Designing a student-centered learning experience: The Digital Wellbeing Sprint

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to understand students’ expectations and perception of value regarding their experiences in higher education and then contribute these insights to the design and development of the Digital Wellbeing Sprint (the Sprint).

The Sprint is an intensive summer innovation course offered by an alliance of three Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Student teams work on real projects from businesses, municipalities or third-sector organizations with support from industry experts, mentors, and teachers. By working through the design process, students gain knowledge and experience in cocreation, service design and open innovation. From the perspective of the UAS alliance, the Sprint serves as an educational research, development and innovation (RDI) environment that aims to inspire a new approach to higher education that will engage, motivate and prepare students of today for the jobs of tomorrow.

This thesis embraces service-dominant logic and student-centered learning by taking the point of view that value in education is not created by the university and delivered to students; value is created with the student whose needs, interests and perspectives should be considered in the design of a learning experience.

Qualitative research, including surveys and interviews with students from the 2016 Sprint, is used to understand value from the student point of view. The findings are presented through the lens of jobs to be done and suggest students ‘hire’ education to make progress towards a goal and value is created when progress is made. The results offer an understanding of the desired progress, or jobs, students are hiring the Sprint to help them achieve. Three high-level job categories were identified: learn from others, collect experiences and take the next step. Within each of these categories lie insights into students’ desired progress and outcomes of learning. To make these insights actionable, ‘how might we questions’ are outlined for each category. These are intended to ignite new ideas for how the organization can apply a deeper understanding of the student in the design of student-centered learning experiences. Ideas are also offered for how the UAS alliance can create additional value by supporting student jobs.

Perspectives from service-dominant logic, student-centered learning, and jobs to be done are intended to make steps towards a new approach to higher education. As of the date of publication, the findings of this research have been used to inform the design of the 2017 Digital Wellbeing Sprint and are being considered by the three Universities of Applied Sciences on a larger strategic level. The approach and findings can similarly be used to support the design of student-centered learning experiences in environments such as living labs, sprints, hackathons and design curriculum.