Blog Archives - Page 40 of 41 - The Innovation Hub

Respect and Reciprocity

By Bonnie Jane Maracle, Integrated Learning Experience Team

Being a student at the University of Toronto means that this person has been deemed capable of doing the work required, meeting the challenges of the coursework, and achieving success in career goals they may have in their sights. A student in studies at U of T is to be congratulated on gaining entry, and others in upper years, they too need to be congratulated for their success in managing to hang in there, or as they say, “surviving the rigors of academia.” Students at U of T might soon learn, or in some cases, not learn soon enough, of all the support services available to them. This may include the services of a learning strategist, or their registrar, or an academic advisor, or even a TA. Available to students are also career planning and accessibility services. Ultimately, there is certainly a wide range of services and supports to assist students in getting through their coursework.

Are We Ready for the Future?

By Vincent Tu and Ming Da (Tim) Li , Future-Ready Students Team

What does it take to help students gain a sense of preparation for their future? As part of the Future Ready Students domain, we embarked on our journey to listen to the voices of students who are preparing to enter the workforce. By doing so, we’re identifying common themes that echo throughout their stories, which will help inform us on what the University needs to foster future readiness for students.

We are undergraduate students ourselves, and many of our peers’ stories—with their dreams, distinctive life goals and concerns—deeply resonate with us.

Learning about Our Students from Those Working with Them

By Denise Bentum, Organizational Learning Team Coordinator

By now you likely know that the Innovation Hub is talking to students in order to learn about their experiences at U of T. But did you know that we are also talking with staff and faculty to learn about their experiences working with students? This lesser-known aspect of the Innovation Hub is the work of the Organizational Learning team. Organizational learning refers to how knowledge is created, shared and preserved within an organization. We are trying to learn about how staff and faculty collaborate in order to share knowledge across divisions and how they collaborate in order to assist students.

What is Design Thinking?

What is Design Thinking?

By Alexandra Rodney, Student Innovation Leader, Operations Team

In September I introduced you to the Innovation Hub project and explained how we are working on developing innovative solutions to improve the student experience at the University of Toronto. In this post I’ll describe the method we are using to innovate. At the Innovation Hub we are using a “design thinking” approach. This approach has its roots at IDEO, David Kelley’s global design firm, where techniques used to design products were applied to the design of organizational operations and services. You may not have heard of IDEO but you’ve likely been in contact with their design innovations. Among other things that IDEO has patents on are the Apple mouse, laptop computer hinges, and the stand-up toothpaste bottle.

Ideating with the Innovation Hub: Share Back Days

by Riley McCullough, Events and Admin Team Member

As a recent graduate from the University of Toronto, I know first hand how intimidating and confusing the school can be. While experiencing services and opportunities that are offered was one of the highlights of my time at school, navigating the student experience at the University of Toronto can easily be overwhelming.

That’s where the Innovation Hub comes in.

What is Access?

By Emma Beaulieu, Domain Team Member, Access for Every Student Domain

It’s a more complicated question than it sounds. I’m an occupational therapy student, and accessibility is a big part of my chosen profession. Occupational therapy is all about helping people do the things they need to do, want to do, or are expected to do, and for that you need access to resources. In the most basic sense, that can mean putting ramps outside buildings so people using wheelchairs can get inside, or making “handicapped” spaces in parking lots. But that’s far from enough. Being a student involves a lot more than physically getting to school.

November Innovation Hours—Gathering Insights

By Ling Lam, Student Co-Leader, Future-Ready Students Domain

On November 10th and 15th, students and staff from across the U of T community gathered for the November Innovation Hours at the Centre for International Experience. Team members from each of the five domains—access for every student, fostering connectedness, future-ready students, integrated learning experience and whole student development—were present and ready to engage!

Fostering Connectedness

By Erin Clifford, Fostering Connectedness Staff Co-Leader

The Fostering Connectedness domain team has been talking with students about their sense of connection with U of T. An interesting insight we have discovered is that connectedness means different things to different people.

For some, it means knowing what is going on and not feeling like they are missing out on experiences just because they didn’t know how to find out what is available. Other students have said that a friendly environment where strangers smile at each other or making a friend in a class is what connects them to U of T.

“Defining” Whole Student Development

By Cristina Peter & Ayana Webb, Whole Student Development Team

One of the strengths of the Innovation Hub is its flexibility; the way we can adapt our process to fit the users (i.e. the students). Our goal is to inform our process while gathering information to continuously inform our process. Clear as mud? Probably. The process of innovation that we are embarking upon is quite unique to many processes we are familiar with. Our usual methods of data collection are carefully planned and meticulously executed; however can we really capture our ever-changing student population by narrowly defining what we want to capture? Or might it be interesting to instead tailor our tools to discover how students are captured best. While we don’t want our parameters to be constrictive, parameters are certainly helpful…especially when embarking on a series of student interviews.

Ecosystem Mapping: October Innovation Hours Recap

By Alexandra Rodney, Student Innovation Leader, Operations Team

During the October Innovation Hours we asked students, staff and faculty to help us create a map of the University of Toronto ecosystem as it relates to our five domains of innovation.

Ecosystem mapping is an exercise designed to discover all of the resources an organization has at their disposal including people, programs, services, members and their relation to each other in both digital and physical realms. An ecosystems framework is borrowed from biologists who study the relationships between organizations and their environment, especially the impact that they have on each other.

Category: Blog (page 40)