Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: George Nicholas, Department of Archaeology

Project team: Jon Driver, Department of Archaeology, and Brock Wiederbek, research assistant

Timeframe: November 2017 to May 2019

Funding: $6000

Final report: View George Nicholas' final report.

Description: Today the primary career pathway in Archaeology is in heritage management, but most undergraduate classes still focus on foundational knowledge, not practical skills. This grant is to assess the need for professional training modules for Archaeology undergraduate students, to explore their pedagogical potential, to examine whether there are systemic barriers (within the university) to their implementation (e.g., limitations of the student information system), and to develop three pilot modules.

Knowledge sharing: The results of this study will be shared with departmental colleagues in the following way: 1) a copy of the final report will be circulated to other faculty members, and subsequently discussed in a department meeting; 2) results will also be shared and discussed in a special seminar convened with interested undergraduate and graduate students, since many of them have experience in heritage management or are planning on a career in that realm. In addition, we plan to present the results at the 2018 annual meeting of the British Columbia Association of Professional Archaeologists, as well as a conference presentation or poster at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting.

Wiederick, B. (2018, March). Developing a professional archaeology curriculum at SFU. Presentation at the Annual General Meeting of the British Columbia Association of Professional Archaeologists (BCAPA), Vancouver, BC.

Keywords: Archaeology; Heritage management; Professional training; Teaching modules; Pilot project; Survey of needs