In the summer of 2016, I worked as a mentor for the Digital Wellbeing Sprint - an intensive summer innovation course offered by an alliance of Laurea, Metropolia and Haaga-Helia Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) in Finland. During the Sprint, students apply the design process to a client challenge while learning about teamwork, open innovation, co-creation and rapid prototyping; skills that are in high-demand in our changing world.
This experience positioned my recent ‘career pivot’ to academia and became the topic of my recently published Master’s thesis titled “Designing a student-centered learning experience: The Digital Wellbeing Sprint.” In it, I study students’ expectations and perception of value regarding their experiences in higher education.
The study looks beyond the specific skills students want to learn and seeks to understand where they want to go and why they’ve picked the Sprint to help them get there. The idea is by helping students make progress towards their goals, the Sprint—and similar educational opportunities—can support a faster and smoother transition to working life and offer increasing value in this ever-changing world.
While all 98 pages are sure to be a riveting read, this 29-slide presentation covers the highlights. The one-page output was a set of student Jobs to be Done. This outline of 'Jobs' students hope to accomplish by participating in the Sprint was used as a training tool for the 2017 Sprint mentors and influenced the further development of the concept.
Now as a Teaching Fellow in Design Thinking at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, I design and deliver innovation curriculum at the Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels. This has given me the opportunity to apply and further develop this research into student-centered learning.