I-Corps: Digital Loft: A Learning Platform for Instructors and Trainers

气候变化、贫困和文盲等社会问题只能通过社会创新者来解决——这些人了解社会挑战的背景，设计新技术，并能与不同的利益相关者合作。要成为社会创新者，学习者必须获得解决复杂、非结构化设计挑战的经验，这些挑战不容易由一个人在固定的时间框架内解决。这使得创新难以教授：个人指导虽然有效，但代价高昂；课外环境提供了灵活性，但缺乏指导；课堂教学对于解决复杂的公共问题来说过于死板和有时间限制。社会创新者可以通过社会创新网络更好地发展——学习者社区合作解决现实世界的问题。社会创新网络：a)教学习者设计解决实际问题的方案，b)由学习者领导，由教师和专业专家支持，c)通过地方中心网络向全国扩展，d)具有亲社会使命。不幸的是，这样的网络很难编排：促进者必须协调许多具有不同专业水平的项目团队，并处理不同的问题，以解决社区客户不可预测的需求。该项目将测试这样一种设计观点，即数字工作室可以通过创建支持学习者驱动项目的网络教学中心的教学支持来帮助社会创新网络培养创新者。这个I-Corps项目将深入了解社会创新网络中固有的客户需求，并开发可持续的商业模式，将拟议的Loft平台商业化。对创新网络中的数字工作室的分析将包括访谈、观察、调查和基于经验的设计原则。它将建立基于新见解的新系统，并通过软件部署评估已开发的工具和方法。该团队的研究人员、设计师和程序员来自西北大学西格尔设计学院、教育与社会政策学院和工业界，他们在网络学习、创新教育、对等生产、网络开发和扩展教育计划方面拥有专业知识。作为一种新的网络学习类型，拟议中的Loft数字工作室有可能从根本上改变谁在创新，以及人们如何创新。为创新教育设计成功的数字工作室制定核心原则，将有助于网络学习研究领域的发展，包括徽章、同伴生产、案例学习、基于设计的学习和在线学习社区。

Societal problems, such as climate change, poverty, and illiteracy, can only be solved with social innovators - people who understand societal challenges in context, design new technologies, and can work with diverse stakeholders. To become social innovators, learners must gain experience tackling complex, illstructured design challenges that are not easily solved by a single individual within a fixed time frame. This makes innovation difficult to teach: individual mentoring is effective but expensive; extra-curricular environments provide flexibility but insufficient guidance; and classroom instruction is too rigid and timebound for solving complex public problems. Social innovators can better be developed via social innovation networks - learner communities collaborating to solve real-world problems. Social innovation networks: a) teach learners to design solutions to real problems, b) are led by learners and supported by faculty and professional experts, c) extend nationally through a network of local hubs and d) have pro-social missions. Unfortunately, such networks are difficult to orchestrate: facilitators must coordinate many project teams with varying levels of expertise and work on different problems to address unpredictable needs of community clients. This project will test the design argument that digital studios can help social innovation networks develop innovators through pedagogical affordances that create networked teaching hubs in support of learner-driven projects.This I-Corps project will develop an understanding of the customer needs inherent in social innovation networks and develop sustainable business model to commercialize the proposed Loft platform. Analysis of digital studios in innovation networks will include interviews, observation, and surveys and empirically grounded design principles. It will build novel systems based on new insights and evaluate developed tools and methods through software deployments. The team's researchers, designers, and programmers from Northwestern University's Segal Design Institute, School of Education & Social Policy, and industry have expertise in cyberlearning, innovation education, peer production, web development, and scaling educational initiatives. As a new cyberlearning genre, the proposed Loft digital studio has the potential to radically change who innovates and how people innovate. Developing core principles for designing successful digital studios for innovating education will contribute to cyberlearning research areas, including badging, peer production, learning-by-cases, design-based learning, and online learning communities.