SXD Lab prepares to design scalable experiential learning

What’s new in the Lab?

Forty-three Ontario post-secondary students began work last month with eCampusOntario’s Student Experience Design (SXD) Lab, a student-led innovation hub tackling some of the most complex issues in Ontario higher education.

The challenge for this year’s cohort is to design a series of flexible templates for post-secondary experiential learning. By the end of the Lab’s term, these templates will be refined under the guidance of industry and higher education professionals. They will be openly licensed for use by any Ontario post-secondary institution interested in incorporating workforce relevant skills competencies into curriculum.

Industry and education contacts alike have identified experiential learning as being a valuable strategy for developing students that are workplace-ready.

How does the project work?

eCampusOntario team members and experiential learning experts from the higher education community have created a methodology for designing experiential learning opportunities. Using that methodology, students will create their own templates, based on their discipline and the personal insight they bring to the project.

Educators and industry contacts will be on-hand to guide them. To inform the creation of these templates, lab students and staff will lead a user-focused research process to better understand what makes an optimal, high-quality experiential learning process.

Why now?

“Students are the demographic that experiential learning is targeted towards,” says Chris Fernlund, Student Supports Lead at eCampusOntario. “They are the actual end-users and there’s nobody better to tell you what their experience was like and how it shaped their learning. It’s crucial that they have input into a system that’s really designed to serve them.”

For more information, view the SXD Lab’s website.