the topic and how you will go about developing any skills and/or knowledge you will need to address the project, 

• Share any questions you will have to ask, what challenges you anticipate encountering, and what steps you will take to address these challenges. 

In your proposal, you will also prepare a plan for:  

• completing weekly reflections and capturing evidence to document development as it relates to achieving each of the Learning Outcomes 

• self-assessing your project and learning process  

• a detailed timeline for completing the SLICC project.  

Why is a proposal necessary?  

Creating the proposal ensures that you are more intentional about your project plans and helps you take ownership of your learning experience.  

Clearly articulating the goal of your project, your plans for achieving them, and a detailed timeline helps you determine if the scope of your SLICC is realistic. Once your proposal is finalized, it becomes a guide to support you as you navigate through your SLICC. While there is inherent flexibility in the SLICC if you find that you need to update your plans based on your experiences, the proposal acts as a flexible roadmap.  

I’m unsure how to get started with my proposal 

To support you as you complete your SLICC, your instructor will provide you with a workbook that will act as a guide and a centralized resource for all your SLICC outputs. For each deliverable, there will be several prompts that will capture everything you should be including. For more support with your proposal:    

• Completing Your Proposal – The generic SLICC workbook shows you example prompts to guide you through the proposal process. Some instructors use these prompts, others adapt prompts to suit course learning outcomes.  

• Creating your SLICC Proposal (31:45 min) — an interactive video to guide you through the proposal process. 

• Proposal Examples – exemplars with explanations of why they are more, or less, effective. 

• Student SLICC Resource Pack - Check out the proposal section of the SLICC student resource pack! If your instructor is using PebblePad for your workbook, it will look very similar.  

Once I submit my proposal, what’s next?  

Your instructor will review your proposal and provide extensive feedback (see the Feedback and Assessment section for more details). Your instructor may ask you to resubmit your proposal if important updates need to be made, or they will approve you to get started on your SLICC!  

Reflections

To help keep your SLICC on track, you will be asked to complete weekly or biweekly reflections using relevant reflective frameworks. Reflection topics might address feedback application, how you worked effectively in a team, how your project is developing and more. The purpose of regular reflections is to be able to describe what happened, explain why it happened and share how you will use this experience to move forward. This helps you map your learning outcomes, highlight your achievements, and acknowledge barriers that need to be addressed.  

Why is reflecting important?  

Reflections act as helpful touch points during your SLICC, highlighting events that were significant, exciting, interesting, puzzling, problematic or worth exploring further. By engaging in the reflection process, you get the chance to explain, work through and plan for exciting or challenging aspects of your SLICC project.   

Beyond your SLICC, engaging in the reflective process givens you the opportunity to navigate the complexities associated with the VUCA world, one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and filled with ambiguity, that you will face when you graduate. Reflection helps you become a more effective self-directed learner.  

How are reflections monitored?  

While reflections are primarily a tool for you to help you navigate the complexity of completing your own project, they also help your instructor monitor your progression. This will look a little different in each course. A few examples include:  

• instructor reviews reflections weekly, providing a grade based on the quality of your reflection  

• instructor monitors your reflections, providing feedback only if they feel you could use some support  

• instructor waits for you to request feedback on reflections during office hours or scheduled check-in if you are facing a particular challenge or impasse in your project 

Note, you will always be expected to complete your reflection. While some instructors may not assess your reflections during the term, they will expect you to link back to your reflections as evidence of your work during your interim or final report.  

Completed reflections are valuable resources for you to prove your progression.  

How does reflection help me? 

Reflecting helps you focus on the process of learning and the development of your own metacognition skills. Through regular reflection you are capturing evidence of your anticipated and unanticipated learning, which is helpful for your own skills articulation as you prepare to enter the workforce.  

In your SLICC course, this means that you can still have a successful project, even if your original project changes or goes wrong, but you must have the evidence, through your reflections, to demonstrate your growth, how you navigated barriers, and adapted your work.  

Weekly reflections may sound intimidating, but…… 

Reflecting is a skill that must be practiced! Your instructor is not expecting you to enter the course with reflection experience, and it's okay to be uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the process. 

Many instructors will use a reflective model to guide your reflections.  

For example:  

Graham Gibbs (1988) Model 

The Gibbs Model centers experiencing, guiding its users through six prompts to critically reflect on different stages of an experience, to understand what happened, how it made you feel, and how you can adapt the experience in the future.  

Interim Reflective Report

At the mid-point of your SLICC, you will be asked to submit an interim reflective report. This is an opportunity for you to report and reflect on your progress and experiences in the first half of your learning experience and receive formative feedback. The Interim Reflective Report can be understood as a draft copy of your Final Reflective Report, as the requirements are the same.  

In the interim report you are:  

• summarizing the lessons learned to date  

• documenting changes that you made to your original plan outlined in your proposal 

• explaining the impacts this experience has had on your learning so far 

• providing an outline of how you will complete your project in the latter half of the course 

• using your reflections as evidence of your progress  

It is important you are referring to the Learning Outcomes you defined in your proposal, providing evidence from your reflections to document progress on each Learning Outcome. 

Just like the proposal, your instructor will provide you with prompts to help guide you through the creation of your Interim Report.  

The SLICC Workbook and Student SLICC Resource Pack provide resources and exemplars of reflection reports with accompanying explanations as to why some are more, or less, effective.  

Once I submit my Interim Reflective Report, what’s next?  

Your instructor will review your report and provide extensive feedback (see the Feedback and Assessment section for more details). This is a great chance for you to request specific feedback on a topic you are struggling with, or an area you need support with. You will then apply this feedback as you continue with the second half of your learning experience.

Final Reflective Report

The Interim Reflective Report requirements are the same as those for the Final Reflective Report. Here you should be incorporating all feedback received throughout the course, summarizing your full learning experience, and articulating your:  

• progress,  

• growth,  

• development, and  

• future impact 

For each Learning Outcome, you are outlining your progression with evidence from reflections completed throughout your project.  

The report should be a critical, reflective report outlining your achievements and what you would do the same and/or do differently if you were to begin the experience again.  

In this report, you should also explain how you can use what you’ve learned from this experience in a new or different situation in the future.  

Ask yourself – what am I taking away from this project and how can I use what I’m learning to reach other goals?  

Overall, the purpose of the Final Reflective Report is to help you gain some assessment literacy and develop academically, personally, and professionally. 

Once I submit my Final Reflective Report, what’s next?  

You’re done! Your workbook is complete and your SLICC portion of the course is complete. Your instructor will provide you with a grade and some feedback to support you as you move forward.  

Note: As each course will integrate SLICCs differently, you may have other deliverables that you must submit after the Final Reflective Report. Review your course outline!