The Mi:Lab November Newsletter

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Mi:Lab

3 min readNov 27, 2020

Hello and welcome to Mi:Lab’s Newsletter! Mi:Lab is an Innovation Lab based in Maynooth University that takes a human-centred design approach to exploring and tackling challenges within the higher education system. This monthly newsletter is for anyone interested in designing new and better ways of doing and experiencing traditional higher education in Ireland.

Mi:Lab News

We are delighted to have two articles published in the latest issue of AISHE Journal. Vol. 12 №3 (2020): Special Issue: The Impact of COVID-19 on Irish Higher Education (Part 1).

The Potential of Design Thinking to enable Change in Higher Education

Socially Distanced Higher Education: Student and Staff Experiences of Teaching and Learning during the Covid-19 Lockdown.

What we’re reading/watching/listening to:

Higher Ed

Education is Over by William Rankin. The Former Director of Learning at Apple writes his rallying call for educators to engineer a new system of learning based “on human development, learning, wisdom and the growth of human well-being” over our crumbling status quo of instructionism and knowledge transference.

The Reshaping Education Podcast from Virtually Inc. We especially enjoyed the episode: Learning through Practice w/ Megan Underwood about project-based learning.

Students use design to tackle systemic racism at Stanford from the d.school’s ‘Designing Courageous Conversations for Impact’ series. Racism in Higher Education is something we all need to be actively working to dismantle and the d.school have devised workshop tools including “I used to think…now I think” and “Imagine an attainable future” activities aimed at encouraging courageous conversation and a bias towards action.

My University Life, Fridays RTE, 7:30pm We’ve also enjoyed MyUniLife which follows seven students across Ireland who have overcome unique personal barriers to attending and graduating university.

Creativity

We’re currently loving the bitesize storytelling potential of TikTok — we’re seeing students using the app to express their authentic thoughts about learning and being a young person during the pandemic. This TikTok below is about thoughts during zoom calls!

This one is a short ‘coming of age’ parody/pastiche.

Mmhmm is a new digital tool (video below!) to help create engaging presentations and spruce up your slide decks!

The Storm of Creativity by Kyna Leski. Leski describes the moments in the creative process when we need to take a pause. A storm “passes, dissipates, and scatters” (2015:143) and so must we through unlearning and beginning again.