The Olin College Virtual Summer Institute offered a set of workshops that addressed the design of student-centered learning experiences. Workshops were facilitated by Olin faculty, staff, and students, and delivered via Zoom.
We recognized that participants had varying availability and may have be juggling other personal and professional commitments during the Summer Institute week. We encouraged participants to engage in ways that made sense for their situation. There was no pressure to attend all workshops live, as they were recorded and materials were made available for asynchronous engagement.
We offered a workshop orientation session to help participants make the most out of their Summer Institute experience:
Framing and Focus Workshops
Framing Workshops were meant to integrate educational theory and praxis through introduction of theoretical underpinnings and frameworks relevant to various pedagogical and curricular practices, which were then leveraged in a set of hands-on activities that allowed for creating an explicit bridge between theory and practice. To allow participants time and space for full engagement in an integrative process of theorizing and practicing educational co-design, the Framing Workshops were offered in a two-part format with a morning session (Part A on the schedule grid above) followed by an “echo” session in the afternoon (Part B).
Focus Workshops were intended to provide participants with experiential learning opportunities that were focused on development of specific skills, knowledge, and tools relevant to participants’ interests and motivations. The Focus Workshops were offered in 90-minute “bursts” of experiential learning over four days spanning the Virtual Summer Institute experience.
Please visit the links above to view full program information on the workshops.
Virtual Studios and Project Sharing
The Virtual Studio sessions were intended to provide flexible time for participants to interact with workshop facilitators, project team members, or self-organized groups on topics of mutual interest. There was typically be at least one Open Studio during each Virtual Studio time slot, which all workshop participants were welcome to attend on a drop-in basis.
The Project Sharing session provided an opportunity for institutional teams that were participating in the Design Coaching program to share their work with a broader audience, as well as an opportunity for workshop-only participants to see how the coaching program works.
