An introduction to mobile robotic systems from a computational, as opposed to an electromechanical, perspective. Definitional problems in robotics and their solutions both in practice and by the research community. Topics include algorithms, probabilistic reasoning and modeling, optimization, inference mechanisms, and behaviour strategies.

This course will examine the growing prominence of mobile health over the past twenty years. After briefly discussing various definitions of mobile health, we will focus our attention on how people are using the sensors embedded in ubiquitous and novel devices to capture indicators of physical and mental health. More specifically, we will study how sensors can be used to measure physiological signals, psychomotor function, and disease-specific symptoms.

This is a special reading course in computer science. Topics change from year to year. Enrolment in this course requires departmental approval.

The MScAC degree is intended to create technical leaders capable of transferring new technologies from academia to industry. This course helps students to develop the skills required to be successful in finding an internship or future employment, as well as skills required to succeed in a business environment. The specific topics covered will vary from offering to offering, but will usually cover enhancing personal brand through resumes, cover letter,s and online profiles; job search action plans; interview training and strategy, and effective professional communication skills.

The MScAC degree is intended to create technical leaders capable of transferring new technologies from academia to industry. This course introduces fundamental business and management concepts relevant to students thinking about starting their own business or bringing new ideas to fruition within existing ones. This course will also equip students with the experience of presenting and defending their scientific research through various research activities and communications. The specific topics covered will vary from offering to offering, but will usually cover business and research innovation, research portfolio management, entrepreneurship, and market validation.

Through an eight-month industrial research internship, students will be required to demonstrate that they are able to translate some novel research idea into practice. Students will be expected to present the results of their internship to both the department and its industrial partners upon completion of their degree.

This course is unlike any other graduate course you have taken. You will play games, solve puzzles, and tell stories. Each activity will create a system around you, with its own dynamics. Sometimes you will try to beat the system and discover you cannot. Other times you will discover you can change a system by changing your perspective of it. In the process, you will discover how complex patterns of behaviour can arise from simple structures and simple rules. You will draw on such insights to develop a deeper understanding of how the world works. You will start to see the systems around you in a whole new light, and you will develop a new mental toolkit for analyzing complex global issues, modeling their structure and behaviour, and understanding how and why change happens. Along the way, you will read about the theory and practice of systems thinking, trace the history of the key ideas, and discover how they have been applied. You will explore how systems thinking provides new ways of studying the relationships between the most important global challenges of the twenty-first century, including globalization, climate change, conflict, democracy, energy, health and well-being, and food security.

Key topics will include: General Systems Theory, developed by Bertalanffy for understanding biological systems; Cybernetics: the study of feedback and control in living organisms, machines, and organizations; Systems Dynamics approaches for modelling and analyzing non-linear feedback mechanisms in complex systems; Complexity science and complex adaptive systems; The role of computational modelling and simulation as a central tool for understanding systems; Philosophical roots of systems thinking as a counterpoint to the reductionism used widely across the natural sciences; Emergent concepts from systems thinking, such as limits to growth, planetary boundaries, tipping points, sustainability, resilience, and chaos; Soft Systems Methodology and Critical System Theory for engaging multiple stakeholders in processes of change; Use of systems thinking to explore competing perspectives, trans-disciplinary synthesis, and modelling of global dynamics.

A major research project demonstrating the student's ability to do independent work in organizing existing concepts and in suggesting and developing new approaches to solving problems in a research area. The standard is that it could reasonably be submitted as a paper for peer-reviewed publication.

This is a required course for master's students (and doctoral students who did not take it in their masters programs). The aim of this course is to apply theory and research to the study of curriculum and teaching. The course (a) provides a language for conceptualizing educational questions; (b) reviews the major themes in the literature; c) provides a framework for thinking about curriculum changes and change; and (d) assists students in developing critical and analytical skills appropriate to the scholarly discussion of curriculum and teaching problems.

In this course we will identify ways that systems of oppression and oppressive educational practices manifest themselves in school settings - for example, within interactions between teachers and students; administrators and students; students and students; students and the curriculum; teachers and the curriculum; administrators and teachers; teachers and parents; parents and administrators - and we will discuss how we can use these spaces or locate new ones to do anti-oppressive educational work in school settings. Emphasis in the course will be placed on integrating anti-oppressive educational theory with anti-oppressive educational practice. We will attempt to link our discussions of practice to theory and our discussions of theory to practice.

This course provides for practical experience of as well as understanding of innovative practices in cooperative learning (CL). We explore rationales for and current developments (synergy, shared leadership). Topics include: What is CL (principles, attributes); how to organize CL (structures and strategies); how does CL work (basic elements, types of groups); teacher and student roles; benefits (positive interdependence, individual accountability, social skills, cohesion); evaluation (forms and criteria); obstacles and problems; starting and applying CL in your classroom (teachers' practical knowledge; collegiality; parental involvement); independent learning and collaborative inquiry; Ministry and Board requirements; and resources and materials Group (response trios) projects and joint seminars.

Experiential learning for students new to qualitative inquiry is provided through a broad introduction to qualitative approaches from beginning to end. A range of approaches relating to students' theoretical frameworks are explored. Thesis students are encouraged to pilot their thesis research.

This course will examine the foundations of educational thought from the perspectives of Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, Julia Kristeva, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean Baudrillard. Educational implications and applications of poststructural philosophy will be stressed in relation to the discursive and non-discursive limits of the scene of teaching.

A critical review of current approaches to analysing teaching and an examination of theoretical literature on the concept of teaching. The course involves reflection on one's own teaching. Students should be currently teaching or have access to a teaching situation. This course is most suitable for primary and secondary teachers.

Reflective practice is one means through which practitioners make site-based decisions and through which they continue to learn in their professions. This course will critically examine the research and professional literature concerning the meaning of and the processes involved in reflective practice. Additionally, as professional development is often associated with reflective practice, the course will also identify and examine professional development strategies which could facilitate reflective professional development. Students will critique these models by utilizing the concepts from the reflective practice literature.

The literary text is used as a vehicle for reflection on issues of language and ethnic identity maintenance and for allowing students an opportunity to live vicariously in other ethnocultural worlds. The focus is on autobiographical narrative within diversity as a means to our understanding of the ''self'' in relation to the ''other''. The course examines the complex implications of understanding teacher development as autobiographical/biographical text. We then extend this epistemological investigation into more broadly conceived notions of meaning-making that incorporate aesthetic and moral dimensions within the multicultural/anti-racist/anti-bias teacher educational enterprise.

This course will focus on the dynamics of multiculturalism within the individual classroom and their implications for teacher development. It is intended to examine how teachers can prepare themselves in a more fundamental way to reflect on their underlying personal attitudes toward the multicultural micro-society of their classrooms. Discussions will be concerned with the interaction between personal life histories and the shaping of assumptions about the teaching-learning experience, especially in the multicultural context. The course will have a ''hands-on'' component, where students (whether practising teachers or teacher/researchers) will have the opportunity to become participant-observers and reflect upon issues of cultural and linguistic diversity within the classroom.

In this course we explore differences in the ways ''Knowledge'', ''Teaching'', and ''Learning'' are constructed and understood in different cultures, and how these affect how teachers learn and promote learning, with particular emphasis on multicultural settings. An underlying theme is how one can best bring together a) narrative, and b) comparative/structural ways of knowing in order to better understand teacher development in varying cultural/national contexts. The choice of particular nations/regions/cultures on which to focus in the course responds to the experience and interest of the students and the availability of useful literature regarding a particular geo-cultural area with respect to the basic themes of the course.

This course is organized around the various components of program planning and evaluation for education and the social and health sciences; needs, evaluability, process, implementation, outcome, impact, and efficiency assessments. Data collection methods such as the survey, focus group interview and observation are introduced.

Basic concepts, methods, and problems in educational research are considered: discovering the periodicals in one's field, steps in the research process, developing research questions, design of instruments, methods of data collection and analysis, interpreting results, and writing research reports.

Survey is widely used in quantitative research. When survey is relied on exclusively to collect data in a non-experimental research, it is referred to as a survey research. In this course, we will learn about constructing and validating surveys within a framework that is currently advocated by quantitative research methodologists: Theory-driven using both quantitative and qualitative (mixed) methods. The course content adheres closely to the text Survey Development: A Theory-Driven Mixed-Method Approach (https://www.routledge.com/9780367222338), which encompasses four components: Theory and Methodology, Survey Construction, Assessing Psychometric Properties, and Recommendations. Students are expected to participate in discussions, exercises and a course project pertaining to survey development. Grades are assigned based on performances of these activities. The course is basically quantitative in nature. Even though advanced statistics included in the text are optional reading, basic knowledge and low level of aversion to math and statistics is desirable. With the same token, students should not have a distaste for qualitative data.

This course studies methods of evaluating training. Topics covered by the course include training models, practice analysis, Kirkpatrick's 4 level training outcome evaluation model and its variants, Return on Investment (ROI) analysis, and measurement and design issues in training evaluation.

This course examines the concept of self-assessment and its relationship to learning and other psychological constructs, construction and validation of self-assessment measures, psychometric properties of self-assessment, how learners assess their learning, and how teachers and professionals in social and health services assess the quality and effects of their practices. The course emphasizes practice as well as theory and research. Some of the topics include methods of self-assessment; cognitive processes; psychometric issues and sources of bias in self-assessment; correlates of self-assessment; learner self-assessment and teacher or professional self-assessment.

Working within a broad discussion of methodology and the problems of theory and praxis particular to a 'global', postmodern, and neoliberal era, this course invites students to work through methodological dilemmas, choices and experiments within the context of their own research projects and in conversation with a variety of qualitative methodologists. Readings will propose critical, creative, and collaborative solutions to a range of contemporary qualitative methodology concerns in the field of education today. In particular, the problematics of gender and race, the impact of neoliberal politics on workers and learners, the tensions of local and global, the competing epistemologies of art and science, structural and post-structural, the ethical relations between researchers and research participants, the challenges of 'representation', the struggles over claims to truth are some of the subjects to be addressed in the discussion of research design and methodology.

This course explores inquiry as a methodological stance on practice, a framework for investigating and addressing critical issues in school, classroom, and community-based research. What Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2001; 2009) have theorized as an inquiry stance invites educators to regard educational projects as sites of knowledge generation, occurring within social, historical, cultural, and political contexts. With its emphasis on the intimate relationship between knowledge and practice, this concept foregrounds the role that practitioners can play—individually and collectively—in generating understandings, rich conceptualizations, in the service of enacting new educational possibilities. Taking an inquiry stance involves constructively problematizing conventional educational arrangements, interrogating how knowledge is constructed, evaluated and used in various settings, and re-imagining the roles practitioners might play in actualizing change in their work contexts.

Drawing on this notion of inquiry as stance, this course will explore what it means to be a practitioner researcher in educational institutions and community-based organizations. This course is intended for MA and PhD students interested in exploring the possibilities and the potential of developing new understandings and research within actual educational contexts that they shape daily. This may include a range of initiatives, from developing small-scale studies to inform ongoing practice to developing larger research projects, including practitioner inquiry dissertations. The course will pay particular attention to the conceptual and experiential frameworks that practitioners bring to site-based educational research. We will consider critical practitioner research in relation to other methodological approaches as well as educational conversations about the nature of research, with special consideration of how research might shape practice and inform policy and the potential contributions practitioners can make.

This course examines the linkages between education, both formal and non-formal, and the social development of nations, with particular focus on the process of educational policy formation for both developing nations and developing sub-areas within richer nations. The course aims to acquaint students with the main competing ''theories'' or conceptualizations of the development process and, through examination of a representative set of recent empirical studies and ''state of the art'' papers, to develop an understanding of the relationships between educational activities and programs and various aspects of social development, with an overall focus on problems of social inequality. The overarching objective is to help develop a better understanding of how, in confronting a particular educational policy problem, one's own theoretical preconceptions, data about the particular jurisdiction, and comparative data about the problem at hand interact to produce a policy judgment.

This course will provide students with an opportunity to learn about the arts-based research methods of performed ethnography and research-informed theatre. Performed ethnography, also known as performance ethnography and ethnodrama, involves turning the findings of ethnographic research into a play script that can be read aloud by a group of participants or performed before audiences. Performed ethnography can be seen as one kind of research-informed theatre. Other examples of research-informed theatre we will look at in this course include autobiographical theatre, community theatre, verbatim theatre, documentary theatre, tribunal theatre and history theatre.

Taking as a starting point a conception of pedagogy that centres relational encounters, this course seeks to consider the question of how to enter into relationships with others that seek to transform the very terms that define such relationships. The course explores how the concept of solidarity has been used to both explain the nature of social relationships between groups and individuals, as well as how it has been mobilized as a strategy for political work. In both counts, solidarity plays a key pedagogical role because it seeks to either sustain or challenge particular social arrangements. The course takes education and educational experience as a particular site for thinking through solidarity as both explanation and strategy, and considers a range of educational situations, including the classroom, to consider the complexities of solidarity as ethical encounters in pedagogical relations.

This course will examine the research of, and different approaches to, applied and socially engaged theatre. Practitioners engaged in forms of applied theatre, such as drama in education, theatre for development, Verbatim theatre, participatory theatre etc. often believe creating and witnessing theatrical events can make a difference to the way people interact with one another and with the world at large. The 'social turn' in theatre is understood politically, artistically, and educationally to be in the service of social change, although there is certainly no single nor consistent ideological position that supports the expansive use of theatre in classrooms and communities. Theatre has been consistently used in formal and informal educational settings as a way to galvanize participation and make learning more relational, or more a student/participant-centred rather than teacher/facilitator- centred proposition. In addition to exploring the educational value of applied theatre in a range of contexts and through a variety of interventions and intentions, the course will also contemplate the ethics and poetics of representation in performance and in research.

This course will focus on matters of equity, inclusion, and school reform as these pertain to differences of sexual orientation and gender identity among students in elementary and secondary schools. Course content and instruction will focus on understanding and addressing educational and schooling issues confronting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer (LGBTQ) students. It will also explore strategies and resources for challenging homophobia, heterosexism, and transphobia in classrooms and schools. We will examine the ways homophobia, heterosexism, and transphobia intersect with multiple identities, other forms of oppression and our history of white settler colonialism. We will also examine curriculum materials and community support services that promote sensitivity, visibility and social justice.