Week 11

As was mentioned in last weeks blog, we started a new project and began to prepare for our innovation open lab. Back in week 1 when we were briefly told about this open lab, I was honestly a bit nervous about it, and wasnt sure how it would be possible to share innovation with others when i didnt really know what innovation was! Now that we have come through the whole module and I have become more aware of the importance of innovation, i felt comfortable sharing innovation, especially with the group that we were assigned. 

Our group had chosen to work with our home universities, on how to share innovation with them. We chose to create a program or guideline for an innovation intensive day, in which students and lecturers could learn how to be innovative and see the importance of using innovation in the classroom. The aim for this day would be that after getting a taste of what innovation is, students would sign up for a week of intensive training in how to teach innovation. As we couldnt speak to our universities directly or present to them, we put together a presentation and a pack of resources that could be given to a college to help them run the day.

Before actually doing our open lab, we wanted to get some feedback from actual lecturers and the students union president at our universities in Spain and Northern Ireland to find out whether a day like this would be a good idea. We did this by sending them a rough plan of the day and got these replies;

“A students’ university experience must be shrouded in vibrancy and opportunity; schemes and plans which seek to introduce innovation in Stranmillis can only benefit this process and assist the things which are already in place to encourage student involvement. Activities based upon teamwork, co-operation and primarily innovation are instrumental in ensuring that students are well aware that they have a voice on campus, and have the right and ability to make a difference”.

-          (Student president, Stranmillis University College, Northern Ireland)

‘What a wonderful idea. The concept of learning about, then teaching, innovation is just the kind of more active and hands-on approach that many of us are trying to do in Stran. It would fit perfectly towards the end of the year within the Degree Enhancement Programme, when students elect to do short courses on such areas as ipad training, Makaton, EAL, etc.

Your idea for the day is sound, comprising the types of activity currently experienced in DMU, or other courses (such as Richard’s or mine) on ALTMs, or Areas of Specialism such as Drama. Your planned activities, tasks and the sequencing of them work well, building up to a nice sense of intensity towards the end, and culminating in a well-considered finale in the shape of the Dragons’ Den presentation.’

-         (Lecturer, Stranmillis University College, Northern Ireland)

‘Mondragon University is a young cooperative university. Innovation has been core to our university since its establishment in 1997: Its trilingual model (Basque Spanish and English), its commitment to research and its practical orientation remain the focal points of the institution. Likewise, the University has long had a strong commitment to social transformation and social accessibility. However, innovation is an ongoing process and Mondragon Unibertsitatea remains inspired by the original spirit that allowed the institution to be establish and become reputed both locally and globally. The internalisation of our students now provides a window to the world from which both our institution and our students benefit from: a new chance to learn, a new chance to be innovative. It is that scenario that I regard Goretti and Andrea’s project on innovation highly interesting for our university’

-          (Lecturer, Mondragon University, Spain)

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During class we had a lot to do. We decided that if a day like this was to be run in a university, there would need to be some promotion to generate interest in students. We made a poster to be put up around the college and a trailer video to be emailed to students we did this using an iPad app which turned out brilliantly! Click here to see our trailer.

We had planned that instead of counting on being able to run the event ourselves, we would create a loose outline or guideline so that a group of students or lecturers could take on the project and adapt it to their needs or abilities. We created a book of this outline, which included ideas for an introduction – with a video entitled ‘what is innovation’ that we created during the open lab, find it here, and a 4 stage model for the main body of the day (feel, imagine, do, share – a model we used for our last project) which will guide the users through the model with ideas and outlines but is flexible enough. We also included a list of energiser games and challenges to use throughout the day and a resource list.

We created a Prezi which included our goals and aims for the process and an outline of the support that would be needed to run the day.

After our preparation time was over, we had a talk from Nicolaj’s brother about social innovation. He discussed how he used innovation to motivate young people in Copenhagen and to increase their job prospects by training them to be football coaches. It was interesting to hear how innovation can be used in other contexts than education or business.

We then were able to share our results/what we found with two other groups from our class. it was interesting to see what the other groups who were working with teachers and students found, and compare it with our own project.

I throughly enjoyed this open lab as I think it is a great way to share ideas and come up with realistic ways to share innovation. It was fun and interesting and I think something I would definitely bring back to my home university.

As this week is our last week of the course, we had to complete an evaluation. It allowed us to reflect on what we have learned about innovation, teamwork and planning. I feel that I have learned a lot from this module, and will take a lot of ideas and skills home with me to Northern Ireland.