By Celeste Pang, Sauliha Alli, Sanja Ivanov and Heather Watts
Design thinkers at the Innovation Hub share the backstory of the Redefining Traditional virtual community of student parents and their supporters.
This week on Stories from a Distance…
Stories from a Distance encourages students to find community through conversation. Students can expect to be welcome into a virtual space (over Zoom) created by and for students looking to invest in meaningful connections within their campus community over the Summer.…
Imagined Worlds
How Imagination Drives Innovation
By Darren Clift, Writer
It’s easy to exercise creativity during childhood, when imaginations are unrestrained. But as we grow up, we learn to leash our imaginations, to criticize our own creativity. The open parks of childhood become the closed spaces of our grown-up selves.
Design thinking seeks to re-liberate our creativity, but the forces and learned behaviours pushing against it are strong. To see how design leadership can nurture fresh ideas, I spoke to Gabriele Simmons, a Senior Project Assistant at the Innovation Hub.
The Evolution of the Design Thinking Experience Program: Winter 2020
On Thursday, January 9, the Innovation Hub launched the third edition of our Design Thinking Experience Program (DTEP). As in our February and September 2019 programs, we are working with participants to understand and solve challenges at UofT using human-centred design thinking and empathy-based approaches. This time, in addition, we’re thrilled to welcome staff members back to our design teams.
Project Primer: The Student Life Strategy Project
How do students understand and navigate the University’s programs and services? How might students become active participants in the process that the Division of Student Life uses to design and redesign programs, services, resources, and spaces? What could meaningful student engagement look like in this process?
Project Primer: Data Analysis
What happens to all the interviews and data that the Innovation Hub collects? Over the past three years, over 450 students and staff have shared their experiences with our teams. We are honoured that so many were willing to entrust us with their stories and experiences, which helped us identify their needs, suggest and prototype services and supports, and contribute to substantive changes at U of T through over a dozen collaborative projects. The interviews and feedback we receive are the basis from which we advocate for change in all our collaborations, including the New College Dining Hall redesign, the Family Care Office projects, and the classroom redesign under the Transforming the Instructional Landscape Project.
Spotlight: What Do We Mean When We Talk About Community?
Social and Cultural Community at First Nations House
Written by Charis Lam – Design Research Events Lead
In search of factors driving student engagement, First Nations House partnered with the Innovation Hub in summer 2018 to ask: what causes students and staff to engage and connect with First Nations House? Among the factors identified—including assistance with scholarships and housing, personal relationships to staff members. and access to the resource centre—cultural and social programming emerged as a need strongly felt by students. Thus, First Nations House and the Innovation Hub renewed their partnership to investigate what sorts of social and cultural programming students want.
Innovation Hour – Building the Hub Teams
Our Innovation Hours continued this week with a look at the proposed plan to build the Innovation Hub teams. This past Tuesday a group of students and staff met to discuss the draft team structure and roles and share questions and insights about how the team will come together.
Innovation Hour – July and August
The Innovation Hour is an informal morning coffee hour for staff, faculty & students who are interested in learning more about the Innovation Hub and sharing innovative ideas that will enhance the student experience at the University of Toronto. It’s a chance to chat with colleagues about where innovation is already happening, to learn more about the Innovation Hub and to brainstorm opportunities for innovation. Hub updates will be provided during these meetings.
Day of Learning – June 16, 2016
On June 16th we continued our learning with a focus on learning how innovative methodologies from a wide variety of industries might be applied to the student experience at U of T. Speakers included many of our own faculty/staff from some of the most innovative areas of U of T and colleagues from the community who are doing some great work in this space. You can check out our Google Drive folder for more details about the Day of Learning and a collection of some of the presentations. We wrapped up the day with a very human-centred debrief time on the Cumberland House Lawn.