Gillian Sudlow
Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century ...

In Part I of this post, [Dr. Thomas Carey] offered reflections on the discussion paper Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce prepared for Fall 2024 consultations led by the Government of Canada’s Minister of Workplace Development. Those reflections were based on our experiences in the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, fostering collaborations with workplace and higher education partners to advance employee-led innovation in Canada.

This follow-up post complements those previous reflections with insights specific to another emerging focal point for our current collaborations within Canada and beyond: Developing a distinctive role for Canada in Workplace Innovation Skills for Industry 5.0.

Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce (Part II—Industry 5.0)
Gillian Sudlow
Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century ...

In this three-part post, [Dr. Thomas Carey offers his] reflections on the discussion paper Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce prepared for Fall 2024 consultations led by the Government of Canada’s Minister of Workplace Development. These reflections are based on experiences by our team within the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, around our mission to foster collaborations with workplace and higher education partners to advance employee-led innovation in Canadian workplaces.

Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce (Part I)
Gillian Sudlow
Helping Students Develop the Communication ...

In this post, Rob Danisch, Communication Studies Professor at the University of Waterloo, reflects on the importance of focusing on teaching creative and critical thinking skills to help students become innovation catalysts …

In my case, I’m a Professor of Communication Studies. This means that my classes focus on the kinds of communication practices that can foster or catalyze innovation. It’s not music we are learning to play, at least not necessarily; we are learning an embodied knowledge about our everyday habits of interaction. And I’ve long wanted to teach the embodied communication practices most helpful for creating a culture of learning and catalyzing innovation.

Helping Students Develop the Communication Skills They Need to Be Innovation Catalysts
Gillian Sudlow
Resources for Building a Sustainable ...

Our WINCan team was delighted to be invited to present our current work at the October conference of the EU’s Workplace Innovation Network on The Future of Work. The focus of the presentation was our recent progress on establishing a sustainable Professional Community for Workplace Innovation Catalysts in the Windsor-Essex region, including the larger plan to integrate workplace innovation as a key enabling element in the region’s Innovation Ecosystem.

Resources for Building a Sustainable Professional Community for Workplace Innovation Catalysts
Gillian Sudlow
Case Stories of Workplace Innovation for ...

In Part I of this post, we provided an overview of a WINCan project with our summer research intern – Kyla, an undergrad in the Integrated Sciences program at McMaster University. The aim was to assess the feasibility of creating  case stories to illustrate workplace innovation activities that would be of specific interest to Science students. The previous post discusses source material for illustrative case stories for two of the innovation activities – Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation – in our adaptable learning resources for Understanding and Applying Workplace Innovation.  

We follow up in this post with illustrative case story sources for Design Thinking and Intrapreneurship. We also describe a potential practice case story with which students could engage as a test of their understanding, based on a Design Thinking experiment to improve a biochemistry lab course at McMaster.

Case Stories of Workplace Innovation for Science Students – Part II

2019

CMHC Design Challenge

CMHC Design Challenge

In this comprehensive post co-authored by WINCan’s Co-principal Catalyst and Workplace Team Lead, Blake Melnick and Programs Director, Allison Davies, Melnick and Davies outline the Knowledge Management Institute’s six week intensive CMHC Design Innovation Challenge. The objective was for students to come up with innovative solutions to ensuring that every person in Canada should have access to a home that meets their individual or familial needs for less than 30% of their income by the year 2030.

Job Crafting for Industry 4.0 Is Employee-Driven Innovation

Job Crafting for Industry 4.0 Is Employee-Driven Innovation

We hear on a regular basis from our workplace partners that our graduates will need to adapt to Jobs of the Future by working with knowledge that doesn’t yet exist, using knowledge practices and formats that don’t yet exist, in work roles and structures that don’t yet exist. How can we help learners to develop the capabilities needed in order to engage with, make adaptations to and even lead the way on the changes that we can’t yet anticipate?

Design Thinking versus User-Centred Design

Design Thinking versus User-Centred Design

In this post, Karel Vredenberg, Director of Global Academic Programs in IBM’s Design Program Office and Head of IBM Studios Canada, explains how he sees Design Thinking and User-Centred Design not as competing, but rather “integrally linked” frameworks. He goes further to claim that for Design Thinking to be used properly, elements of User-Centred Design should be included as exemplified by IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking.

How Can Professional Scale Design Thinking Shape Learning Experiences in Secondary Schools?

How Can Professional Scale Design Thinking Shape Learning Experiences in Secondary Schools?

In this post from WINCan media specialist Joel Dmitruk, we’ll analyze a leading-edge professional model to identify the similarities and differences with approaches in secondary schools outlined in our previous post. Where have teachers had to make trade-offs?  What lessons can we draw about Design Thinking (DT) in secondary schools as scaffolds toward exemplary professional DT?

Developing and Transferring Design Thinking Capability: an in-course Work-Integrated Learning with a First Nations Sustainable Farm School

Developing and Transferring Design Thinking Capability: an in-course Work-Integrated Learning with a First Nations Sustainable Farm School

NationTalk, an Indigenous newswire service,  posted this news item about an in-course Work-Integrated Learning project with Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Richmond BC), the Tsawwassen First Nation Farm School (Tsawwassen BC) and IBM Canada’s Design Studio (Markham ON).