Making It: Institutionalizing Collaborative Innovation in Public Higher Education

Abstract

This descriptive case study provides a broad overview of JMU X-Labs, an academic maker space (in other words, a teaching lab with fabrication and digital production technologies) that hosts team-taught, project-driven multidisciplinary courses. The JMU X-Labs serves the students and faculty of James Madison University[MSR-m1] , a mid-sized, public, and undergraduate-focused university in the United States. The narrative proceeds from two different but overlapping points of view: how courses at JMU X-Labs are designed and taught; and how administration of JMU X-Labs supports them. The authors refer to specific courses, pedagogical methods, and problem-solving strategies to illustrate the narrative, and they argue throughout that pedagogy and administration are indelibly intertwined in how the organization operates. Gesturing to the broad applicability and transferability of the JMU X-Labs model, the authors mark some of areas of further research that would benefit a more robust understanding of how the organization operates and grows. Finally, the authors speculate how the dynamics of this young and growing organization may answer some core and difficult questions pertaining to innovation in higher education.[MSR-m1]James Madison University (JMU) Clearlyl referenced in abstract and opening paragraph below to explain institutional context as per reviewer request.

Teaching Innovation Capacities in Undergraduate Leadership Courses: The Influence of a Short-Term Pedagogical Intervention

“…Such creativity can include locating classes in well-equipped makerspaces, providing learner-centred assessments (e.g., which demand argument development, problem-solving, etc. ), and incorporating multidisciplinary perspectives (Hynes & Hynes, 2018;McCarthy et al, 2018).…”

“…For example, in a cross-sectional study designed to examine innovation intentions, Mayhew et al (2012) discovered that such intentions were related to assessment practices that evaluated students on their abilities to successfully defend an argument and find solutions to problems that forced them to "think outside the box" (p. 832). More recent longitudinal studies have uncovered a positive relationship between innovation capacity development and an educator's ability to have students draw connections between classroom material and real-world problems, recognize the importance of classroom-based material in students' projected career paths, and collaborate with educators and peers to begin generating solutions (see also APLU, 2020;McCarthy et al, 2018). While these studies are critical for providing insight into the complex relationship between pedagogy and innovation, they were not designed to closely examine a particular pedagogical intervention itself.…”

Who Coaches the Coaches? The Development of a Coaching Model for Experiential Learning

“…Faculty teaching loads and funding models need to be developed to support faculty interested in trying new ways of teaching. Buy-in from department chairs, deans, and university administration is required; we recognize that "pedagogy and administration are indelibly intertwined" (McCarthy et al, 2018(McCarthy et al, , p. 1549. We will need to develop a core team of faculty champions (Kezar & Maxey, 2016) who can continually network these ideas and articulate the benefits of experiential learning, transdisciplinarity, and student-owned projects for faculty.…”

Breaking up I/E: Consciously Uncoupling Innovation and Entrepreneurship to Improve Undergraduate Learning

“…As a result, US4VA was not a single course but a network of class sections that met concurrently in the same space, and that shared a common syllabus. (This method of creating courses is standard practice at JMU X-Labs; see McCarthy et al [26] for a more extended analysis of how JMU X-Labs courses are designed. )…”