Retreats

To support continuous improvement and curriculum planning for new and evolving programs, the Centre for Teaching and Learning offers a variety of retreats. If you don’t see an option that meets your needs, we would be happy to discuss a customized retreat tailored to your goals. Contact us at ctl@uwo.ca for more information.

IQAP Support

To support the Institutional Quality Assurance Process (IQAP) self-study, we offer Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results (SOAR) Retreat and the Program Learning Outcomes Retreat. Additional details and sample agendas are linked below.

SOAR Retreat (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations & Results) (3-4 hours)

Download a sample SOAR Retreat agenda

This half-day retreat offers academic programs a strengths-based model for strategic curricular visioning and planning. By bringing together key stakeholders – including instructors, administrative staff, students, and employers – the retreat guides participants through identifying core program achievements (Strengths), reframing challenges into growth potential (Opportunities), defining strategic initiatives (Aspirations), and developing actionable, measurable next steps (Results).

Program Learning Outcomes Retreat (2.5-3 hours)

Download a sample Learning Outcome Retreat agenda

This half-day retreat aims to help departments draft program-level learning outcomes, differentiate expectations across various modules or degree levels (such as Honours Specialization vs. Major or Master's vs. Ph.D.), and align these outcomes with broader Western Degree Outcomes (WDOs) as part of the IQAP self-study.

Generative AI and Assessment

We also offer retreats that support ongoing curriculum improvement that are responsive to emergent topics that are pertinent to the discipline, including the impacts of generative AI on assessment. Additional details and sample agendas are linked below.

Generative AI and Assessment Retreat (3-4 hours)

Download a sample Generative AI and Assessment Design Retreat agenda

This half-day retreat is a structured, values-driven model created to help course-based academic programs navigate the impact of generative AI on learning and assessment. Designed to respect disciplinary context and instructor autonomy, the program guides participants through reflecting on pedagogical values, evaluating the affordances and limitations of AI technologies, sharing existing practices, and collaborative assessment redesign.

Generative AI and the Graduate Milestones (full day)

Download a sample Generative AI and the Graduate Milestones Retreat agenda

This retreat brings faculty together to examine how generative AI intersects with graduate milestones, giving participants the opportunity to share current practices and discuss its impact on assessment practices in graduate studies. Through collaborative activities, attendees evaluate where AI use should be restricted, permissible, or valuable, as well as how it should be disclosed to supervisors. The goal of the sessions is to establish shared assessment principles and draft 3 to 4 actionable guidance statements for students navigating Master's and PhD milestones. 

Curriculum Decolonization

Grounding Retreat

Download a sample Grounding Retreat agenda

The Grounding Retreat helps academic programs establish a shared foundation for engaging in curriculum decolonization. The goal of the retreat is to build shared understanding of decolonization and its relationship to Indigenous sovereignty and futurity, while creating the conditions for team members to engage with Indigenous knowledges, communities, and one another “in a good way” (Western University, 2025; Ball & Janyst, 2008).

Interrogation Retreat

Download a sample Interrogation Retreat agenda

Interrogation Retreats build on grounding work to help academic programs critically examine their discipline’s historical and contemporary relationships to colonial structures, values, and ways of knowing. The goal of each retreat is to create space for participants to question disciplinary assumptions and practices, explore whose knowledge and perspectives have been privileged or excluded, and consider how their field continues to affect different communities. Through shared inquiry and reflection, participants develop a deeper understanding of their discipline as a necessary foundation for identifying opportunities for decolonization and change.

Requesting a Retreat

To request a retreat, please reach out to us at ctl@uwo.ca.