Bryant innovation rooms target applied learning

INNOVATIVE APPROACH: Bryant University accounting professor Mary Ella Gainor, standing, works with students in a prototype facility within the George E. Bello Center for Information and Technology. / COURTESY PATRICK O’CONNOR PHOTOGRAPHY
INNOVATIVE APPROACH: Bryant University accounting professor Mary Ella Gainor, standing, works with students in a prototype facility within the George E. Bello Center for Information and Technology. / COURTESY PATRICK O’CONNOR PHOTOGRAPHY

When Bryant University students worked on Dec. 10 to address how best to attract and retain millennial workers for Target, as part of a competition to solve real-world corporate dilemmas, they video-conferenced with company representatives from Minneapolis.
The video conferencing was made possible through a newly renovated prototype room within the George E. Bello Center for Information and Technology called Bello 102. Funded largely with a $200,000 anonymous donation, the redesigned Bello 102 is much more than a classroom, according to two of three faculty members on a committee charged with designing and outfitting it.
The room features modular pods on wheels with four 40-inch wireless monitors at each pod instead of tables and chairs. It has writable whiteboards and glass walls and wireless technology that includes two 90-inch screens, said Robert Shea, assistant vice president for teaching and learning and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and Michael Roberto, professor of management and director of the Center for Program Innovation.
The third committee member is Phil Lombardi, director of academic computing and media services.
Bello 102, which opened this past September, was created following a similar prototype known as the Ideation Lab, which had opened in fall 2012 in the school’s Unistructure building. Both rooms, which are popular and in constant use by faculty and students, have served as a testing ground for Bryant’s Academic Innovation Center, which is slated to break ground this spring and open in the fall of 2016.
Target is among the employers who like what Bryant is doing, Roberto said.
“The key is, we want these kids to be employable,” said Roberto, “so the idea is [to facilitate] applied learning, not just working on theory. [Students] are practicing every day. We’ve got a lot of positive feedback that employers like that students have got this applied learning.”
The structural concepts being explored at Bryant are a departure from traditional classrooms and lecture halls. They are meant to facilitate collaborative learning that is available 24/7 in an open environment, said Elizabeth O’Neil, executive director of university relations. “We have sufficient space for traditional classrooms [with] rows of desks,” said O’Neil. “But it’s the flexible space for group work – whether it be part of a class, students doing group work or homework in completing assignments in the evening, or students collaborating on co-curricular projects outside of class and putting the academic theories they’re learning into practice – that is at a premium.”
Bryant’s undergraduate enrollment for the 2014-15 academic year is 3,320, she said.
Roberto and Shea say that the type of teamwork and interaction being required by employers today demands this new environment for students. Consequently, the ideas for the innovation center began with discussions between Roberto and university President Ronald K. Machtley, knowing that a building that could house these interactive spaces would be needed.
Initially, Roberto pitched the idea of the Ideation Lab, he said. He and Machtley decided to use one of a handful of classrooms in the university’s Management Resource Complex that were going to be gutted anyway, Roberto said.
“We didn’t have an architect so I pitched the idea to him [to] do something really different,” Roberto recalled. “I sent him pictures of some newer corporate spaces [with] a lot of writable space on the walls and a lot of collaborative space. He said, ‘Let’s do it: This is a great experiment before we do the new building.’ ”
The lab uses four tables instead of traditional chairs and desks, with everything on wheels, including a mobile stand for faculty to use for their laptops. The walls are made of writable whiteboard or glass, where images and text also can be projected. A smartboard enables students and faculty to annotate what they are projecting, Roberto said.
This layout enables the type of brainstorming sessions used in corporate settings, he added.
“Faculty are no longer front and center, moderating,” he said. “Students can use video or podcast or [do their] reading ahead of time, then work on a project or problem or analysis in class to reinforce what they’re learning.” About 24 students can use the lab comfortably, said Shea, while Bello 102 accommodates between 35 and 42 people.
How the design for these prototypes is used in the new innovation center is not yet certain, though Roberto said the approach will be “to build a building that is flexible enough so that as technology changes we can retrofit and upgrade easily.”
Of the 150 faculty, 15 embraced the lab initially, but it has now become so popular that use of the room has to rotate among more than 30 professors, Roberto said.
“It’s incredibly positive,” Roberto said. “Not only do students enjoy the classes but they use [the room] in off hours for team projects and group activities, either for academic courses or extracurricular [activities].”
Once the lab was being used, Machtley brought the committee together to work on what would become Bello 102, Roberto said.
For Bello 102 and the Innovation Center, he said, “we went out and visited a variety of spaces, including Stanford University’s Design School, the Harvard Innovation Lab, and flexible space at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University and Betaspring.
The result is a mix of ideas culled from corporate and educational settings, he said.
In one of Roberto’s classes on competitive strategy in Bello 102, students were responsible for examining why Blockbuster resisted cutting late fees even as Netflix became a major competitor. After discussing it as a class, students had to build a simple spreadsheet about the economics of such decision-making, logging onto laptops and working in pods as teams.
“I could wander around and see what they were up to and then project a few teams’ work on screens or walls for discussion,” Roberto said. “The technology allows them not to just do work as a team but share work and debate and critique each other. With this hands-on learning, they are learning from each other, and not just the professor.”
The plan for the 50,000-square-foot innovation center is still being reviewed by trustees, with the next meeting set for Jan. 15. Cost and design details are not yet available, O’Neil said. •

No posts to display