Introducing the Pathways to Innovation SIG

The Pathways to Innovation SIG met for the first time on 9 March, 2023. The SIG’s name reveals its dual focus:

  • Pathways: We focus on implementing the fundamentals by exploring tools, pedagogies, and strategies that you can take away and easily replicate.
  • Innovation: We think creatively and strategically about how each of these tools, pedagogies, or strategies can be adapted or combined, with their affordances plumbed for opportunity.

Our first guest speaker was lecturer in Nursing and TechDems Champions, Jo Southern.  Jo shared her love of Kahoot, before then introducing us to one of her innovations: an online escape room created using Google Forms.

  • Kahoot: Jo had noticed that attendance at tutorials declined throughout the course of the semester. Her aim in using Kahoot was to address this, with a particular focus on Week 13. Consolidating course content and skills, Jo used Kahoot as a form of gamification of learning, with students enticed to attend the final tutorial to be part of the Kahoot quiz with a swish certificate awarded to the victor. Students entered into the fun of the activity, which was judged successful both for the number in attendance and the heated competition it evoked.
  • Google Forms: Also focussing on tutorial attendance, whilst additionally focussing on the consolidation and extension of knowledge, Jo used Google Forms to step students through a nursing scenario, with questions asking students about the actions they would take. Students experienced the outfolding of the simulated scenario in a life-like manner – making one decision at a time.

We thank Jo for sharing her practice – something which inspired us all!

Ideation: Thinking about pathways to innovation

Also at the meeting, Julie Lindsay led an ideation activity encouraging participants to share approaches to innovation around educational technologies and how they might leverage alternate pedagogies.

Key take aways from this engaging discussion included:

  • Identifying time and money as barriers to innovation.
  • Solutions may be found through Educators in Residence or grants.
  • Exploring pedagogies/frameworks such as SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition), affordance theory, and involving students as co-designers and users.

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