SourcebookYour goal in this class is to learn as much as you can. Your innovation sourcebook is one key to achieving this goal. First and foremost, it is an extremely effective learning tool. If you are sincere in your intentions and diligent in your work, creating a sourcebook will help you learn. Your sourcebook is where you demonstrate how much you have learned, and it will be one of the primary resources I will use to assign grades.
In recent years, students have told me that the best format is a hard-copy, hand-written journal because it allows them to sketch, jot, draw, paste-in, etc. Even so, students often create some sort of digital sourcebook. You may select the format that works best for you.
Your sourcebook has three main components:
Ten essential lessons:
At the end of Design Week, you should write ten things that you consider to be essential lessons or insights about innovation. These essential lessons will represent what you think are the indispensable, must-have, can't-live-without keys to great innovation. Your can frame them as your Ten Commandments of innovation, or ten dos and don'ts, or -- even better -- you can decide on the best way to share them. Distill this to one page of words, pictures, exhibits -- whatever. Print out or photocopy the list and bring it to class on January 17. We will post them so that everyone can learn from your brilliance!
Reflections on readings:
This is the place that star learners really shine. In this section you engage in thoughtful, enlightened learning. You write about the material you have read or watched, striving hard to record the learning, thoughts, and insights you have gained from the material. The material includes in-class presentations and the books, articles, and videos assigned for class.
You should create one reflection for each week of the seven weeks in Mod 3, what are weeks 2 - 8 of our class. You will choose what to include based upon what you learned, but you do not have to address each presentation, reading, or video separately. Your reflection for each week should reflect what you learned. From a grading perspective, this is the main way for me to see what you learned, so please be sure that your reflections give the best possible picture of your learning!
Please note that reflections are not what you agreed/disagreed with or liked/dislike. The information we will study is from experts and so we need to know what they know and understand how they think. Great reflections represent, therefore, what you learned from the expert. Great reflections demonstrate that you have successfully set aside your own views and understandings, and that you consistently explored and learned something important from the author or speaker.
You can structure your entries around questions such as these:
Feel free to choose methods that foster deep thinking and a free flow of ideas. Good methods include writing things out by hand & using visual representations (e.g., sketches, drawings, photos, pictures) of you learnings.
Here are examples of great reflections: BE SURE TO EXPLORE THEM! They will show you what great work looks like. Example #1 | Example #2 | Example #3 | Example #4 | Example #5| Example #6 | Example #7 .
Ten essentials, redux.
The very last entry, and one you should do during the last week of class, is to rethink your ten essentials. Some of your ten essentials you may keep, some you will drop, others may change, some will be brand new. The key is to describe why: why did you keep those that remain? Why did you jettison those you dropped, and why did you add any new ones? Your new ten essentials will have explanations describing the reason each one is on your list. Be thorough: explain clearly and fully, as if you were teaching this to someone who knew nothing about innovation and design. This is one of the most important learning exercises because it will help you consolidate what you learned.
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