If you could design a social innovation course that addressed your local community’s wicked problems, what would it look like? For us, we wanted motivated problem-finders. We wanted to use design thinking and sprints to build quickly and often. We wanted to do away with grades. We wanted students to focus only on our course, nothing more. We wanted students who brought disciplinary knowledge to work across majors. So, in Spring 2017, a faculty team from Elon University designed a huge 16-credit-hour “social innovation lab” course with the goal of enacting real social change in the local community. We succeeded, we failed, and we’re ready to share our lessons learned from when we tried to break free from the structures of academia.
6. LACK OF CONTINUITY
Projects driven by faculty,
typically a single course
project with students in a
particular discipline
Projects lose momentum, are
short term, leading to
student turnover which
requires retraining
7. LACK OF COMMITMENT
Students do not have the time in
their schedules to commit to a
deeply engaged experience
Students do not feel invested in
the project because they did not
help to define the project
8. DESIGNING A WAY FORWARD
What would the ideal project-based course look like?
What could a cohort of students do in a project structure
where they fully commit to outcomes?
How can we get students to engage in problem finding
rather than simply problem solving?
9. REDESIGNING EVERYTHING
Use design thinking
principles and methods
to address a
wicked problem in the
local community as
determined by the
students
14. BLENDING HIGH IMPACT PRACTICES
CAPSTONE/
COLLABORATIVE
PROJECTS
COMMUNITY-BASED/
SERVICE LEARNING
DIVERSITY/
GLOBAL LEARNING
UNDERGRADUATE
RESEARCH
15. BUILDING COMPETENCIES
Tools
Design thinking,
Agile project
management,
collaboration
models,
creative thinking
strategies
Products
Idea generation
and refinement,
web content,
sustainable
social innovation
community
projects
Research
for Action
Interdisciplinary
research,
problem
articulation,
iteration and
adaptation
22. Anthropology • Arts Administration
Communication Design • Computing Sciences
English / Creative Writing • Entrepreneurship
Environmental Sciences • Media Analytics
Professional Writing & Rhetoric
Public Health • Strategic Communications
23.
24.
25. LEAP OUTCOMES
Engagement with big questions: Wellness, Eudaimonia
Inquiry, critical and creative thinking, communication, research, teamwork,
problem solving
Personal and social responsibility via civic engagement
Active involvement in challenges that synthesize across disciplines
26. PRINCIPLES OF EXCELLENCE
Teach the Arts of Inquiry and Innovation
Connect Knowledge with Choices and Action
Foster Civic, Intercultural, and Ethical Learning
Assess Students’ Ability to Apply Learning to Complex Problems