At VentureWell, we are committed to sharing leading-edge research and learnings with our community as we continue to move the field of I&E education forward. In light of the global shift to online learning and virtualized events, we’ve launched the Faculty Online Learning Series, designed to help faculty, staff, and other individuals who’ve had to adjust their programming to an online format, learn how to best adapt to this change. You can join or view webinars featuring best practices for pivoting to virtualized learning, as well as access resources and articles offering tips for success—and what elements to avoid—when designing your next online virtualized class or event.
On-Demand Webinars
Designing an Engaging Online Learning Experience
Speaker: Denise DeLuca, Minneapolis College of Art & Design
Host: Cindy Gilbert, VentureWell
In response to COVID-19, instructors across the US and world have scrambled to move in-person classrooms into a virtual space. Denise DeLuca, the Director of the Sustainable Design program at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD), shares lessons learned and best practices gleaned from more than a decade of cultivating collaborative product design experiences with students from around the globe. Gain an understanding of the critical difference between face-to-face courses shifted to a remote/virtual format and courses designed for online learning.
Presenting a Virtualized Event 
Speaker: Allison Bleyler, VentureWell
Host: Cindy Gilbert, Venturewell
In the past few months, countless organizations have been forced to transform their annual in-person convenings into virtualized events. Allison Bleyler shares her first-hand experience in quickly pivoting VentureWell’s annual OPEN conference into a virtualized event in only 2 weeks, from designing a schedule to creating an online pitch competition featuring ten student teams and nearly 500 voters. She shares specifics for transforming your event, conference, competition, student showcase, etc. into an engaging virtualized experience that is valued by attendees.
Teaching Design and Innovation Online
Speakers: Raja Schaar, Drexel University
Nathanial Stern, Peck School of the Arts, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
Host: Victoria Matthew, VentureWell
Bringing design and innovation tools and approaches into an online classroom is no small feat. However, like many faculty, our speakers were recently faced with the challenge of quickly pivoting to virtualize their design classes. During this webinar, Raja Schaar and Nathanial Stern will share the challenges of losing fabrication facilities, field trips, live demos, and on-paper critique, and what they learned when moving their design classes online. They’ll discuss the tools and approaches they’ve used to adapt to an online learning environment and create engaging learning experiences.
Hosting Capstone Fairs, Competitions, and Student Showcases Online
Speakers: Magda Lagoudas & Rodney Boehm, Texas A&M
Holly Butler & Ha Pho, UMass Lowell
Dan Riffell, University of Colorado
Host: Victoria Matthew, VentureWell
Typically, the end of the spring semester marks the start of celebratory student showcases, capstone fairs, and competitions. Due to COVID-19, many of these events—excellent opportunities for student creativity and collaboration—were absent across campuses nationwide. Some campuses, however, took the brave step of transitioning their events and competitions online.
During this webinar, faculty from three campuses that took the virtual plunge share lessons learned from pivoting large-scale student showcases and competitions to an online format. Bring your questions and success stories to share!
Tools & Resources
Download: VentureWell Online Instructor Checklist
So, you are moving your class online and you want to create an engaging online experience—what do you do? This checklist will walk you through key items to consider as you build out your online course, focused on creating an engaging online experience. Download the complete guide.
Download: Tips and Tools for Teaching Design & Innovation Online
Though moving design and innovation classes online comes with unique challenges, like the loss of fabrication spaces, in-person critique, and hands-on team collaboration, there are many creative approaches—and tools—to keep students engaged and making, even when they’re at home. Download the list here.
Download Toolkit: Hosting Capstone Fairs, Competitions, and Student Showcases Online
Are you planning to move your typically in-person student competition or showcase to a virtualized format? We have the tips and tools you need to design a high-impact, engaging student event online! Download the toolkit here.
New to Teaching Online? Here’s How To Make the Transition
With the possibility of remote learning continuing in the fall, faculty are now are having to think long-term, redesigning courses and adopting new practices for online education. We outline the best ways to approach the switch from in-person to online teaching. Learn more.
How Pivoting Courses Online Is Reinventing In-Person Learning
Our VentureWell Sustainable Design Faculty Grants recipients are using the remote-learning mandate as a catalyst for innovation, creating digital experiences that have proven so effective they plan to continue using them once in-person classes resume again. Read more.
The Show Must Go On: What We Learned From Producing Our First Virtual Conference
We recently transformed our annual OPEN conference into our first-ever live, virtualized convening. After the successful transformation of our annual conference into virtualOPEN, our first-ever live, virtualized event, we fielded dozens of questions asking how we pulled off —in only two weeks! Here’s a highlight of what we did as well as advice to help you plan your online event.
Do you have suggestions for future webinar topics? Suggestions for how we can support faculty who are transitioning to online learning? We want to hear from you!