This is a time in which we are all experiencing major changes and are having to make quick adjustments to a new way of life. During this time of adapting, the Center for Design Thinking is transforming to fit the needs of the Elon community and provide virtual support.

The Center for Design Thinking is now offering both live and interactive Webex workshops and recorded sessions for students, faculty and staff. This is a step towards the center becoming a virtual nexus for learning across diverse communities.

Live workshops to fit your needs

On April 1 and April 2, the Center held its first two live Design Your Life Now Webex workshops to support students and faculty as they navigate shifting personal, academic and professional situations during the current pandemic.

The webinars reviewed research from resilience studies and #ActBelongCommit (a framework implemented at Elon to promote positive mental health and overall well-being). The webinars got participants actively designing so they can reimagine and move towards their goals.

Participants left feeling inspired, noting that they valued the chance to map three radically different versions of their next three months and to find actionable prototypes for their next steps.

Recorded workshops tailored to your group

Professor Laurin Kier’s COR 110 class recently completed a Design Thinking 101 recorded workshop. This workshop focused on the need for empathy and creativity. Students partnered together in order to redesign one another’s summer plans.

“It was a great success! Wow, I am actually amazed at just how well it went,” Kier said.

Students viewed the workshop individually and then partnered with other students to work through the exercises. After completing the workshop and exercises, the class reflected on their experience through Moodle journal entries.

This workshop encouraged students to expand their mindset and think from different perspectives.

“The design thinking activity was an effective way to develop empathy. … Originally when I was watching the video for what I would be doing in the activity I did not believe empathy could be applied. I ended up leaving the activity with a different understanding,” one student reflected.

Future live workshops 

The Center’s next live workshop is April 29 at 2 p.m. This Experience Mapping workshop will explore how we can better understand our own and others’ experiences of social distancing. It teaches participants how to use experience mapping in order to uncover areas for deeper exploration and create novel opportunities for engaging one another across social distancing guidelines. Register

Flexible, recorded options at your fingertips

The Center has also recorded earlier Webex workshops that are available for students to view and work through at their own pace:

The Center’s Designing a ‘Well-Lived’ Life Now: What Might We Learn From Resilience and Wellness Studies webinar focuses on applying design thinking concepts when working through our current life constraints while still making plans and accomplishing goals. This 25-minute webinar gets participants to apply design thinking practices and Act-Belong-Commit principles to living well and intentionally as they consider how to navigate life now. View this workshop

The Center’s Design Thinking 101: {Re}Designing Our Summer webinar focuses on using Elon’s design thinking process to revise their goals, reimagine their summer, and move towards new next steps. This 25-minute webinar encourages participants to work together in order to generate and prototype summer plans that meet their personal, professional, or civic goals. View this workshop

Interested in a workshop for your class, project, or group?

You can fill out a workshop request form here: /u/elon-by-design/workshops-and-events/ or email us at elonbydesign@elon.edu

The fear of being lost after college is a normal and recurrent feeling among third and fourth year students. The pressure of taking a new path, securing a job or possibly navigating an unfamiliar city can be overwhelming and cause doubt and panic.

Although completing college and receiving that degree is exhilarating, it can also come with unease about what comes next.

As Elon student Brynne Aresnault ’21 described above, many students may know where they want to go or what field they want to pursue, but don’t know which steps to take to start their journey.

The Center for Design Thinking provides students with a framework to explore how to get where they want to be through its Designing Your Post-Grad Life workshop. Focusing on various aspects of life including work, play, love and health, this workshop guides students through the design thinking process.

Students get the opportunity to reflect on their post-graduation goals and are provided with the tools to create a prototype. Participants in this workshop consider and create their own ideas without limitations and learn how to act on their conclusions.

“The hard and necessary part of design is to make things work well even when things do not go as planned,” Don Norman writes in his book, “The Design of Everyday Things.”

Students that experience the Designing Your Post-Grad Life workshop, and other Elon by Design workshops, are encouraged to examine various outcomes and solutions. Through this analysis they can embrace the idea that everything may not go as planned.

The design thinking process is a cycle and students are encouraged to shamelessly re-think, re-do, and re-evaluate when things turn out unexpectedly.

The Center emphasizes that everyone’s path is individual and the outcome of the design thinking process could look radically different for each participant.

The Center for Design Thinking is a space that empowers people to think freely and creatively while generating real life resolutions.

The center is open to all Elon students, faculty and staff. 

Schedule a workshop or request a consultation !

To ask questions or learn more, email elonbydesign@elon.edu.