Fontys International Workshop
PURPOSE
The goal was to design an exchange event where Fontys University students would visit Humber College for a week in Winter 2019.
This project was an internal education piece for Humber College in Toronto, Canada and Fontys University in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
The goal was to design an exchange event where Fontys University students would visit Humber College for a week in Winter 2019. During this week, both Humber students and Fontys student would design and facilitate workshops in the area of creative and interactive media studies. Students would sign up for workshops and benefit from new knowledge, cross-cultural collaboration, and interdisciplinary work. The visual collateral was created to accompany the event and bring awareness to the students at Humber College on campus and across digital outlets. The collateral was meant to help with sign-ups, give students the appropriate information, and also publicize our international initiatives.
RESEARCH
Before developing the schedule for the week of events, we gathered workshop ideas and ran them by faculty at both Humber and Fontys. We chose workshops that would be most beneficial for students in both clusters of programs, which were in the areas of information and communications technology, as well as interactive media. We then balanced in class time with both free time and off campus activities that included: studio tours, class visits, must see attractions, and free time.
DELIVERABLES
The deliverables for this event were: a poster, social media, digital banners, presentation slide deck, certificates, and personalized lanyards. It gave the event a consistent visual presence and created a buzz around the activities that were happening at Humber with our international visitors. With education changing so drastically, having these cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary opportunities are increasingly important to the skills and knowledge of our students. The solution was meant to make this event recognized and create importance.
This piece relates to design for social good because of its’ position in the education space. As changes happen to the way that individuals learn and become educated, it is important to add increased value in the classroom and with various activities that are happening on campus. Learning happens most when we are outside of comforts zones, so this event exposed students to new ways of learning, facilitating, and also allowed for cultural and cross-disciplinary learnings. It gave new purpose and new dynamics to the classroom environment. Large educational institutions need to increasingly become more innovative in how they integrate deeper learning in the education space.
RESULTS
The results were outstanding as students from both Humber & Fontys responded by saying they had a really great time engaging in the activities over the week. Students had the opportunity to both educate and be educated. There was time for creative exploration, cultural exposure, organic dialogue, and there was even an epic Toronto snow day that halted activities for a day and allowed our international partners to make snow angels. Both Fontys and Humber created video to recaps on the events and reflect on what they found valuable about the experience of having an international event held during class schedules. We were pleasantly surprised to hear such a positive and educational result of our initiatives to run the event, especially since it was during regular class schedules, which makes logistics difficult.
The results of more exploratory, collaborative, and engaging learning environments can be uncertain but also highly positive and excellent at creating resilient students who are prepared for a career path that is forever changing and evolving.