Otago Polytechnic learner Dylan Malcolm is relishing the opportunity to soak up others’ ideas and energy at the Global Forum on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Humber, Toronto.

The third-year Bachelor of Culinary Arts learner left for Canada at the weekend, along with third-year Bachelor of Design (Communication) student Kennedy Barnes.

The pair will be involved in a workshop, “Social Enterprise through Design Thinking”,whichbrings together students from around the world to identify, define, prototype and test a solution to a critical challenge common to communities across the globe.

As a partner institution with Humber, one of Canada's leading postsecondary institutions, Otago Polytechnic was invited to select two students who are passionate about social entrepreneurship and innovation and show commitment to community development.

“We are working on an idea around better cultural integration of ideas, creating an environment that is seen as ‘safe’, a place where ideas can be shared without any risk of offence,” Dylan explains.

“It’s a great opportunity. I’ve never left New Zealand, so it will certainly be an experience. Meeting like-minded people will be amazing.

“I’m staying an extra week to soak up as much as I can. When we come back, we will present our findings.”

Although most of his expenses have been met by Humber, Dylan has been raising some spending money by selling seafood-based lunches through Otago Polytechnic’s food truck.

Accompanying Dylan and Kennedy to Humber is Dr Caroline McCaw, Academic Leader Communication Design. (Philippa Keaney, Learning and Teaching Development, will be participating via Skype, along with Ron Bull, Tumuaki Whakaako Otago Polytechnic).

Caroline will facilitate a workshop titled “Sharing learning, embedding social literacy and evaluating knowledge co-production”.

She will present examples of Otago Polytechnic’s approach to project-based learning, applied research, and increasing social literacy as informal learner outcomes.

“Workshop attendees will first consider a range of learner capabilities associated with these approaches to teaching and learning, such as developing social literacy, learning to work collaboratively, and adapting to difference and change,” Caroline explains.

“We will take this reflection to consider the questions: How can local initiatives be shared across institutions and countries, and involve learners, teachers and local communities as collaborators in a networked learning conversation? And we will consider who benefits— and how do we evaluate and share these benefits?”

Philippa will present a workshop titled, “A framework for developing work-readiness: transferable skills in diverse contexts”.

“In this workshop, we expand on the concept of capabilities as human-centred attributes that are considered sought-after by employers,” Philippa explains.

“Otago Polytechnic’s Learner Capability Framework has been developed through industry research, and identifies 24 core capabilities. Taking this model as an example, we seek to identify the strengths and limitations of an employer-driven approach to capabilities.”

Philippa and Caroline will then collaborate in a third workshop with Ron Bull, a practical take on the issues identified in the two other workshops.

TitledLet's do it! Learning through doing: where our paths converge”, it will utilise a hands-on approach to explore the spaces and connectivity between learning, skills, social and cultural literacies through team-based activities. It also introduces “ako”, a Māori concept that describes a teaching and learning relationship, where the educator is also learning from the student and new knowledge and understandings can grow out of shared learning experiences.

Read about our international partnerships

 


Published on 21 May 2018

Orderdate: 21 May 2018
Expiry: 31 Dec 2018