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
Please Note
Your instructor will tailor the SLICC process to best suit the course and course goals. Because of this, they may decide to omit one or more of the deliverables or add additional deliverables as they see fit. This section is an overview of all potential SLICC elements. It is important to carefully review your course outline to understand what will be expected of you for each SLICC course.
At the start of your SLICC, you will be asked to define several Learning Outcomes (LOs) that will help shape your SLICC experience. Depending on your course goals, your instructor will ask you to define between 4 and 5 LOs, which have been broken down below.
University of Waterloo
Learning Outcomes
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Learning Outcome 1 (analysis)
I am able to demonstrate how I have actively developed my understanding of the topic of my SLICC.
You will contextualize this to your project, focusing on how you plan to investigate and learn about the specific topic you will examine during your SLICC.
Check out this example adapted learning outcome from HLTH 472: Health Entrepreneurship Independent Study
This course provides students with a practical framework to analyze and understand their role in an independent study project related to Health Entrepreneurship.
ADAPTED
I am able to demonstrate how I have actively developed my understanding of health entrepreneurship, and the nature of the problem I want to solved through my project.
PROMPTS
What do you already know about health entrepreneurship and the context of the problem at the heart of the project you're working on?
In thinking about your project and longer-term learning goals, what are your gaps in understanding, and more importantly, what are you most curious to learn about?
What are the key steps or activities that you want to complete to actively develop your understanding in this space?
What potential challenges do you anticipate in carrying out the course you're designing for yourself?
Do you have any strategies for dealing with these?
EVIDENCE
How can you demonstrate you have progressed towards and acheived this learning outcome?
More specifically, what forms of evidence do you anticipate being able to use to demonstrate you have met this Learning Outcome?
Learning Outcome 2 (application)
I am able to draw on and apply a range of relevant skills and attributes (academic, professional and/or personal) in order to engage effectively with my SLICC, identifying where I need to improve these and/or develop new ones.
You will identify the skills you will need to investigate your chosen topic, i.e.
You will:
Check out this example adapted learning outcome also from HLTH 472: Health Entrepreneurship Independent Study
This course provides students with a practical framework to analyze and understand their role in an independent study project related to Health Entrepreneurship.
ADAPTED
I am able to draw on and apply a range of relevant skills and attributes (academic, professional and/or personal) in order to engage effectively with the project I am working on, indentifying where I need to improve these and/or develop new ones.
PROMPTS
Which of your existing skills and attributes (academic, professional and/or personal knowledge or experience) do you think you will need for your project? Why?
How will you draw upon your existing skills and experience to work through your project?
Do you have think you will need to improve any of the above skills/attributes in order to complete your project effectively?
EVIDENCE
How can you demonstrate you have progressed towards and acheived this learning outcome?
More specifically, what forms of evidence do you anticipate being able to use to demonstrate you have met this Learning Outcome?
Learning Outcome 3 (recognize and develop skills)
I am able to demonstrate how I have used experiences during my SLICC to actively develop my skills in the focused area of 1) research and enquiry, 2) personal and intellectual autonomy, 3) communication OR 4) personal effectiveness (or an additional relevant option).
While you will develop many skills from each of the above areas (the focus of LO 2), Learning Outcome 3 requires you to select one area of skills (and in some case just one skill from that area) that interests you. In addition, you will provide evidence of your development in this area.
Your instructor may identify an area or a skill that is required as the focus of Learning Outcome 3, and then ask you to choose another in addition to the required one.
Check out this adapted learning outcome 3 from SVENT325: Leading a Social Venture
This course is an entrepreneurship and innovation leadership course offered by GreenHouse, an innovation community for youth and community members who want to create social or environmental change. This course focuses on experiential education to improve entrepreneurial knowledge and skills.
Learning Outcome 4 (recognizing and developing mindsets)
I am able to demonstrate how I have used experiences during my SLICC to actively explore my mindset towards …enquiry and lifelong learning …aspiration and personal development …outlook and engagement.
You select one area of skills from the selection above. Mindsets refer to the ways we think about something and our attitudes towards it.
Instructors do not always include this Learning Outcome, or they may decide to choose mindsets from Undergraduate Degree Level Expectations (e.g., Autonomy and Professional Capacity, Diversity); Graduate Degree Level Expectations; Future Ready Talent Framework; (e.g., Developing Self or Building Relationships) and/or program-specific expectations/competencies.
Check out this adapted learning outcome 4 also from SVENT325: Leading a Social Venture
This course is an entrepreneurship and innovation leadership course offered by GreenHouse, an innovation community for youth and community members who want to create social or environmental change. This course focuses on experiential education to improve entrepreneurial knowledge and skills.
ADAPTED
How I have used experiences during my SLICC to actively explore my mindset towards ...
(Finish this learning outcome by selecting ONE mindset from the list below).
Mindsets
Self starting and proactivity
You draw on your initiative and experience to take action without being told to do so. Paired with a reflective approach, you maximize your potential by taking personal responsibility for proactively goal setting and identifying opportunities to overcome barriers.
Positive outlook and perseverance
You draw on the quality, depth, and breadth of your experiences to maintain a positive mindset and engage with the communities and world around you. You manage risk by learning from mistakes and actively seek new insights to help you better contribute positively, ethically, and respectfully.
Life-long learning and long term planning
You seek personal and academic learning that makes a positive difference to you and to the world around you. You have vision that is both inspiring and workable, and are able to plan for the long-term learning and actions that will be required to realize such a vision.
Learning Outcome 5 (evaluation)
I am able to evaluate and critically reflect upon my approach, my learning, and my development throughout my SLICC.
You describe your current approaches to learning, development, and management of new experiences and explain how these approaches will help you during your SLICC project and/or explain how you may need to adapt your current approach(es). You will be asked to provide a plan for reflection including the forms of evidence you anticipate you might use to show that you have met this Learning Outcome.
Check out this example adapted learning outcome also from HLTH 472: Health Entrepreneurship Independent Study
This course provides students with a practical framework to analyze and understand your role in an independent study project related to Health Entrepreneurship.
ADAPTED
I am able to evaluate and critically reflect upon my approach, my learning and development throught my HLTH 472. Showing how you will actively reflect on your learning throughout the experience is essential.
Summarize
Why should you actively reflect on your learnings as you complete your project, and how will recording your thoughts help you to reflect?
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:
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.
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.

Adapted from Gibbs, G. (1998). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit.
Where do I go for reflection support?
The Generic SLICC Workbook and Student SLICC Resource Pack provide resources to help students develop their ability to reflect on their learning and contain:
See the Evidence and Reflection sections of the Student SLICC Resource Pack.
If you have reviewed the above resources and are still struggling with the reflective process or have course specific questions, be sure to reach out to your instructor for support.
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:
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:
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?
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!