The Ingenuity Hub

THE INGENUITY HUB

Developing a “Seamless Classroom” at the University of North Florida

By Jeff Chamberlain, Dean, Hicks Honors College, University of North Florida; Faculty Innovation Fellows Candidate

How can the University of North Florida ramp up innovation and collaboration among students and faculty in the post-pandemic world? Generation Z is the most digitally interconnected in history, but its members still hanker for personal interaction, so they need the opportunity to connect in person. UNF is committed to the idea of the “seamless classroom” — a space for learning that brings students together, capitalizes on their digital knowhow, connects them to the local and global community, and fosters innovation and new approaches to solving problems. If UNF can position itself as a model of the “seamless classroom,” it will become extremely attractive to bright, engaged, and dedicated students. So what would the “seamless classroom” look like?

A great model will be the “Ingenuity Hub” we are planning for the Hicks Honors College Learning/Living Center, which will include both a physical center and virtual collaboration space accessible 24/7. The Living/ Learning Center, with a tentative completion date of 2023, will itself be the focus of a ferment of ideas and innovation, since the integration of student residences with academic and learning spaces stimulates greater learning and creativity. The facility is being planned as a learning building — a state-of-the-art building (net zero on energy if possible) where all of us who reside and work learn to live more naturally, sustainably, and resourcefully.

At the very heart of the building — at the center and confluence of living and learning — will be the Ingenuity Hub. It will have a large touchscreen interface which showcases the collaborations going on using an integrated platform such as Bluescape — collaborations that will be taking place in the Hub, but also all over campus, in the Jacksonville community, and, indeed, from any connected device in the world. It will, in essence, be a classroom with maker space-type resources, high-tech wizardry, and the large touchscreen interface. The touchscreen, which will be visible to people walking along the corridor spines of the building, will draw people in, engage them, and help them see the connections and possibilities in a very tangible way. The Hub will be a portal of seamless connection and collaboration with the world.

The Ingenuity Hub is a project I am working on as part of my role as a Faculty Innovation Candidate with the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) program. It’s not the type of project I envisioned when I first became an academic. I am not a typical “tech geek” — I am a historian of Early Modern England. When I got into honors education, though, I became an advocate for multi- and interdisciplinary education. I worked with faculty (in Business, Engineering, and other disciplines which were pretty foreign to me) who were doing cutting-edge work with students, and I became enthralled with the opportunities to engage students in problem- solving using the latest collaboration technology. I understood how Humanities was vital to innovation because it was a window on the human condition, and helped engender the empathy which is so vital to Design Thinking, human-centered design, and other innovation approaches. I learned to let students lead the way in terms of keeping on top of the latest software and technological tools, and found that they were more motivated to engage when they were able to work in both a virtual and in-person environment.

I am working with designers, facilities managers, faculty, students, and donors to create a space for interaction and innovation that will encourage students engaged in interdisciplinary projects to solve some of the greatest problems locally and globally. A pilot is already beginning where UNF’s current cohort of student UI Fellows is working in an online platform to create the virtual aspects of the maker space. Even much of the planning of the physical space will be done through the online hub, where students, faculty, and staff can contribute ideas and innovations to be incorporated into the building and network. Using a platform like Bluescape, students and faculty can collaborate online by using all of the best tools of technology in one user-friendly virtual space. Designs can be laid out, plans structured, text added by keyboard or writing, documents and images shared (and accessed with one click), and even video conferencing in the same virtual space (you don’t have to toggle back and forth between video and planning space). Furthermore, the whole online collaboration space can be accessed on a large touchscreen connected to a computer, which then forms an interactive “collaboration wall” which others can access from computers or laptops in real time or asynchronously.

Once the Hub is up and running, students from Self and Society, an Honors first-year-experience course, will work collaboratively to create actionable projects to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Students who participate in the University Innovation Fellows program will coordinate their projects using the hub and network. And UN Millennium Fellows will use it to innovate, ideate, and develop their initiatives. Beyond this, the Hicks Honors College will invite faculty from across the university and a variety of other organizations (like Student Government) to use the Hub for projects and problem-solving exercises.

The Ingenuity Hub will work in association with the University’s STEP (“Solve, Tinker, Explore, Play) Lab in the College of Education and Human Services, the Carpenter Library’s Virtual Learning Center, and the Coggin College of Business’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The physical center will make available everything from LEGOs to computer-aided design programs, but will focus primarily on collaboration for innovation and social change.

Generation Z students expect to be actively engaged and involved. They are primed to innovate and are ingenious in applying technology to solve problems. We need to give them every tool we can and to keep them connected and engaged. The Hicks Honors College is ideally suited to creating this Hub: it recruits some of the brightest, most engaged undergraduates at the university; it is interdisciplinary in focus and can connect students and faculty from units across campus; and the Honors program is centered on engaged learning for the greater good. Our community and global partners are eager to join with us to collectively develop new plans and products for global sustainability.

Collaboration room using a Bluescape “blue wall” touch screen, courtesy of Bluescape