www.ed.ac.uk/innovative-learning
#ILW16
Welcome to
2016 Innovative Learning Week is a festival which inspires, supports and celebrates creative learning at the University of Edinburgh. Staff and students are invited to explore their learning experience in a new way through collaborative events and activities from 15-19 February 2016. CONTENTS
20
Sustainability Events
04 Ideas in Play
22
Background
06 ILW Aims and Values
23
Open ILW
08 Events by Theme
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Idea Development
14 Skills Development
25
Pop Ups
16 Events in the City
26
Impact
18 ILW Partner Events
28
Testimonies
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IDEAS IN PLAY For the first time ever, we have curated ILW around a core theme: Ideas in Play. We believe that innovation is a process, especially in terms of learning and more often than not - the process is more valuable than the finished product. Not only are ideas constantly at play and in movement, but they require imagination, creativity and openness. ILW is an invitation to start, make, design, try, and build communities around ideas, a process which we are proud to be a part of. It was also important for us to introduce and reinforce the element of play into the everyday dialogue on learning and innovation. The ILW festival is just one part of a process through which we hope you will be able to learn and grow while you join us in celebrating creative learning at The University of Edinburgh. Unless stated - all events are open to all staff and students.
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Aims Provide a platform to explore and experiment with different ways of learning and incorporate them into the wider University experience Effectively design and deliver innovative events to share and learn new ideas Foster meaningful and interesting collaborations & communities to enhance the learning experience Celebrate good practice already taking place and enhance its impact Explore the definition of innovation and creativity and how they can be further supported and embedded into the learning experience
ILW AIMS AND VALUES 06 / www.ed.ac.uk/innovative-learning
Values Openness - an open mindset and curiosity for innovation Collaboration - creating meaningful connections between different parts of the University Creativity - be open to taking risks and how it’s relevant across the University
Experimentation - doing, building and prototyping ideas in a supportive environment Experiential Learning - gaining new skills and broaden your mind within different contexts Celebratory - celebrate the University community and how it brings amazing research, teaching and learning together #ilw16 / 07
WE HAVE
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DURING THE WEEK! Here are a few of the events that will be happening and that perfectly reflects our values: For all up to date event information, dates and times please visit...
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OPENNESS There is No Alternative!… Or is there? Exploring the tensions in alternative and sustainable business models. Traditional business models continue to be questioned, yet there seems to be tensions in modifying or changing their existence. The Sustainable Business Initiative (SBI) are inviting colleagues and students across the university to a one-day programme of events engaging with the question of an alternative business model. The stimulating day-programme cuts across disciplines and invites the use of various media to engage, discuss and highlight possible reconsiderations. Sustainable Business Initiative Business School, The Department of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, Net Impact, Edinburgh College of Art
Online Distance Learners – Manage your Career Development A week-long open access event, to support the career development of our ODL students. We’ll be curating and creating content, accessible online and designed to engage, inform and inspire. Careers Service
SKIN Skin is an event which calls on participants to experience familiar university premises with reconstructed a-canonical bodies, bodies that are often excluded from the design process (children, elderly, visually impaired, transgendered or collective bodies). Join students and staff from The Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in a creative and eye-opening three-day event encompassing a roundtable discussion, costume workshop and playful performance! Edinburgh College of Art
In Their Shoes, Through Their Eyes Join the Student Action for Refugees group in an immersive simulation where you will be able to explore the journey of millions of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing their homes. Through a guest lecture from a speaker from a refugee organisation and an interactive simulation, this event will allow you to participate in a creative, hands-on, innovative approach to understanding the refugee crisis. The simulation will be concluded with a discussion with open and challenging dialogue. Student Action for Refugees (STAR)
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Rootmap
COLLABORATION The Edinburgh Apprentice The Edinburgh Apprentice is the largest business competition for students in Edinburgh that has been running for the past five years. With a cash prize, no previous experience or business idea is required.
Rootmap wishes to inform and excite people about their sustainable, local food scene by inviting them to take part in an interactive, creative event. By inviting consumers to get involved and become part of the local food community, Rootmap hopes to bridge the gap between producers and consumers. Through visits to certain places in Edinburgh which engage in food production of a high ethical standard and mapping of these places in a resourceful and creative way, this event wants to create awareness. In addition, it allows participants to meet each other and start their own conversations about the values of food. Edinburgh College of Art
iCue Society, Edinburgh Business School
Fun on Prescription Join Centre for Research Collections staff and play specialists from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for Sick Children to create resources for education, distraction and entertainment for children in hospital, using the University’s worldclass special collections as inspiration. Library & University Collections, Information Services, Sick Kids Foundation
Mapping Memory This event will take place in the National Galleries and will involve students taking part in a memory game through which they will produce maps of the museum from memory, after having explored the space in small groups. The resulting map will serve to provoke discussion on how we experience museums, how we learn from them and how we could continue to do so in the future. This activity hopes to attract participants from a range of age groups and backgrounds so that everyone can learn from each other and gain confidence in their ability as cultural researchers and proponents of the gallery space. This event is open to people outside of the University. School of Language Literatures and Cultures & National Museums of Scotland
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CREATIVITY Design without Borders Motivated by the current refugee crisis, Design Society is offering students the opportunity to use design to creatively approach the daily problems faced in a life with limited resources. This immersive two day challenge will ask students to work with limited resources, climaxing in an exhibition of designs aimed at tackling humanitarian problems, while raising money for charity in the process. This is a collaborative venture, open to any student with a desire to make what they do matter, enabling participants to work with inventive minds across all disciplines. Design Society
Creative Material Play This event will involve the making of collaborative artworks from various basic materials including clay, wood, paper and charcoal, metal as and plastics. Participation will be through material play combining cross-disciplinary techniques which will draw from traditional ways of working in illustration and in sculpture. This workshop will promote a new way of perceiving materials in a creative approach. It will take place at the beginning of ILW with the aim of exhibiting photographs of the artworks for the remaining days. Edinburgh College of Art
EXPERIMENTATION
Painting with Pipettes Interested in the world of microorganisms? This event will provide a unique opportunity to learn about biological research in a creative environment. Participants will culture fluorescent and light sensitive bacteria to create works of art that will be photographed and displayed in a gallery focused on the interactions of science and society. No experience is required for this event, and participants will receive a copy of whatever they make in the lab! Synthetic Biology Society, Institute of Quantitative Biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology
iGEM Have you ever wondered how to make a glow in the dark plant? Or how to make yoghurt that flavours itself? Anyone can make these things and we’ll introduce you to the science behind them. The iGEM sandpit will introduce you to biohacking and synthetic biology. Over the course of the event, we will show you how engineering biology can address real societal challenges and inspire you to take part in the biggest science competition in the world. School of Biological Sciences, School of Chemistry, School of Engineering, School of Informatics
Map Makers Wanted We need your help to develop and test tools for co-designing learning experiences. We know the treasure of transformative and exuberant education is buried somewhere nearby. Do you know where the treasure is? Can we collectively plot our course? Join us at one or more events in our series of workshops including interactive discussions and activities with students, academic and support staff, and any other interested individuals outside of the University. No prior experience necessary, just bring a passion for making higher education the best it can be and a willingness to try new things. EUSA, Institute for Academic Development, Higher Education Academy
Black River The projection of a river at night-time fills every wall of the room and weaves together several Japanese-style scrolls. At the beginning, the pictures inside the scrolls are projections of paintings originally developed by Gleizer. The audience can respond with their own art to Black River, creating artwork and photographing it, recording a video or taking a picture. They will be able to upload their response to an online platform, and it will substitute one of the paintings on the scrolls. Eventually, none of the artworks on the scrolls will be Gleizer’s originals; they will all be the audience’s responsive work. School of Psychology, Philosophy, and Language Sciences
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100 Great Ideas for the Main Library How often do you use the Main Library but just pass through the ground floor foyer? Do you think you could make it better? More exciting? A creative place for creative thinking? Then this is your chance to share your ideas and help to create innovative and imaginative possibilities for the foyer area. In this open event we’re looking for 100 ideas to get us started on improving the foyer space. Drop in to the Main Library to share your idea and to sign up for a one-day “foyer hack”, and find out more about the opportunity to make a real change to the Main Library. Institute for Academic Development, Library & University Collections
Play with Fire This is a workshop which aims to introduce students to glass as a material and creative thinking. By allowing participants to experiment with the medium of glass, this workshop will aim to explore glass through the lens of different disciplines. The attendees will take part in guided and inclusive beginner exercises. The tradition of glass will be explored as will conceptual discussions around glass and how these may influence creative outputs in the hotshop and engage new audiences. Edinburgh College of Art
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING Smart Data Hack The Smart Data Hack is a 5-day event during ILW that brings students to work together to build interesting solutions for real-world problems. It encourages interdisciplinary teams to combine their skills in digital technology, business analysis, ethnography and design. School of Informatics
Innovative Flying Week Innovative Flying Week will introduce participants to the principles of flight and the aerodynamics of gliders. Working in teams participants will have the opportunity to design and build a model glider for a flight endurance competition and will be able (weather permitting) to experience flying in a real glider. School of Engineering
Low Carbon Pizza This is a hands-on event which aims to start discussions amongst students on food choices and sustainability. This workshop will involve participants exploring these topics which have a direct effect on our wellbeing as well as our environment. Through the day they will cook and share a delicious, healthy, low-carbon meal. Participants will learn simple cooking skills and methods of minimising food waste while sharing their day-to-day experiences of food, cooking and and food sustainability. EUSA, School of Geosciences
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CELEBRATORY TEDx University of Edinburgh A staple of ILW, TEDxUniversityofEdinburgh is a one-day program of local, self-organized events which focus on an interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge. TED provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx conferences, including ours, are self-organized. Run entirely by students of The University of Edinburgh, TEDx provides a stage for our community’s great ideas worth sharing.
Build a kaleidoscope and celebrate 200 years of colour and patterns The kaleidoscope was invented 200 years ago this year. It was one of the “must have” gadgets of the mid 1800’s and is still popular today. It is a fascinating gadget bringing together optics, colour and patterns and has an enduring fascination for both scientists and artists. Come and build one, explore its science and art, and discover the inventor’s links to Edinburgh.
TEDx University of Edinburgh
School of Physics & Astronomy
Childhood Studies Jamboree
LLC Blethers
The 5th Annual Childhood Studies Jamboree is an afternoon of hands-on, participative activities celebrating the breadth and depth of childhood studies research across the University.
Join us for an evening of informal Pecha Kucha-style presentations on a wide variety of topics within the LLC. With twenty slides and only twenty seconds to spend on each, you’ll hear about a range of topics from exciting interdisciplinary research to academic horror stories (and hopefully how to avoid those pitfalls). Through a series of fast-paced, sixminute presentations, learn how to keep your head above water in the LLC. Get the low-down on what it’s really like to be an academic and share your ideas with likeminded people. Then join us for prizes, food, live music, and dancing!
The Jamboree is an opportunity to build community and foster exchange and collaboration across the University. It features interactive workshops facilitated by postgraduate students, early career researchers, and recent graduates, each sharing their own particular methodologies of working directly with children and young people. Those attending have the opportunity to attend two of these diverse methods workshops, and in doing so develop their own skills and thinking for their forthcoming research projects.
School of Language Literatures and Cultures
Moray House School of Education
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SKILLS DEVELOPMENT Innovative Learning Week is a huge opportunity to gain and develop new skills from upcycling to curating contemporary art. These are just a few of the opportunities which allow you to try something new in a safe and supported environment. Introduction to TEFL
DIY Film School
A one-day workshop to explore the world of EFL and find out what is involved in teaching English as a foreign language.
Use your mobile devices and free editing tools to create a blockbuster movie or a TV show! A workshop focusing on how to creating media using easily accessible tools. Covering everything from narrative to framing a shot.
Office of Lifelong Learning and English Language Teaching Centre
Learning Teaching and Web Services, Information Services
Learn to Code Are you curious about coding but never had the opportunity to try it out? This hands-on workshop will introduce you to the basics of computer programming in Scratch, a fun and easy to use programming platform. You’ll learn basic software engineering techniques, have a go at creating simple computer programmes, then work with others to build your very own game! School of Informatics, Moray House School of Education, Universidad ORT Uruguay
WoW; Learning From & In World of Warcraft Many people will have heard of World of Warcraft, the massively multi-player online roleplay game. Fewer may think of it as a marvellous opportunity for rich learning, and as a context in which to develop valuable real-world skills of leadership, collaboration, planning and problem solving. This event – an afternoon workshop to get things started, followed by a series of online explorations in the game – will introduce those new to the game to some of these possibilities. Moray House School of Education and the Institute for Academic Development
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Community School Working Event Following on from two years past engagement with Preston Street Primary school – developing its playground, this is a one-day event in which staff and student volunteers will work in partnership with the school staff and parents. Together they will be contributing to the school by working on: repainting the playground area; making outdoor playground musical instruments; sensory planting and building a bugs hotel. This one-day project will further improve the school’s playground and introduce further learning activities with the introduction of sensory plants insect areas and outdoor musical play activities. Edinburgh College of Art
Creating and Enjoying a Sustainable Supper: Combining an Expedition around Edinburgh on Foot or Bicycle, Designing a LowCarbon Menu, Shopping, Cooking and Community Eating The day starts with designing a menu and dividing-up tasks. A walking / cycle tour in small groups is then undertaken visiting a range of outlets for sustainable, low-carbon and healthy food. All groups will visit a restaurant where we will have a short demo of sustainable cooking; we will visit a few outlets for purchasing foods; we will also visit a community garden or allotment. A chef will organise everyone in preparing an evening meal at a central venue. We plan to invite the neighbours of the University’s city-centre campus to the meal to share and form new links within our own community. School of Geosciences
EVENTS IN THE CITY 10 / www.ed.ac.uk/innovative-learning 16
Echoes of Edinburgh: Voices of the City - 24 hour magazine event Retrospect’s award-winning 24-hour magazine event is back with a new challenge: ‘Echoes of Edinburgh: Voices of the City’, writing, editing, designing and publishing a magazine online in one day alongside a 24-hour radio broadcast from FreshAir. The project draws on the stories of individuals connected to Edinburgh to inform and inspire participants. This event aims to foster connections and highlighting relevant skills, opportunities and experiences for those aspiring to work in the media. Retrospect and FreshAir
Some of the best Innovative Learning Week events over the years have been in collaboration with city partners. This year is no different with a wide array of events working in collaboration with Edinburgh organisations, schools and neighbourhoods.
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“We are a platform that allows emerging artists and creatives to showcase their work to the public. We bring together all five HE and FE institutions in Edinburgh. We are open to all art forms while we support emerging artists to connect to the wider creative community in Edinburgh. We help support skills development, career development and collaboration between emerging artists and creatives.� Briana Pegado, President of ESAF
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ILW PARTNER EVENTS ILW is proud to partner with ASCUS and ESAF this year. As they both have events happening at the same time as ILW, we knew we had to take advantage of the culmination of so many creative minds! ASCUS Lab
Edinburgh Student Arts Festival
The ASCUS Lab is a new publicly accessible laboratory open all year round for experimentation in art and science. As a partner for ILW we will be opening our doors to the ILW2016 community throughout the week. If you’re interested in coming along to visit or attend an event/activity during the week please see our website for details. You’ll also find more information about getting involved with the ASCUS Lab and joining our community. www.ascus.org.uk
Throughout the week, ILW will be running alongside the Edinburgh Student Arts Festival. The award winning Edinburgh Student Arts Festival is Scotland’s first ever student-run arts festival that brings together five higher education and further education institutions across the city. Their aim is to encourage students to showcase their artwork to the artistic community and the public at large. With hundreds of student artists running workshops, performances, and events throughout the week - ESAF is a platform for student artists to showcase their work to the artistic community and public at large. It provides opportunities for student practitioners to develop the skills they need to further their practice and to develop to their full potential. www.edinburghstudentartsfestival.com
ASCUS Lab
Edinburgh Student Arts Festival
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SUSTAINABILITY EVENTS Innovative Learning Week is collaborating with The Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability and the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation (ECCI) to host a sustainability strand of the festival. Reuse and Upcycling Workshop
A Country Park & Conservation
The SHRUB are the first student led cooperative in the UK and the SRS Department want to help them demonstrate their particular skills by running workshops, skill sharing sessions and social events in collaboration with them. In this event they will run open workshops on upcycling. This will include reusing old pallets from the University and transforming them into furniture, old bike inner tubes being turned into wallets and many more!
Ever wanted to try your hand at practical conservation work? If so, this is a perfect opportunity, friendly and open to everyone, whether you are a long time conservation enthusiast or a complete beginner. We’ll be heading out to Vogrie country park - a lovely place out near Gorebridge - to help a community garden get a project going. There will be the opportunity to try out building a fruit cage, making shelves, and some hands on gardening. We’ll provide a hearty lunch, transport, tools and many biscuits.
SHRUB and The Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability
Dirty Weekenders
Sustainable Concrete Structure Workshop
Edinburgh Mini-Sustainability Jam
Make the mix for concrete with cement substitute, pore it in your own made formwork, and get your personalised sculpture at the end. Hands-on experience, interdisciplinary teamwork, which promote sustainable technologies.
The Edinburgh Sustainability Jam is a platform for people interested in a creative approach to sustainability to come together and develop viable solutions to a global sustainability issue. Although these events usually last over 48 hours, we aim to do a one day event during ILW.
Edinburgh College of Art
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Net Impact
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BACKGROUND ILW is supported centrally by the Institute for Academic Development (IAD) in close collaboration with partners and a network of School Coordinators across the University. It has provided students with a fantastic and invaluable opportunity to broaden their horizons and explore and experiment with different ways of teaching and learning in a low-risk, supportive environment. The programme of events is full of various interdisciplinary events which transcend the traditional boundaries of learning and academia. It invites students and staff from all schools, interests and disciplines to come together and share their ideas and learn something new. 22 / www.ed.ac.uk/innovative-learning
OPEN ILW While ILW has been running for a number of years, the ILW team launched Open ILW this summer to provide a base to rethink the strategy and support around the festival to promote innovation and learning. Alongside service design firm Snook (wearesnook.com), we ran participatory workshops and interviews with students, academics, ILW School Coordinators and other partners to understand how we could shape ILW 2016. Using Snook’s tools of service blueprint, stakeholder analysis and other methods - we have reshaped the strategy of ILW and the scaffolding around it. #ilw16 / 23
IDEA DEVELOPMENT The work around Innovative Learning Week started months ago where our event organisers started to shape their ideas and turn them into meaningful events taking place throughout the week.
ILW Meet-ups Each month the ILW team ran monthly meet-ups on topics such as ideas development, event design and promotion to help event organisers turn their ideas into a reality. These workshops enhanced the ILW community and were opportunities for everyone involved to network and share experiences. This will culminate in a meet-up in January 2016 that will focus on the impact and legacy of ILW.
ILW Basecamp We hosted a series of Basecamp projects (www.basecamp.com) for event organisers to share ideas and start to build teams around their events. The website was also used as a communicative tool between the ILW team, the event organisers and the school coordinators.
ILW Handbook For the first time since ILW started, we created a handbook for those interested in running events during the festival. In addition to providing useful information, the handbook walked event organisers through the ideas behind ILW, how they could implement them and the logistics behind event organising.
Funding Many events received small grant support for their event ideas with awards up to £300. We also provide funding for the pop-up events which take place outside of the week. Email us if you’re interested in running a pop-up event!
These tools and resources to help support innovation, brainstorming and learning at The University of Edinburgh are part of the new Go. Make. Do. project. Email ilw@ed.ac.uk to learn more about this project.
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POP UPS Innovative learning doesn’t happen in just one week but is ongoing throughout the year. To support this, we have launched a year-long programme of pop-up events to help staff and students experiment with their ideas at any time. ‘Kelpies in the Quad’: Fun Palaces in Old College Quad event Fun Palaces is a UK-wide movement to make science and art more accessible and engaging within local communities. We collaborated with Beltane Public Engagement Network at The University of Edinburgh and Fun Palaces Scotland to take over Old College Quad to interact both with the community and the space in order to make the quadrangle more accessible. www.funpalaces.co.uk
Edinburgh Sustainability Jam The Global Sustainability Jam (GSJ) is a platform for people interested in a creative approach to sustainability to come together and develop viable solutions to a global sustainability issue. Launched by ECCI and Net Impact, the Edinburgh Sustainability Jam brought students, academics across all disciplines together to prototype solutions around sustainability. Many of these prototypes are being carried forward.
Build a Programme As a collaboration between Geosciences, ECA, and Institute for Academic development (IAD) - the ‘Build a Programme’ workshop hosted 30 academics, students, community partners and administrators to design & build an undergraduate programme based on the Teaching & Learning Vision in an afternoon. The hackathon method created a space to cut up course descriptions and create courses and a programme based on a new approach to learning.
Ed2020 Ed2020 is a community of practice for people interested in innovative approaches to learning at the University of Edinburgh. Created by a small group of staff and students, it provides a platform for student groups, staff, individuals, and others to engage with their learning in a different way. ILW has provided support for workshops and pilots which have come from the group, such as Dearest Edinburgh University.
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IMPACT Since 2012, staff and students have hosted nearly 2,000 creative learning events across the University. Each year, students and staff book over 5,000 tickets to take part in activities happening across the University. Many of these events have been one-off creations, but quite a few have gone off to have greater impact beyond the week.
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Wikipedia-thon
Teambuild
Held during ILW, the hugely successful Edinburgh Seven editathon, focused on the first women to be admitted on a degree programme at any British university. Based on the success of the Editathon, the achievements of the Edinburgh Seven were also recognised when a commemorative plaque was unveiled by Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs, at a ceremony in the University of Edinburgh’s Anatomical Museum in September 2015. The team now runs regular editathon meet-ups and The University of Edinburgh has recently become the first Higher Education institution in Scotland to advertise for a Wikimedian in Residence. The Wikipedia-thon will be running again this year during ILW.
Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) has hosted a unique student version of Teambuild, the cross-disciplinary construction competition providing a fast-paced test of real-life skills. The feedback and success of the event was so overwhelming that they are looking to build something more permanently into the curriculum. 40 students from a range of programmes related to the built environment that came together for the five-stage competition, which was held over two days during our annual ILW. The challenge was won by team ACE (Aspiring Construction Enterprise), a group of six students from the Universities of Edinburgh and HeriotWatt. The participants ranged from undergraduate to PhD level, which provided an extraordinary opportunity for peer learning and also offered a CPD (Continuing Professional Development) certificate for each participant, recognised by industry institutions. This will be running again this year during ILW.
iGEM At the 2015 event, the iGEM team designed a biosensor for detecting contaminants in street drugs and thanks to the multidisciplinary team really engaged with the ethical and political issues around implementing such a device. Over the summer the team interviewed drug policy experts, MSPs and held a public discussion about drug policy. To get more engineers and informaticians interested in biology the team also held a biohack where small teams competed to design software that would be useful to biologists, or healthcare professionals. The team participated in the iGEM Giant Jamboree in Boston in September, where 250 teams compete for medals and special prizes. Our team brought home a gold participation medal and an award for their approach to ‘policy and human practices’. iGem will be running again this year during ILW.
World Record, Rubik’s Cube Competition In 2015, ILW hosted a Rubik’s cube workshop, where a world-champion cuber taught people how to solve Rubik’s cubes. A student beat the world record by solving the 4x4 Rubik’s Cube while blindfolded. He smashed his previous record of 2 minutes 18.65 seconds to retain the title for a fourth time during a competition at the University of Edinburgh. This will be running again this year during ILW.
EUSay, Smart Data Hack Through the Smart Data Hack, two students responded to the challenge by Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) to create something that assists in promoting, supporting, and encouraging student representation. In 5 days, this small student team launched EUSay, an online platform designed to improve student representation by giving students an easier way to share your views. EUSA worked with EUSay by offering financial support over the summer to help with the development of the website. The website is now live and all students can access it to share their views and hopes for change within EUSA: eusay.eusa.ed.ac.uk. The Smart Data Hack will be running again this year during ILW.
Do you see what I see? An exploration of animal senses In ILW 2015, Vet student Katherine Cockle ran ‘ Do you see what I see: An exploration of animal senses’, an event set out to enlighten the audience on the sensory, some descriptions of the varying kinds, how it differs between species and the practical applications it performs. In addition to an interactive workshop, Katherine organised a falconry flying display in Old College Quad to demonstrate how their perceptions are different than ours.
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TESTIMONIES ILW could not happen without the help from all of our hardworking team behind the scenes which includes IAD School Coordinators and our amazing student and staff event organisers! Jonny Ross-Tatam
Johanna Holtan
EUSA President 2015-16
Lead Curator of ILW, IAD
Innovative Learning Week gives all of us a chance to think about what University is really for. Is it for filling us with knowledge of a specific academic field or developing ourselves to face the challenges of the modern world? The ‘Build a Programme event’ I attended was about just that. We looked at how we could build programmes that brought people from all parts of the University together to tackle common goals like climate change and poverty. That’s the kind of education we need!
While Innovative Learning Week has done some great things in the past few years, it has come with its fair share of challenges. We have spent the past year going back to basics - thinking about our goals, objectives, and scaffolding our new strategy with new opportunities and resources such as the Handbook and the ILW pop-ups. We have used various participatory and co-design tools to ensure that we are creating something that is meaningful to our community. ILW is a huge opportunity to invite staff and students from across the University to collaborate in ways that they might not do traditionally and we are using this year to experiment with different ways to support this through the theme Ideas in Play.
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Silje Graffer
Alex Maclaren
Projects Administrator of ILW, IAD
BA/MA Design Studio tutor and lead on Teambuild
My first year at University was the first year of ILW and as the years progressed I was impressed to see how the festival evolved and grew. Previous ILW weeks was spent frantically writing essays in the library whilst attending events when I felt like I had deserved a break. As I’m now being part of the core team behind making it all happen, experiencing ILW from both ends of the spectrum has been a learning experience in itself. Helping out the event organisers with the logistics as well as helping with the ILW meet-ups has been a great reminder of the amazing events that can happen when you bring people together and support them in an innovative environment. The excitement of the event organisers has reminded me that learning can be transformed in its methodology - and be anything but boring!
Julia Ramula First year of a degree in Structural Engineering with Architecture, a programme taught jointly across the School of Engineering and ECA, attendee at Teambuild At first I felt quite out of my depth, as the challenges involved using a wide range of knowledge and skills from different branches of the construction industry. However, working through the problems with people from different backgrounds and receiving valuable feedback from the judges along the way not only contributed to effective learning, but also made the experience great fun! Now I am also more confident in my decision to pursue a degree programme that spans two schools within the University, as having insight into both engineering and architectural perspectives means that I can apply myself flexibly.
The Construction Challenge provided students with a short, high-energy burst of experiencing what it is like to work in cross-disciplinary teams on a live real-world construction project. The event sought to address the perceived shortcomings of educating students in disciplinary silos, by preparing them for an integrally collaborative workplace. As with all the best ILW events, learning from the experience is now informing the way I plan and provide learning & teaching in the regular curriculum.
David McNaughton Graphic Designer The freedom to experiment, to enjoy the whole process and not be purely focused on the end result sounded so exciting to me. In my job (probably most jobs come to think of it) I’m entierly judged on these end results so I was keen to experiment. With the handbook we filled balloons with helium and exploded confetti cannons - it was a real party. We then built a Rube Goldberg machine that almost actually worked! It took 120 takes to film it but we got there! The most exciting thing for me was that I really tried to embrace the values of ILW, I didn’t sit behind the computer and mock up these scenarios instead I got stuck in, built physical sets, threw confetti and got frustrated at a slinky that wouldn’t go where it was supposed to. The Ideas in Play approach to design was challenging at times but massively rewarding!
Katherine Cockle Vet Student and ‘Do you see what I see? An exploration of animal senses’ organiser The event has given me the opportunity to engage my passion and creativeness, expand my community and organisation skills, and to nurture my confidence to network effectively. By encouraging me to collaborate with students from other schools and staff members in departments I would never have had cause to contact, as well as exploring the University services and facilitates the ILW team helped me to find a whole new world that I was not aware of and gave me the tools to feel like a professional that belonged within it.
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The publication is available online at www.ed.ac.uk/innovative-learning. It can also be made available in alternative formats on request. All photos and images used in this publication are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the University of Edinburgh. Š The University of Edinburgh 2015 The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.