International students are welcome at VIU to participate in research led by a VIU faculty member or affiliated researcher on a full-time basis. A VSR can be a student enrolled in an undergraduate, master’s or doctoral program at a university in Canada or abroad. As an International Visiting Student Researcher you have access to student services on campus!
For more information, please visit our Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity Office to learn about the research opportunities at VIU.
Types of Research Opportunities
VSRs with their own research project
Introduction to Place-Based Learning
(This is a working draft which is guiding the implementation of the GSO Project)
Indigenous protocol grounds us and connects us to land, to family, and to our ancestors. It gives others the opportunity to learn a bit more about Indigenous peoples. When we acknowledge the territory that we are on, we are showing respect and gratitude for being on the land. We are mindful that this relationship is reciprocal-to welcome guests to a territory is only appropriate for those who are Indigenous to a particular place.
In place-based learning, local surroundings provide the context for educating. It encompasses the history, environment, economy, and culture of a learner’s surroundings, their interconnections and how place is situated within broader-scale political, social, cultural, or ecological landscapes. This in turn forms a bond between the learner and the locale. Education is no longer solely based inside classrooms and through textbooks; we use place-based learning not only so students can become actively engaged in our own learning, but also so we may gain a sense of responsibility, care, attachment, and betterment to place long-term, and ultimately, a richer sense of our own identities. Whether our surroundings are natural or human made, or if we are abroad or or in our home community, our surrounding environment provides the learning landscape.
Because place-based learning is unique and subjective for each learner, the role of an instructor is to facilitate and guide the learning, rather than deliver it from a single perspective. As instructors we work alongside students to co-create learning experiences as well as facilitate individual reflection and transfer the learning from the field to each students’ home environment.
This aligns with Indigenous ways of knowing where people and nature are interconnected rather than treating the natural environment as separate. This helps to engrain consciousness of place within learners. As British Columbia’s First People’s Principles of Learning state, “Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place) (FNESC, 2008). This helps to engrain consciousness of place within learners
VSRs supporting VIU faculty research
VIU Education Abroad Crossing Borders: Charting Our Path Needs Assessment
Universities Canada Summary Report: Outbound Student Mobility Program Baseline Survey
Summarizing key findings from the outbound student mobility survey conducted last fall with Universities Canada’s 96 member institutions.