by Sarah McDonald
Victoria Peel
Felix Nobis
and Thomas Carey
In a previous post, we introduced the application of our WINCan work in Australia, where a team at Monash University in Melbourne aims to support B.A. students in developing capability for Human-Centred Workplace Innovation. In this post, we’ll highlight three key ideas being explored at Monash to help those students engage Interdisciplinary Ways of Knowing as part of their innovation capability:
Ways of Knowing developed in traditional B.A. discipline areas – in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences – are a natural fit with Workplace Innovation as a human, creative and social process.
·Students can engage with Workplace Innovation examples and issues in teaching and learning experiences from multiple disciplinary areas of study.
·Work-Integrated Learning opportunities in Human-Centred Workplace Innovation can support students in integrating their disciplinary ways of knowing into their innovation capability
Human-Centred Workplace Innovation as an example of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching
We believe this interdisciplinary area may be of particular importance in revitalizing the value proposition for generalist B.A. (and B.Sc.?) programs, and we will demonstrate some of the distinctive contributions from various disciplines in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences – reflecting the nature of Human-Centred Workplace Innovation is an inherently human, creative and social endeavour. The “business case” for a Faculty of Arts to consider Workplace Innovation as a signature interdisciplinary capability for graduates is outlined further in this earlier WINCan blog post:
The 'ways of knowing' cultivated in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences provide distinctive lenses for seeing the world and tools for engaging with the world. Students engage with these ways of knowing through the curriculum we design; a curriculum which further shapes these distinctive lenses. Liberal arts curricula provide unique opportunities for boundary learning – and the development of the capabilities valued by the workplace (in both the short and long term).
While study in majors develops disciplinary skills, knowledges and dispositions, the boundary learning that occurs within B.A. curricula develops the capacity to look beyond the rituals, the familiar, the known; developing the kinds of creative, innovative and flexible capabilities desired by prospective employers, hungry for a workforce able to cope with the needs of the Future of Work.
In addition to the interdisciplinary contributions of our Monash leadership team – from Higher Education Management, Languages and Literatures, Software Development, Theatre, and Tourism Management – initial pilot projects with WINCan partner universities in Canada have included academic staff in English, History, Psychology, Design and Engineering.
Interdisciplinary Teaching to Support Development of Workplace Innovation Capability
Since Human-Centred Workplace Innovation is one of the strategic areas being fostered in Monash Arts as a cross-curricular initiative, we are particularly keen to engage academic staff from across the Faculty. Here are two of the approaches we are currently exploring:
Using our academic “workplace for learning” to allow academic staff across disciplines to create experiences for learners to engage with and reflect on workplace innovations. In addition to applying disciplinary ways of knowing to understand and develop workplace innovation projects, these experiential learning opportunities can include new practices such as reflective practice on innovation experiences within our course units. This work builds on insights from WINCan 2017 pilot projects in B.C.
Supporting learners – including academic staff and other educators! – in understanding the workplace innovation issues specific to their work domains. For example, Vicki and Tom are working on a module to illustrate this domain-specific approach via an exploration of issues in human-centred workplace innovation in the work domain of Tourism as an Intercultural Experience. Students collaborating with academic staff to introduce innovations in their teaching – as outlined below – will also be exposed to the specific issues of wariness around innovation for both students and academic staff.
Integrating Interdisciplinary Ways of Knowing in Work-Integrated Learning Opportunities
We believe that an interdisciplinary area such as Human-Centred Workplace Innovation can lead to new work-integrated learning opportunities with our students and to new partnership opportunities with workplaces across sectors (e.g., Corporate, Public and Social/Community).
Our development of complementary units for Understanding…Concepts and Cases (ATS2211) and for the Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) in the Project Studio ( ATS3173) has led to a “WIL-full” design approach. For example, in the Understanding unit we have encountered trade-offs between the normal Overview content of an introductory course and developing specific skills through which students can contribute distinctive value in workplace setting in the subsequent WIL unit. This potential for adding new value in WIL placements is a key element in the Monash plan to create new WIL opportunities for B.A. programs not targeting a specific work domain.
Creating these meaningful WIL opportunities also requires new partnerships with both students and employers.
For our students, we will be supporting them in reframing experiences with innovation in our own Teaching & Learning workplace to highlight relevance for the workplace, e.g., reframing past roles in Students as Partners in Teaching and Learning projects into Students Partners as Catalysts for Knowledge, Learning and Innovation.
For many of our workplace partners, their efforts to specify, develop and leverage Capability for Workplace Innovation are still very much a work-in-progress. This requires new outreach practices to define effective WIL assignments…while also creating new opportunities for academic-workplace collaboration in this emerging area. This work builds on insights from our WINCan 2018-19 project in Ontario.
Note: The presentation of ideas in this blog post was first created as a three-part discussion session for the 5th Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference: 'Interdisciplinarity – Learning from Each Other' organized by Warwick University’s Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (Coventry, U.K.: April 2020).