HokieTalks: Experiential learning and student success

Good evening, everyone. My name is Debbie Day and I serve as associate vice president alumni relations. When we're together, we practice social distance distancing protocols at Virginia Tech, which is wearing masks, staying six feet apart and wash their hands frequently. All of the presenters this evening are either at their home or office computers by themselves. And so I will now ask everyone to remove their masks. I want to extend a warm welcome to our alumni and community members from all over the country. Tonight we have folks from the east coast to the west coast, from Virginia to California. Thank you for joining our third and our third hook. You talk with the season to hear about how it through Oriental learning support students success at Virginia Tech. It's wonderful to have so many alumni friends repeat a new attendees, other friends and colleagues with us this evening. The purpose of our hokey Talk program is to engage audiences of faculty, their teaching in their research. And these aren't just any faculty, their extraordinary faculty. They're making a difference in the lives and success of our students and living-learning environments. Working with industry partners and in global outreach. The healthy Talk series include this year, include four programs throughout the year. Our first two hokey talks focused on Virginia Tech's coded 19 response, one around testing and equipment, and the other was focused on current policies and practices. We'd ask you to mark your calendar for our last hokey talk, which will take place on March 24th. And it will focus on contemporary issues around social justice. Tonight Tokyo Talk is in collaboration with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Architecture and Urban studies, and the Institute for creativity, arts and technology were honored this evening to have Dr. Rachel Hathaway, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs as their facilitator of this evening. In this role, racial ever sees the strategies, programs, and resources that support the undergraduate educational experience at Virginia Tech through partnerships across campus. The goal is to provide a world-class education for all Virginia Tech undergraduates. Of course includes experiential learning, which is the focus of our program this evening, rachel arrived at Virginia Tech in 1989, having received a bachelor's degree in speech communication from Moorhead State University and a master's and doctoral degree in communication from Purdue University. She has taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses in public relations, crisis and issue management, communication theory and more. Prior to her current role, she progressed through academic, administrative, and leadership roles in the department of communication and the College of Liberal Arts and human sciences. And educator at heart. Rachel's love for teaching and her passion for the student experience has been recognized throughout her career at Virginia Tech, several administrative and teaching awards. Rachel, we're delighted to have you with us this evening and I leave the programming your capable hands now. Thank you so much, Debbie, unwelcome WHO keys? It's so great to be with you this evening. First, we have a few housekeeping items I want to cover. We plan to be here with you for about an hour this evening. And so I will introduce each of three presenters who will share a 10-minute hokey talk. And at the end of the third hokey talk, I'll facilitate question and answer sessions for all of the participants. So if you have a question during their presentations, please submit it with the Q and a button there at the bottom of your screen. And we'll try to get to as many questions as we can. And our friends and alumni relations will follow up with answers to questions that were not able to get to at that time. And so as we start this evening's discussion of experiential learning, I always, well, I always want to talk about this important vision that comes from beyond boundaries. As you see on the screen, we are envisioning that time when we have a land grant promise that is informing the educational experience for all of our students and experiential learning the topic tonight. Key strategy to bring that beyond boundaries, vision into reality, to engage our students both undergraduate and graduate in the land grant mission. And our motto, but pro sum that I may serve. Experiential learning really sits at the nexus of the missions of discovery learning and service. Experiential learning simply define is an approach to learning through which students apply knowledge in real-world settings to serve our communities and society and to better the human condition. Experiential learning is usually conducted in collaboration with an external partner. It's supervised by faculty and integrated into a student's overall experience. The learning outcomes that the students will achieve include enhanced disciplinary knowledge, as well as professional skills, things like working together an interdisciplinary teams, communicating effectively, developing professional attitudes and values, and gaining a greater understanding of the real-world contexts in which they will live and work. This evening's program will share three examples of experiential learning and its impact for our students and for, for their partners. Our first presenter is Lisa Tucker. Dr. Tucker as a professor and chair for interior design at Virginia Tech and teaches courses on sustainable design and upper-level division studios. She is a leed building design and construction and well accredited professional, which means she is highly skill in designing buildings and spaces that support healthier living. For all. Lisa is a registered architect in certified interior designer, practicing for 20 years, but especially specialization in sustainability and historic preservation. She holds degrees in architecture and architectural history from the University of Virginia and a PhD from the University of Missouri Columbia in architectural studies. Honored as the 2016 International Interior Design Association Educator of the Year. Lisa has been identified by design intelligence as a most admired design educator four times. Xi has received the Nancy McClelland Award and the pull ski prize. She is a fellow of both the American Society of Interior Designers and the interior design educators council. Tonight she will talk with us about an exciting project involving students in the design of learning spaces in the new residence hall. Creativity and innovation district. Welcome, Lisa. Thank you. Okay, let's get to the project. Alright. So thank you for coming to hear about this project that has been going on for the last couple of years with a group of students. And it really is an example of students doing actual design. We're on project that is being built. And interestingly, this project is also for students. So I'm just going to go through and talk about what that process has been like for the students. So first of all, this is the, a design-build project for a residence hall bat. And in particular, this learning community is focused on global challenges. So as you can imagine, that brings up issues of stress. And so one of the things the students were really focused on with the approach to this project was how to make an environment for people like them, for other students that would support them being able to tackle big world issues through a hands-on kind of approach. So this particular project involved 12 undergraduate students at all different year levels and wine graduate student. Most of the students were interior design majors. However, there was one transfer student in architecture from Germany. So to tell you, for all of you that are familiar with blacks, or the project site is located between Kent Street and OD Street, which is near downtown. This is a footprint of the building, just so you can kinda see the location on a map or blacks Berg. And then this is an enlargement. And this is part of a new initiative through the College of architecture and urban studies, where students get involved in designing particular spaces in new buildings that are being built on campus. And the sort of hands-on part of it is not only the design process, but they're also building things to go into these buildings. So therefore, projects. There is the lounge project which I'm going to go through with you that is connected to a courtyard, which was done by landscape architecture and interior design students. There's a faculty residence and then there's a maker space. So you can see those here as an external view. The building exterior both has changed a little bit since this conceptual view. But what you can see in the center there is that all glass wall is where the lounge is actually located. It's an a two-story space and it had solid glass. So those were two of the issues that we had to deal with to make sure that it was a comfortable space. So the format, basically we met weekly as a class, we met every Monday. The students then decided that wasn't enough. So they also met on Wednesdays and other times. We had multiple group critiques, which we call him out. And they got lots of input a. So I'm going to talk a little bit about that because the input wasn't always consistent. And part of what they had to do is navigate the process of how do you take conflicting opinions and come up with a solution and added to that they had to design as a teen. So all 13 of them work together on this project instead of doing individual presentations. The clients were the university architect at Virginia Tech student affairs. We had at the time a commissioner of big sticky projects. He is now his title as the director of space. And then the real client was the students themselves that are going to live in this community and use this lounge. And you can see here is an early one of those critiques where they were presenting to another person who oversaw one of these lounges on campus. The students got together and decided how they were going to form their team, what their individual roles we're going to be, and what your combined with this, what they felt like their strengths were, and what they felt like they needed to learn. And you can see they put all this up on the chalkboard and came up with roles and who was going to do by. And what I found really interesting is what they most wanted to learn was how to work with a real client. They definitely got that. They've gotten more than they wanted out of that. They also wanted to learn how to design within a budget, how to coordinate with mechanical and the other parts of the building besides just design. So one at the very first things they did was they went out to the site. As I said, this is a design build. The project was actually under construction before somebody in interior parts were designed. Said they visited bat. They also did walkthroughs of other lounges on-campus and various residence halls to see how these worked. The conceptual approach that they came up with. They wanted to create a soothing and healing environment for the students that would be engaged in these hard issues. And so they look to the New River as a source of inspiration and came up with this idea of converging rubbers to provide for a way of bringing nature into the space and creating a healing environment for the students that used at. They then use this as a way that they would divide the space. The room itself is used in two different ways. First of all, it choose to per individual study and small groups, group meetings, which is the top diagram. And then it's also used for weekly lectures, which is the bottom diagram. And the tricky part is all of the furniture had to be stored within this space when it was being used in the various formations. So this shows you a VW, one of their preliminary views on the inside of the space. And you can see they created these copies where students could have individual workspaces, but then also we're furniture could be tilted up into the copies and stored when it was used as a latch or say, the other thing you'll notice is it's two stories. It's a berry tall space for the size of the round. And it was all concrete. So they created this ceiling feature made out of fell so that they could handle controlling the noise in the space, and also to provide some privacy from that corridor on the second floor level where people can sit there or stand there and look down into the space on the students. So it was a combination of noise control, lowering the ceiling in the way that it felt, and then also providing for some level of privacy. The, one of the things that is happening right now with this project is the modular furniture that they designed as being constructed. These tables split down so you can use them as tables, or they can flip up onto the wall so that they are used as whiteboards. The other thing that you'll see our LCD screens that have been installed to have a live feed of the New River at various locations. So the students can have that direct understanding of what's happening in the New River. And then there's also a green wall which is shown to. There's research that shows that this will help improve the indoor air quality of the space. And that shows you their design for the ceiling feature, also inspired by the New, wherever it what happens is it has sensors on it. This is also being built right now. And those sensors respond to the noise level in the space. And then the ceiling will actually change to be more absorbent of noise when it needs to be. And the last piece was related to the materials and furniture that the students selected for the space. And all of it is sustainably certified materials. They looked for things that did not off-gas or create any kind volatile or DNA compounds in the face. And it was really important that all of its support this mission of creating a healthy interior environment. The final presentation took place in December of 2019. If you think back to that was right before the coded pandemic that we're now in the middle love. And so that's why they aren't wearing masks. They were still allowed to be in person. On the left hand side you see our director a big sticky projects. The student affairs people are in the audience as. Our people from the university architects. And this is just a detail of one of the students presenting to one of the attendees. And the project right now, as I said, is under construction. I have a meeting tomorrow to address the finalization of the ceiling feature which is being built and needs to be installed. And so I will just we you they are. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much, Lisa. We really appreciate that. Our second hokey talk will be delivered by AKI a cheetah. He is Associate Professor of Architecture and also a senior fellow of Virginia Tech's Institute for creativity, arts and technology, what we call icecap, where she collaborates with engineers and artists. She also serves as director of intelligent infrastructure for human centered communities, universities cross college initiative. She founded Aki Yoshida architect PLL C in New York City. And prior to that, she worked in several architectural offices. Aki earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Minnesota, master of science and advanced architectural design from Columbia University. Prior to Virginia Tech, she taught design studios and several prestigious institutions in the US and in Korea. Her work has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships. She's also been recognized by Virginia Tech and nationally with numerous teaching awards and accomplishments and as one of 25 most admired educators in 2016 by design intelligence, Aki will share how she and her team of transdisciplinary faculty and students have collaborated with steel case to improve the stressful environments of intensive care units. Thank you for being here off. Thank you, Rachel, and thank you everybody for joining us today or tonight. I'd like to tell you about a collaborative research project in which a team of faculty and students came together to examine the future of workspaces for medical professionals. Doctors and nurses work under highly, highly, highly stressful situations. Their work hours are long and varied and they complete highly technical, complex tasks. And yet at the same time, they must be emotionally available and empathetic to the patients and their families. So we asked ourselves, how can the design of physical environment and integration of digital technologies impact clinicians daily work experience. We worked with sponsored Steel Case, a staircases leading office furniture manufacturer in the US. But they are interested in much more than office furniture. When Andrew Kim, a manager and designer SDO case, learned about icecap and reached out to see if we can collaborate. He wanted to know how information flow, as well as design of work environment can impact performance and well-being of people that work there. This team of faculty and students were assembled by Ai cap, Aj cat, or institute for creativity arts and technology is one sticks cross college initiatives at Virginia Tech. I can't brings together faculty and students from across multiple colleges to collaboratively solve problems or create design projects. If you imagine colleges as silos with deep expertise, institutes, cross cut them to bring together multiple perspectives to a single project. So that the two Director Tom Martin and then nap, brought together our team, which includes sarah parker from Curly I'm Clinic Center for simulation and her students, PhD candidate in psychology, Vivian. And we have four people from architecture, design on the arts, to professors and one current student and one recent graduate and professor from computer science and his master's student. For our design ideas were largely based on observations and interviews that were conducted by all of us. But Debian, Psychology PhD candidate, did an extensive amount of interviews at the Creeley on hospital, interviewing over 20 people over eight hours and conducting 16 hours of observations following these clinicians throughout their workday. And then she would ask questions such as tell me a story of a specific incident or event at work when you and your team were in sync. And she would ask about emotions associated with those incidents and ask what type of resources may have been helpful in that situation. We that the designers and also one of the team members, some steel case conducted observations of the, in this case the ICU Intensive Care Unit floor. And this is at the Creeley in Roanoke Memorial Hospital. And this is typical of an ICU floor where you have a semi-circular nurse's station, from which you have direct sight lines into ten to 12 patient bedrooms. And here is where most record-keeping and communication between nurses and doctors take place. They also often conduct impromptu meetings to share information on a patient. This from here, they also need to keep an eye on the patient's vitals remotely through multiple screens that you see here. In the patient rooms. We observed how information is shared between clinicians and with patients. This is critical, especially at patient handover. Between shifts. Here we can see information presented on multiple displays of multiple modes. Some printed, some on screen that are visible to the nurses but not to the patient. You see a nurse showing Padlet to achieve a patient which I think it's very difficult for any of those people to read in those positions. We also found people, nurses, workstation on wheels parked in hallways or in other places where it could block traffic. That nurses also commented that it's difficult for them to focus on what they are typing we're reading because it can be very disruptive and there's very little privacy. In addition to doing observations at the hospital, we looked at other workspace precedence. These are workspaces in with detailed information are communicated and viewed. For example, air-traffic control stations or a pilot's cockpit. And we also looked at spaces that are that provide some privacy without having the people feel isolated. We also looked at delivery apps and ride share apps that give spatial awareness of where your driver or food delivery person is. And in this case with the hospital, It would be nice to know where your team members are, even if they are not within your cone of vision. So the challenges faced by clinicians in their work days had mostly to do with context, awareness and communication. They had to do with not understanding the context of the problem. Having lack of situational awareness and having strained communication. That we came up with various concept ideas and upon discussing amongst our team members as well as with our team members from steel case, we focused on several to develop further. And in developing these ideas and testing it. And iterations we brought, we really relied on skills and talents of our students. And in this case, somebody who had just graduated from our creative technologies degree program. He brought his experience in projection mapping techniques that allowed us to project static or moving images on any work surface that we mocked up. In this photograph on the left, the nurse's station we made out of foam core. Onto it. We projected multiple display screens. Which we could alter in position and scale based on feedback we received amongst ourselves. And in this case, Reza is a computer science graduate student. He created a virtual environment in which clinicians have situational awareness of spaces that they're not physically in or ones that they're about to enter so that they could anticipate who they might need to ask for help or what kind of equipments may be necessary. And finally, we had an undergraduate student from architecture and he's also monitoring in industrial design. We used his skills to build full-scale mock-ups of work environments that could easily be modified. These are not actual construction materials made out of paper and foam core. And we call this process in the field of design, we call this process body storming is similar to brainstorming, but not use or instead of using or, or in addition to using our brains, our, we use our physical bodies to think and test ideas. These are some of the examples of concepts that we carried further. One is modification of a side table that we often see in, see you are many hospital rooms. These tables are used during meals by patients, and they're also used to hold personal objects such as books, phones, and TV remote. And we asked what if we could use the surface as a touchscreen? And the patient could communicate with doctors or nurses even if they're not in the room. And they could also stay in touch with their family and friends. Use it as a Xun stream. And we use the simulation center facility, Corinthian to mach these up as full scale. And these side tables could also be used by clinicians, not just by patients, to hold impromptu huddle meetings. And they just aren't surfaces to write on with paper, but that you can share information, maybe be mirrored with your phone or mirrored with your workstation. So here again at the curly Anne Simpson Simulation Center, we mocked up in full-scale what these scenarios might look like. And this is what we call the charting pods. Charting is a task where nurses record what happened during their service with a patient. And these give privacy to nurses who are charting without having to go into a private conference room where they may be isolated from their team or in a completely open area like the nurse's station that they have now. And this was in July when we were, despite the pandemic, able to use the facilities at perihelion Sim Center to complete our last phase of our research. The strength of this collaboration lies in the assembly of team members in which no one discipline commanded decisions. Instead, we constantly informed one another of different viewpoints and made decisions collectively. This is a teeming with students for not simply assisting their professors, but became essential members of the team. They may require more guidance, but they also bring hard and soft skills that make them irreplaceable. And that in this case was the key to success in experiential learning. Thank thank you, Aki. I know I find all of those drawings inspirational. Thank you. Our third presenter is Dr. Azi RBI. Ozzie is a professor in the School of plant and Environmental Sciences and has been at Virginia Tech since 1987. While Ozzie find teaching and international work extremely rewarding, the aspect of her position that she prizes the most or interaction with students. As a professor, she strives to provide and foster opportunities for meaningful interaction locally and globally. For over 20 years, Ozzie has been involved in international research development and education. One of our most highly valued endeavors was a project in Senegal focused on human and institutional capacity and agricultural teaching, research, training and outreach. This project serve the needs of the single-use public and private sectors, including farmers at all levels. Her research focus, which also strongly supports or outreach and teaching efforts, has been in conservation, agriculture and agricultural systems and crop diversification. She has won many university-wide and international awards for outreach, research, and teaching. As he's presentation this evening is entitled experiential learning, local origin, global impact. Welcome Ozzie. Thank you re Catherine, thank you. Focus for joining and this is really a pleasure to be with you. And this is just a wonderful opportunity. And to start with it that we have been looking at causes, effects and solutions to food insecurities. And both in the classroom and in villages in Senegal and generally in West Africa. And some of that, that the problems associated food insecurities, as you see here, our lunch degradation, lack of large land areas for farming. Evenness school said where I had been. Engaged in heavily. When we talk about school garden and school gardens, they say they don't have land resources. And the other thing that, that obstacle solute throughout Africa is plastic. Plastic, huge impact, environmental impact on agriculture, soils, and generally the environment. So in the fall and I teach a Avi, allow me to interrupt, please for just a minute. You need to share your screen. I am I happy and sharing my screen. Erica. What? I'm sorry. That's quite all right. Thank you. So I am not sure that I instead of starting over, I think I'm just going to continue from where I stopped. So as I said that, that we have been looking at causes effective solutions to food insecurity both in classroom and in villages in West Africa. And some of that, that the issues that heartbeat, that, that 90 degradation, Landry, so slack of land resources and huge plastic problem. So I teach in the four course in agriculture, global food security, and health. In that class that students are required to do service learning projects in several service learning projects. And this year, obviously that because of covert or our virtual, One of the students that are showing in the circle here that Brennan, I talked about this in class that I had been trying to do are to introduce the spool gardens in Senegal. And there have been saying that they don't have the land, you don't have a space to do it. So Brendan, cleverly that came up with a solution. And it's not only that he put all these recycled bottle green WAN concept, but He also that, that, that he videotaped the entire process. He made a brochure and he also made it adaptable to snuggle. And so I took it to Synagogue. And you can see that that Iranian and took all the information Brandon gave me and took it to Senegal and introduce it to and different villages. And you can see here that, that, that the young, the young boy that, that and putting the, the, the bottle attaching. This is a vertical wall that, that now is going to be used actually to produce food. As you can see that the next day that I went to the village, the entire wall, as you can see, who's with bottoms. And then after 23 days, I mean, there was about, about after a week, the teacher told me that the students cannot stand sitting in a classroom anymore and they like to go out and look at the plants. So these are all visual. Vegetable crops. And so eventually that, that right now are they telling me that that is all greening up? So the other thing that as an example of that simple tools, big impact, I teach a course, forage crop ecology course, that indeed we also use simple too, like measuring sticks to assess forage production and relate to that animal performance. So when we went to Ecuador and the students are doing service learning projects, Logan, who was in that class, introduces measuring stick to the farmers there. And he was here that demonstrating how to use these measuring sticks to us as forage, not only forage production, also how that is related to animal performance. So we took the same tune to Senegal. This is that, that college students are actually using the same tool to assess our pastures in associated their class work. And in 2013, we took students to Seneca. And in Senegal that they were all engaged in service learning projects. You can see here that some of them are heavily engaged with students that came from other universities to join them. In the community center chart, here's a chopping grass for ages that two inside and hear that the students introduced school garden. And what really that turn out to be that the most significant of this service learning project was that one of the students that Catlin was a forage in avoid remember forage communities here in the US and what? In in Virginia. And so she was very determined that she would introduce the 4H positive youth development principles. She was very determined, sir, when we got to the villages, she start actually that exercising that with the students or introducing one principle after the other. And what is interesting is that, that ever since then that, that these projects had ended and has achieved a great deal of success in that country. And also involved a lot of our extension spatial is going there in training deepen just last month that the synagogue Ministry of Higher Education at adapted for h and all his principles for Senegal. And we also said, not necessarily service learning projects, but it's in a lot of study abroad programs, a high-impact programs here. This one is in South Africa where we have been taking students with my colleague Mark writer and the students that, that tell us what it meant to them. And again, that when we talks to take students or these countries, we are to, we are trying to look at all aspects that using agricultural lands. And so the students are saying that most of the time they tell us that that is impacted live forever. And what is really the most interesting that, that is one of the students, not only that, that short-term impact, that, that what you say that when you go to a country in LaTeX for something different, you say that, well, this changed my life forever. But it really is that recently we got this email from a student who wait on this program five years ago. He's saying that actually these change his entire career and then what she really wanted to do in the future. So this is again that high impact. We also, that we had experiments going on that both in, in Virginia, in Senegal for the last few years. This experiment was mung beans. And mung bean. It's a graduate student's project here, that this is a graduate student in synagogue. Here is the graduate students and blacks Burge, The School of plant and Environmental Sciences. And she, Jessica, actually mentor students as weren't undergraduate students. It's got an scholarship through cause. And those two graduate students are mentored. What we don't see in the picture is, is just Josh, Joshua map. So this is students to, students are mentored by, to graduate students. So we are hoping that, that they would go to Senegal in, in May or June to share their findings. And so I, I teach a course on World crops in cropping systems. And we talk about crops and where they are with the grow in a world where they are adapted to, where they consume the most and the most exciting, exciting part actually about the course that the students love is the eating part, that cultural aspect that The Food Lab brings. So because of qubits that was interrupted bed. We actually that, that wanted to continue to connect with the students with wide we have separated. We just could not let that one go. And so thanks to the yeah. Added communication team, they had me to move to a virtual platform and to zoom, zoom and Facebook. So we cooked every week, connected that. What is really fascinating about this is that I gained thousands of former students joint, which I did not expect. A lot of students that have not heard for a long time joined in and add that actually that, that was just a totally that surprising outcome of this whole thing. And the students also that take the course the previously that, that they liked the idea of that, that making this food. And, and also on a weekly basis. And if we talk about corn. We make all these homeless. Pisa has cultural aspect. So if we make maintenance, we usually celebrate Indian holidays. So the students say that they actually like going from country to country on a weekly basis. And so it also is that opening up their mind about eating blend and other crops that, that they usually not part of the Dutch. And the other that, that aspect of this online teaching, that, that was very heartwarming for me personally, that, that sum of, so what the students that I got out of it, the former students, Robin and Collin Whittington, where the former students in, in this case, that it is not about the cooking of the boot. What Robin is saying is that, that seeing me cook in the classroom and in my kitchen, the kitchen that she knows. Jelly brought a lot of memories and the food itself wrote back to Virginia Tech. So that whole experience was just beyond cooking and beyond that about the food. It was a lot of emotion and a lot of a lot of contracts that involve. So I was I was very grateful that I was made possible for me to continue cooking the zoom, zoom. And so and I really time, thank you for allowing me to share this. It is very easy to connect or these different dots through experiential learning when you talk about food and agriculture. So it's been, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much Azi. We appreciate all the great pictures of the students in the work. So now that we've heard from all three presenters, it's time to take your questions. So remember, if you have questions for the presenters, please put them down in the Q and a there at the bottom of the screen, a box will pop up and you can send them. And so I'll be asking our presenters to reflect on a first question and then we'll turn to some of yours. And really starting with where Ozzie left us and Lisa, I guess I'll come to you first. I think our motors and participants recognized that much of this work started before covert, but then continued coming forward. Is that change? So Lisa, how did you adapt to the pandemic and drawing from that experience, will it change how you teach in the future? That's actually a really good question because we are at the stage now where we are trying to construct mockups of these actual the ceiling and the furniture pieces. And I think one of the, the obvious answer is it drove everybody to zoom. So we've been having a lot of Zoom meetings, which, you know, and I think we're all getting tired of Zoom in a certain way, but it's also facilitated. Getting people together on a regular basis. When we actually, the first official class was the fall of 2019, and the second official class is now. So inbetween, a lot of things were just handled using Zoom meetings to be honest. That's it. It getting together to make things when you aren't in person is challenging. Okay. Have you seen similar challenges that there were some challenges that we face in this particular project. We had wanted to engage the clinicians in testing out these full-scale mock-ups, which we weren't able to do and we tested them amongst ourselves. And that was in July. I remember that was one of the first times that I worked with my colleagues with masks on socially distance as much as possible indoors. I think it, it proved to us that some face-to-face interactions are possible. But it still does limit being able to interact with our other collaborators and users aware of what we design. It certainly brought to light the importance of working on issues that we were studying in these with these clinicians. I had more immediate understanding of what clinicians go through when we see images on television. And it brought a sense of urgency to our work with conditions. Thank you. Yes, we've all been seeing those images. It resonated. So with me to think about the stress of those health care workers and how you all are working to support that. Ozzie you shared, you know, that you move to zoom back in the spring. When we made the quick pivot, do you see a place for it in your teaching when we're beyond the pandemic and we're all waiting for that day. How, how may it change your teaching for the future? What I was really, I think that that you heard me say this barrier is that foot. I was really upset because I really love being in the classroom and seeing the students saying. And by the fall course there, the cooking class, it served its purpose at the time. But I wanted to go back to the food lab where the students actually cook and share food with each other and understand and appreciate the cultural aspect of all these crops. But in the fall for the class that I taught in Nepal. Global food security and health where, where we actually that way they required to do service learning projects. We end up getting actually more service learning projects. And, and also that the students also end up connecting with the people that the service providers more frequently. And on via phone zoom. There was actually more interaction. I found out this way. So I am actually that changing that to zoom platform that next time. That what yeah. Yeah. We are learning a lot. That's for sure. Ok. We have a question from one of our viewers about the ICU Project. And the question is, what will be done with it now? Will still Steel Case create or use this in their hospital product production. It's very possible. We are discussing how to move forward in our next phase. We didn't immediately move to that phase after the summer. But based on our agreement with steel case, they are free to develop our designs and hopefully in that process they would continue to engage us. So Lisa, there's a question about the residence hall. I think we're all waiting to know the answer to this. When will it open? When will it be avoided an open? That's a great question. My understanding unless that it's changed recently, is that it is to be open and occupied for the fall of 2021. So our installation of items is to be done this summer. Sounds great. But this is a question Ozzie, for you, and we'll ask all three of you to answer this because it's always an interesting question for folks. Ozzy, How do you grade students in this kind of experiential learning and buyer? One, for the service learning projects that, that there's two ways of that assessing that. And one is that they they they are assessed by the service providers. I rely on their input. I am in constant in touch with them. And the other part is that the students actually submit reports as when submit reports to fulfill the requirements and Azuela's report to the Saturdays, the people that that that providing the service. Thanks. Lisa. You had I think what 13 students are 14 in that team. How does grading happened in that environment? The way that I did it was throughout the whole process, I had them doing individual reflections on where they felt like they were learning are meeting their personal goals and where they weren't. And then they also periodically, I think I did it three different times. They assess their other team members. And by the end, the assessment up the other team members, they also had to be willing to share their assessment with the team members as opposed to just. And entertaining to me kind of thing. So, and of course, there was lots of feedback from the external people that we are working with as well. So that played in some as wow. Yeah, ikea, I think your project was primarily research though I don't know of grading is really relevant there. So now I have worked on sponsored projects where students were given credit and they were graded. And it was very similar to the process that Lisa went through it. But in this case, they were actually funded by in various different ways. Some of them are graduate students and some of them were undergraduate students paid by the hour. Hey, thank you. This is a question lots of people have asked. So what are your tips? To engage students in the enzyme to move them from being observers to participants. Any thoughts on that? Ozzie, I'll start with you. That's not a good way to start with ME because it's such a difficult one. Really, it's difficult to, to, to engage you now students via Zoom. Because I have learned to, to engage students in person or so many, so many years. And I think that probably that, that if I actually continue using the platform, I probably be good at it. Bad right now. And I must say that I'm not good at it. I bet you're better than Thank you. Lisa and Aki, you know, one of the things that's happened is those students are working probably together on zoom and other places when you're not president. So have we learned things, tips from them about how to engage in the online platforms. The thing that I would share that I have found because I hate speaking to myself and that's what it feels like when you teach on zoom. So I cameras on. That's the first thing. The second thing is I have started doing little breakout rooms and the middle, like, let's say it's a lecture class just randomly giving them a question to go talk about. And then they, then I can actually see that they're not falling asleep or whatever might be happening. So I'm not saying that it works perfectly and it's not the same as being in person, but it does seem to work somewhat. So we have just a couple of minutes left and there's a really wonderful question I'm glad to see it was asked him and would like your each of your reflections on this. And Aki, I'll start with you. Okay, how does experiential learning fit into curriculum design? Are these courses elective or the core courses? How, how do we make sure that experiential learning is part of the degree for every Virginia Tech student. I think there are different ways to set up experiential learning. In the case with steel case, we were able to handpick the students we wanted to work with. In, if it were to be in a required class, we would have a wider range of talent and skills and students. So I think that the we would probably work under an agreement that we are working with students to, not to deliver a very specific deliverable, but to open different possibilities. And I think that's what students are really grayed out. And they don't necessarily have to be the most talented students in the class to able to do that. So I think there are ways, different ways to set up for success with experiential learning. And Lisa, it's embedded part of the curriculum. It sounds like your experience. Can you say a little bit about that breadth of student participation as OK, he's just mentioned. Sure. The project that I presented was anybody that wanted to sign up for that was able to take it as a professional elective, but we do it as a part of our, an integrative part of our studio experience. They are always throughout the curriculum. At some level, we'll have a project with a real client. Now, like Aki said, we aren't promising them professional design outcomes. That's not the goal of it. It really is about learning how to give somebody what they want instead of what you think they should have a certain way. So it is an important part of our curriculum. And Ozzie, I know you said, you know, this service learning has been part of your courses for some time now. Do you imagine that will be central to the full curriculum? I'm yeah, I'm Hopi. So right now in my classes that that expansion learning experience, imbedded foods or community service learning projects or of the study abroad. Bad, I am currently working at least one course, standalone, focusing on experiential learning. And I can't really say enough about exponential learning. It is, it is seeing, touching, feeling, you know, and it just connects every single dots that running around in our head into one, you know, one big duck. So it is we, I think that, that now the universities have now that all of the sudden I forgot her name. Woman who's in charge of that? Vicki. And I've been getting reserve frequently that to work on horses. Yes, I, you know, it really is going to be exciting to see how this evolves at the university. It's really exciting work and thank you each for everything you've done to bring experiential learning to your students and for sharing that tonight. So I'll turn it back over to Debbie. I know we're right at the top of the hour. And I again, my appreciation for your sharing tonight. Thank you. We are right at the top of the hour and thank you all very much for joining in a Rachel. It was very special to have you with us facilitating tonight. And of course, Lisa, lisa, aki, and Ozzie. Thank you for the incredible valuable, credibly valuable experience that you're offering to our students. We appreciate your willingness to share tonight, so thanks again. I'd like to shout out to my some of our partners, Leslie York and University Relations is my partner in crime. And we work with many other partners and university relations and special events and others. And a special thank you to cows. And that helps of Agriculture and Life Sciences, College of architecture and urban studies. And I cat tonight for being part of, part of this program. Thank you the audience for joining in. We wish you a happy spring, although it seems like it might be just a little ways away. Hope that you join us on March 24th for our next hokey talk. And good night and go whoa, keys. Thanks everybody.

1:01:18 HokieTalks: Experiential learning and student success

By:

Dominique Benjamin

5 Feb 2021 56

Join us to learn how Virginia Tech students are getting hands-on, real world experiences in our latest HokieTalk.

Experiential learning provides students the knowledge and skills they need for successful careers. Students work alongside faculty, fellow students, and community members on real-life research, design, and implementation experiences.

During this HokieTalk, we'll explore projects where students gained first-hand experience, including work on edible crops in Senegal, the Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology's Steelcase ICU project, and the design of the Virginia Tech Creativity and Innovation District.