Class 1: INTRODUCTION TO CONNECTIONAL RESEARCH

Lecture: What is connectional research? How does it differ from the fundamental or translational research? What are the methods and tools that can be used to carry out this research? This class will introduce the core concepts of connectional research—research that aims to create knowledge which connects a concept space (i.e., knowledge within a lab) to that of a target stakeholder. This hypothesis-driven approach requires an understanding of both concept spaces, and hypotheses on how to link the different concept spaces together. In this class, we will also introduce the core concepts of compelling communications, which will facilitate the ideation process. Students will practice compelling communication of their ideas with their team.

Assignment: students should each have prepared a concept inventory for their lab. During the class, they will create an encompassing concept map and share it with their team mates.

Lecture: What are the different forms of education programs that can be initiated? How do such programs change knowledge or behavior in the target? How do you design a training program and verify it achieved your goal? This lecture will introduce the basics of pedagogical theories, and specifically learner-focused teaching. We will review some of the ways that training or education programs work, their method of funding and how evaluations affect learning.

Assignment: Students will generate three educational ideas from their concept inventories, outlining the concepts, the target they envision, and the ways in which the concepts will be taught and evaluated.

Working in teams, you will critique each other’s ideas and help to refine it. You will be introduced to qualitative research and ethnography, and you will map out the populations that you will study to test your idea for your education program.

Assignment: Students will take their top idea (as decided by their team and themselves) and test their hypotheses regarding the target populations by carrying out meetings and ethnographic work, and documenting discrepancies between their hypotheses and the data collected from their targets. They will submit a short proposal of their idea of an educational program generated from their lab concepts.

Lecture: We review how a service works as a connector, the intimate relationship between education programs and service provision, and the many ways that a catalogue of services can act to impact society using lab-based knowledge. To better grasp the type of service, students will advance their practice of ethnographic and qualitative research, aiming to explain and predict how their target population would interact with their service.

Assignment: Students will generate three service ideas from their concept inventories, outlining the concepts, the target they envision, and the ways in which their concept connections will be evaluated.

Team work: the team will critique each other’s ideas and ask questions to test the ethnographic links. Students will then take their top idea (as in Class 3) and create a proposal outlining their target concepts and target populations, and how the service will help the targets connect with and use the lab concepts, including a method of testing this new connectional knowledge.

Lecture: How do products come to connect lab knowledge to new stakeholders? We begin by first reviewing scientific devices, and then review concepts around product design that combine with ethnographic research to help refine the type of product that will help stakeholders connect with lab-based knowledge.

Assignment: students will generate three product ideas from their concept inventories, carry out ethnographic research on the target population to make predictions of necessary product designs, and carry out elemental product design steps (i.e., sketches and diagrams).

Team: Students will work together to critique one-another’s proposal, starting with the concept inventory, the ethnographic data, and finally the product design. The goal is to refine and finalize one idea that will then result in a submitted proposal.

Lecture: most of us don’t appreciate it enough, but a lot of our knowledge can help guide effective policy, whether at the level of government or policies inside a company. In this lecture, we will review some examples of how knowledge has impacted public policy. Students will create three proposals on their policy, outlining how it leverages knowledge from their lab, which target population is ideal for their policy, and how they would relate the material and create connectional knowledge.

Team work: a continuation of the previous class, the students will work in teams to evaluate each other’s data from interviews with policy makers and target stakeholders to better understand how connectional knowledge may be created for their lab material.

By now, you will have selected a main topic or proposal that you would like to further develop for your full term proposal. In the next four classes, we will be focus on iteratively refining, researching and enhancing your proposal.

A brief lecture will be given on how intellectual property works, how and where to obtain funding,

A review of your proposal with a focus on narrative structure and emotional capture.

A careful review of how you plan to test your connectional research hypotheses.

In a 3-minute bullet-style presentations, you will present your idea to the class and the invited guests.