Improving the campus experience at the University of Toronto through student-led design
By the Innovation Hub’s Knowledge Management Leader Michelle Johnstone, and our Implementation Leader Clara Luca
On June 5th and 9th, the Innovation Hub invited students, faculty, and staff across U of T to offer feedback on our six prototyped project ideas. Toencourage participants to provide direct, meaningful feedback, they were arranged into focus group-like arrangements to ideate and co-create the prototypes which interested them most.
By Margaryta Ignatenko, Innovation Hub Team
At the core of the Innovation Hub is the desire to make the University of Toronto a place where all students experience a sense of community and connectedness. In our work, we use a design methodology that takes inclusivity into consideration. We are thrilled about events such as #DisplayYourPride which celebrate the diversity of our University of Toronto community!
By the Innovation Hub Implementation Leaders: Gabriele Simmons, Vincent Tu and Clara Luca as well as Max Tojicic a second year student participant at the retreat.
As Innovation Hub Implementation Team Leaders, Clara, Vincent and I (Gabriele), had the chance to attend Student Life’s Re-Imagining Leadership Retreat in Peterborough – it was a fantastic opportunity! We got to meet other student leaders like ourselves at the retreat and develop skills in collaboration, innovation and thinking “outside of the box”. We met a fantastic collection of people from across the tri-campuses and gained both new friends and new perspectives! Here are some of the highlights…
By Alexandra Rodney, Operations Team Leader
Since February, the Innovation Hub had the good fortune of serving as the “client” for the Business Leadership class at John Polanyi Collegiate Institute. This class is made up of Grade 11 and 12 students who, each semester, apply integrative thinking tools to help an organization solve a difficult problem. For the Innovation Hub, the students were tasked with the question of how to increase student engagement at the University of Toronto. The Business Leadership students were taught how to use integrative thinking tools by their teacher Rahim Essabhai (who recently won a Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence!) and Nogah Kornberg (of Rotman’s I-Think initiative). The students had the opportunity to visit the university on several occasions to interview students and Innovation Hub staff members as well as observe student life on campus.
By: William Pullen, Innovation Hub Summer Team Member, second year political science and history student.
Last Friday, the Innovation Hub’s Summer Team had the pleasure of attending Rotman I-Think’s Celebration of Learning. The event was centered around the incredible work that has been occurring in K-12 classrooms that have embraced Integrative Thinking. The event also celebrated the teachers that helped bring integrative thinking into their classrooms.