{"332681":{"#nid":"332681","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Learning Commons Now Open","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s Tuesday afternoon and the fourth floor of the U.A. Whitaker Biomedical Building is filled with the silent hum of young brains working alone and in small groups, biomedical engineering students surrounded by their ideas, which are literally written on the walls around them, and Joe Le Doux is smiling.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI guess the Learning Commons idea is taking off,\u201d says Le Doux, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), where he is executive director for learning and student experience, a new position that places him in the role of chief facilitator for the recently opened, student-directed BME Learning Commons. \u201cThis is exactly what we want to see. It\u2019s a start.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA work in progress, the BME Learning Commons isn\u2019t just a physical space \u2013 the ongoing renovation of what was a fourth-floor faculty\/staff lounge into a social learning environment for BME students (an ongoing process. \u201cIt\u2019s actually more of a movement,\u201d Le Doux says. \u201cAnd the goal is for students to take ownership of their BME experience.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELe Doux defines his role as, \u201ca representative of the department there to empower the students. That\u2019s the objective. It\u2019s very important that this is student owned and student led.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo help that happen, Le Doux organized a brainstorming session last November. Fourteen people (including eight undergraduate students) participated in the \u2018fast and furious charrette,\u2019 to conceptualize the BME Learning Commons. From that meeting, five undergrads (Candice Cheung, Abhinav Mehra, Yuna Oh, Malvika Sanghvi and Yitian Xiao) volunteered to work with Le Doux on designing the program, along with faculty and staff advisors (Raja Schaar, Barbara Fasse, Kim Paige, Chris Calleri and Alisha Waller). The student leadership team has grown to include Veena Ganapathy, Grace Ha, Lizzie Marr, Bharat Sanders, Durazi Savasir, Dhara Patel, Alexa Siu, Abhinaya Uthayakumar and Catherine Wallace. During the spring, students interviewed classmates about the idea, and some of the early feedback wasn\u2019t very encouraging according to Cheung, a third-year student.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSome of the BMEs I talked to were really skeptical and actually a little condescending about what the department is trying to do with this program. Others were hesitant,\u201d says Cheung. \u201cAnd then some were excited. I would say that the general attitude towards the Learning Commons has taken a 180. I think part of it is because now we have a running program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe\u2019s talking about the mentorship program, a popular response to what was identified as one of the highest priorities in those early days of planning last winter and spring.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe goal was to have every single freshman who comes to BME have an upperclassman mentor, and for every upperclassman mentor to have an alumni mentor,\u201d Le Doux explains. \u201cWe get roughly 400 freshmen a year, and I figured that if we could have one upperclassman per five freshman, we would need to recruit 80 upperclassman mentors, which I thought would be difficult to achieve.\u0026nbsp; Instead, more than 130 upperclassmen volunteered to serve as mentors, which is amazing.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAll told, there are about 540 participants throughout the BME Learning Commons Mentorship Program now, and Le Doux expects that figure to reach 650, once the upperclassmen are matched with their alumni mentors\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe mentorship program was the first thing to grow out of the Learning Commons, but the space itself is evolving,\u201d says Le Doux, looking at some of the comments and ideas, which are written in marker ink on walls that are actually huge white boards.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere are several different requests for coffee makers and refrigerators, one for hammocks outside on the patio, one for Legos, one for a telescope and one that says, \u201cTwo words \u2026 wet bar.\u201d Le Doux and Cheung chuckle at one particularly vivid suggestion for heating control, accompanied by two cartoons. One depicts a wilting man on all fours saying, \u201cIts too hot.\u201d The other depicts a shivering man saying, \u201cIts too cold.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re encouraging students to think of this as an experimental space right now,\u201d says Le Doux. \u201cWe haven\u2019t plunked down a lot of money on renovating the space yet, so student feedback and comments will generate what ultimately happens to the space.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Le Doux, this sense of student empowerment is key to the success so far, and the promise, of the BME Learning Commons. \u201cOut of all this, a new student organization has emerged to harness all of this energy,\u201d he says, referring to the \u2018product owners\u2019 who have taken on leadership roles in \u2018scrum teams,\u2019 part of the \u2018agile management\u2019 methodology (prevalent in the software industry, adapted by the Learning Commons folks), a management style that fits well with rapidly changing needs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSo, we have about a dozen product owners so far who are in the process of forming teams, and we have literally just started having weekly Learning Commons leadership team meetings,\u201d Le Doux says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECheung is the product owner for what may be the Learning Commons\u2019 next up-and-running program, the podcast studio. \u201cI\u2019m thinking that the first podcast will be an introduction to the Learning Commons as a whole,\u201d she says, adding, \u201cNow that people are seeing that we are very serious about creating a change in BME, they\u2019re more willing to use the services that we offer and will be offering.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith 1,400 students in BME, that leaves plenty of opportunities for a wide variety of podcasts, which means lots of stories and human experiences, which Le Doux believes will only enhance the learning experience in the Coulter Department. \u201cStorytelling is a fundamental human trait,\u201d he says. \u201cWe all create narratives to explain how things work. Sharing stories is a natural, effective way to learn. Research shows that when experts solve problems, the first thing they do is talk to somebody else who solved a problem similar to theirs. It\u2019s essentially story collection, and we see that as one way to provide more interaction with alumni or faculty or experts in the field.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere is a definitive StoryCorps vibe to the podcast idea, and that isn\u2019t an accident. StoryCorps is a nonprofit organization that is producing one of the largest oral history projects ever conceived. Since 2003, the organization has collected and archived more than 50,000 interviews, including weekly broadcasts on National Public Radio.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cStoryCorps certainly has influenced our thinking,\u201d says Le Doux, who employed a similar program in a course he taught, BMED 1000, as a way of connecting students with alumni, with experts in biomedical engineering, and essentially, with their potential futures.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt was a way of building community, because our students don\u2019t necessarily know what everybody with a BME degree is up to.\u201d Le Doux says. \u201cIn fact, there is some angst and uncertainty about what to do with a BME degree. So our students worked in teams, went out and interviewed biomedical engineers, and asked them deep, open-ended questions.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey gathered more than 80 stories, which Le Doux, with the help of Alexa Siu and her BME Stories scrum team, plans to post online soon. Cheung is looking forward to assembling a team of students to gather even more stories, with the help of the podcast studio. The idea is to build a catalog of stories from experts, alumni, faculty, and students. \u201cI imagine it as something students can open up and find what they need in the experiences of others, find something that resonates with them, something they can learn from,\u201d Le Doux says. \u201cKind of like a box of wisdom.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Jerry Grillo\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"It\u2019s more than a just a physical space \u2013 it\u2019s a movement..."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-10-09 12:43:34","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:15","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"332671":{"id":"332671","type":"image","title":"Candice and Joe poscast","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895044","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:44","alt":"Candice and Joe poscast","file":{"fid":"200404","name":"candice_and_joe_podcast.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_and_joe_podcast_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_and_joe_podcast_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1462703,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/candice_and_joe_podcast_0.jpg?itok=YNjmM86i"}},"332661":{"id":"332661","type":"image","title":"Candice and Joe","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895044","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:44","alt":"Candice and Joe","file":{"fid":"200403","name":"candice_and_joe.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_and_joe_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_and_joe_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2371754,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/candice_and_joe_0.jpg?itok=qHvzISlL"}}},"media_ids":["332671","332661"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"105971","name":"Learning Commons"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}