{"id":133059,"date":"2018-01-03T12:16:38","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T17:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=133059"},"modified":"2018-01-03T12:16:38","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T17:16:38","slug":"uconn-taps-creativity-expert-ronald-beghetto-lead-innovation-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2018\/01\/uconn-taps-creativity-expert-ronald-beghetto-lead-innovation-house\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Taps Creativity Expert Ronald Beghetto to Lead Innovation House"},"content":{"rendered":"

UConn\u2019s Office of First Year Programs and Learning Communities<\/a> has tapped internationally recognized creativity expert and Neag School educational psychology professor Ronald Beghetto<\/a> as the faculty director of UConn\u2019s Innovation House. Beghetto, a 2015 UConn faculty of the year<\/a> awardee who focuses his research on creative thought and action in educational settings, began his new director role this past fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis opportunity dovetailed really nicely with the things I\u2019d been working on in my own research and work,\u201d says Beghetto, who joined the Neag School from the University of Oregon in 2014. \u201cIt provides an opportunity for me to put into practice some of the work that I\u2019ve been thinking about in how to help young people respond productively to uncertainty, and develop ideas for how they might address problems and complex challenges, and then actually do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI want the students to have an experience rapidly prototyping solutions, taking something from an idea into an actual product, and doing that in a fun and meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Professor Ronald Beghetto,
\n<\/em>Faculty Director, Innovation House<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to David Ouimette, executive director of the Office of First Year Programs and Learning Communities, Innovation House provides a space where undergraduate students from any major can come together to think about and share ideas, and learn how to put ideas into action with the potential for creating real change.<\/p>\n

Beghetto is a particularly good fit for the faculty director role, says Ouimette, given that his \u201cresearch and accomplishments fall directly in line with what we are trying to accomplish in Innovation House.\u201d Beghetto is teaching first-semester students about the design process and leading them not only to fabricate solutions to problems using the Learning Community Innovation Zone makerspace, a key feature in the Peter J. Werth Residence Tower <\/a>where the Innovation House is located, but also teaching them to pitch their ideas to various audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is for students to foster a mindset of innovation and creativity starting in the first year that they take into the rest of their academic journey at UConn and beyond,\u201d says Ouimette.<\/p>\n

Two other Neag School faculty members also serve as UConn Learning Community directors; Erik Hines<\/a>, assistant professor of school counseling, has led ScHOLA\u00b2RS House<\/a> since Fall 2016, and Jaci VanHeest<\/a>, associate professor of educational psychology, director of the Public Health House<\/a> since 2010, remains the longest-running learning community faculty director at the University.<\/p>\n

With ScHOLA2<\/sup>RS House and the Innovation House students sharing a floor in NextGen Hall, Beghetto foresees many opportunities for collaboration between these as well as other learning communities at UConn, since innovation is \u201csomething that any of the houses could interact with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Year Ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the course of the academic year, Innovation House students will be carrying out so-called legacy projects that involve identifying a problem, designing the solution, working with external partners, and implementing solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want the students to have an experience rapidly prototyping solutions, taking something from an idea into an actual product, and doing that in a fun and meaningful way,\u201d says Beghetto. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be building that out, partnering with community organizations from around UConn, and then actually implementing a solution to a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the year, there will be an exhibition night during which the students will share their progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the projects may not turn out,\u201d says Beghetto. \u201cBut what will definitely happen is that they will have learned something from the experience.\u201d It is precisely this kind of learning experience, he says, that students can then take with them not only into whatever field of study they want to pursue, but also into daily life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe top priority is to bring attention to the amazing students we bring to UConn each year and help build their capacity to fully engage in our community and beyond,\u201d says Ouimette. \u201cLearning Communities provide a setting to develop a community of students who have a sense of belonging and purpose, and who feel challenged and supported as they enter the UConn community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learn more about UConn\u2019s Learning Community Program at <\/em>lc.uconn.edu<\/em><\/a>. For more information about the Innovation House, contact Ronald Beghetto at <\/em>ronald.beghetto@uconn.edu<\/em><\/a>. Watch a <\/em>video<\/em><\/a> about the Learning Community Kickoff, featuring fellow Neag School faculty member Jaci VanHeest.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn\u2019s Office of First Year Programs and Learning Communities has tapped internationally recognized creativity expert and Neag School educational psychology professor Ronald Beghetto as the faculty director of UConn\u2019s Innovation House. Beghetto, a 2015 UConn faculty of the year awardee who focuses his research on creative thought and action in educational settings, began his new director role this past fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":133061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1879],"class_list":["post-133059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-29 04:14:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133062,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133059\/revisions\/133062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/133061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133059"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=133059"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=133059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}