L&S Curricular Connections

In this hands-on, project-based class in collaborative innovation, students will experience group creativity and team-based design by using techniques from across the disciplines of business, theatre, design, and art practice. They will leverage problem framing and solving techniques derived from critical thinking, systems thinking, and creative problem solving (popularly known today as “design thinking”). The course is grounded in a brief weekly lecture that sets out the theoretical, historical, and cultural contexts for particular innovation practices, but the majority of the class involves hands-on studio-based learning guided by an interdisciplinary team of teachers leading small group collaborative projects. Students will experience observation, problem-framing, divergent and convergent thinking, iterative solution testing, improvisation, storytelling, devised theatre, and public speaking and presentation activities. By engaging in these activities, the course provides students with the opportunity to develop new mindsets, skill-sets and toolsets for use in collaborative innovation efforts.