Episode 75: Julia Allworth on the Secret Sauce for Experiential Learning
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How can you reimagine student employment as experiential learning? What projects can students work on to learn and grow while helping their university? What skills and relationships can they build along the way? We dive into these questions with Julia Allworth who founded and leads University of Toronto's Innovation Hub which trains students in design thinking and deploys them as consultants on projects improve the student experience.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education, the traditional boundaries between classroom theory and career reality are blurring. Educators and administrators are increasingly looking for ways to bridge this gap, ensuring that students graduate not just with a degree but with the confidence and self-awareness needed to navigate a complex world.
Julia Allworth, the founder and lead of the Innovation Hub at the University of Toronto, is at the forefront of this movement. By integrating design thinking with student employment, she has created a unique ecosystem where students act as consultants to solve real-world institutional problems. This approach goes beyond mere "job training"—it is a fundamental reimagining of how we define and achieve student success.
Redefining Student Success: The Power of Self-Knowledge
Standard metrics for student success often focus on graduation rates, GPAs, and initial salary figures. However, through her work at the Innovation Hub, Allworth proposes a more internal definition: student success is the process of knowing oneself and feeling comfortable in one’s own skin.
When students understand their unique strengths and how they contribute to a team, they develop a durable sense of confidence. This isn't just the ability to speak in front of a crowd; it is the deep-seated belief that they can take on any challenge because they know who they are and what they care about. To reach this state, students must step out of the lecture hall and into environments where they can apply their academic knowledge to tangible problems.
Design Thinking as a Tool for Experiential Learning
At the heart of Allworth’s model is design thinking in higher education. By training student teams in this human-centered methodology, the Innovation Hub allows them to tackle complex issues like student mental health, library redesigns, and the needs of students with disabilities.
Design thinking is the perfect vehicle for experiential learning because it requires students to:
Practice Empathy: Students conduct deep-dive interviews to understand the lived experiences of their peers.
Embrace Discomfort: Learning happens most effectively when students are slightly uncomfortable, pushing through "failed" prototypes or challenging data sets.
Work Across Differences: Teams are composed of students from diverse disciplines—from PhDs in engineering to undergraduates in sociology—forcing them to translate their academic languages into shared solutions.
This "meta-learning" allows students to prototype their future careers while simultaneously improving the university for the next generation of learners.
Navigating the Post-Pandemic Shift: Trends and Challenges
The landscape of experiential learning has shifted significantly following the pandemic. Allworth notes a growing trend toward neurodiversity, with more students identifying as neurodiverse and being highly vocal about how their specific learning styles impact their work.
Furthermore, there is a renewed emphasis on the value of in-person collaboration. While digital tools allowed work to continue during lockdowns, the Innovation Hub has returned to a 100% in-person model. The goal is to combat the isolation of virtual work and foster a "culture of care." By sharing physical space—and even daily lunches—students build the relational skills that are often lost in hybrid environments. They learn that they aren't alone in their "imposter syndrome" or their struggles, which is a vital component of building a sense of belonging on campus.
Becoming a Change Maker: The Long-Term Impact
The ultimate goal of these student success strategies is to produce "change makers." When students are given the agency to consult on university policy or design documentaries about the international student experience, they realize they have the power to influence systems.
Julia Allworth’s work demonstrates that when we treat students as partners in the design of their education, the benefits extend far beyond the campus walls. Alumni of the Innovation Hub are now leading design thinking processes in government, policy, and technology. They leave the university not just with a transcript, but with a proven track record of making the world a better place.
Summary
True connection in a college setting comes from breaking down silos between coursework and careers. By utilizing design thinking and experiential learning, institutions can help students develop the self-awareness and practical skills necessary to transition seamlessly into the workforce. The Innovation Hub at the University of Toronto serves as a powerful blueprint for any college looking to foster a more connected, empathetic, and successful student body.
Episode 75 Transcript
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Elliot Felix: That was Julia Allworth, who created and runs the Innovation Hub at the University of Toronto, where students work as consultants on projects to improve the student experience. We had a fantastic conversation, and I think this episode touches on more aspects of leading a connected college than maybe any other—experiential learning, design thinking, building skills and relationships, reimagining student employment, the college to career transition, working across differences and neurodiversity. I think you're really gonna enjoy it. Welcome to the Connected College Podcast. I'm your host, Elliot Felix. I've helped more than a hundred colleges and universities change what they offer, how they operate, and how they're organized to enable student success. And if you're a leader in higher ed, and you think that the silos and separations get in the way of student success, then this podcast and my upcoming book, The Connected College, are for you. We're here to learn and work together to bust silos, question tradition, and forge partnerships so that students feel connected to their college, their community, their coursework, and their careers.
Julia Alworth: I wanna create people who understand how to be change makers by giving them that experience of making change, and then allowing them to take that out into the world wherever they go, into their different fields and areas of expertise. To be the design thinkers, to be the change makers, and ultimately, I hope make the world a better place.
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Elliot Felix: And you mentioned the focus of the innovation hub is improving student experiences and think student experience, student success. Not exactly synonymous, but adjacent. And I would love to hear your definition of student success, a great experience is part of that, but how do you define student success?
Julia Alworth: So my definition of student success is really, it's really about knowing oneself. If I had one wish for a student leaving higher ed, like having finished and going out to whatever's next for them, it's that they would feel this sense of confidence. It's the number one thing that all students ask me or tell me that they want to develop during the time in the innovation hub. And so I've thought a lot about what is confidence, because a lot of them think about it as standing up in front of a room and speaking. But I've come to realize that I think confidence comes from being comfortable in one's own skin, and the only way to get there is to get to know oneself, what they're good at, what they bring to this world, how they're uniquely qualified for something in a way that no one else is. And I think it's experiential learning that makes that connection. So confidence, feeling comfortable in one's own skin, but really knowing oneself, I think to me is ultimately what people and what students need to go forward and have the sense that they can take on anything, and that they know what they want to take on because they know who they are and they know what they care about.
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Elliot Felix: If student success is knowing yourself and gaining confidence and feeling comfortable and knowing what to take on learning things, challenging yourself. What role does experiential learning play in gaining that comfort and confidence and knowledge of yourself? How does that happen?
Julia Alworth: Yeah, I think it's absolutely essential. I don't know that we can know ourselves, if not in the context of working collaboratively with others or working on projects. I always say to my students, my real definition of learning is that it means that you have to be uncomfortable. So in design thinking, we talk about failure as learning, right? And we talk about failing fast and failing forward and failing often, and all these things. And in the research intensive university that I'm part of, failure can be a really dirty word for students, right? They don't like to hear it. So what we try to do is really get comfortable with this idea that we're not learning unless we're somewhat uncomfortable, there's an embodiment of it. There's a feeling that goes along with it. If I think about the biggest lessons that I've had in my life, there's usually some kind of mistake or like gut punch moment or visceral feeling that goes along with it. That it creates a memory of something that I now know that I didn't before.
Julia Alworth: Coming around to experiential learning creates those opportunities, right? It creates those opportunities for this really embodied learning, right? It takes the theoretical and helps people bring it to life, because typically it involves working with other people, and typically it involves working on something that has some kind of practical application or meaning, and I have to engage in a process of seeing myself and seeing how I work as I'm doing the learning. So I would say that a huge part of what enables students to get to know themselves is finding a comfortable, safer space to engage in experiential learning and the ability to really bring one's full self and be oneself to the extent that they're able.
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Elliot Felix: What's changing about the role that these experiential learning projects using design thinking? Are they different now than they were five years ago, and where will they be in five years? Is there, are you seeing some trends in the data that you gather or how you engage people or the results you get or how you communicate? Like what's changing about the work you're doing?
Julia Alworth: Yeah, in a lot of ways so much is changing. I think the biggest shift I've seen in the students was over the pandemic and coming back from the pandemic. And since then, one of the things is that for whatever reason, the pandemic really changed people's ways that they want to interact or that they show up in group settings. And one of the ways that we've addressed that is since the pandemic, our work is a hundred percent in person, so we don't offer the opportunity for hybrid work or online work, which is really uncomfortable for a lot of our students because that's what they've gotten used to. But when people get together, there's an energy in the room when you're looking at data and when you're talking to people that you can't really get online to the same extent. So we essentially force them to work in person with each other.
Julia Alworth: What I've seen on our team is a lot more neurodiversity. There's a lot of students who will identify as neurodiverse, either on the autism spectrum or ADHD. Different learning styles. Students are very aware of how who they are as learners impacts how they show up in the work. We're really proud that we have a lot of neurodiversity on our team. I think the type of work we do attracts the kinds of minds and thinking that comes with neurodiversity. We've really just tried to create as safest space as possible for people to come and show up as who they are. Most of them, by the time they leave, they know that they want to find a workplace where they can do that.
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Elliot Felix: What's really interesting is it's designed thinking on a meta level too. 'cause you're using it on the projects, but in a way they're prototyping their future employment experience, right? They're learning about working in person. They're learning about working on a team. They're learning about themselves. I like that, that the kind of, the prototyping and the design thinking is working on many levels.
Julia Alworth: You've discovered my worst kept secret, Elliot. Which is really, it's not about the projects at all. People get excited about the project and I think the projects have impact, but to me, the whole purpose of the innovation hub is so that people can come in and kind of design themselves and learn about themselves. For me, the innovation hub is really this sort of space in which we get to really workshop what that looks like in practice, what does it look to have a place where you can come and bring your academic knowledge and skills and see have these aha moments. Learning what it means to be a good employee, learning what it means to build workplace skills, and then starting to think about where can I really take this?
Julia Alworth: I wanna create people who understand how to be change makers by giving them that experience of making change, and then allowing them to take that out into the world wherever they go, into their different fields and areas of expertise. To be the design thinkers, to be the change makers, and ultimately, I hope make the world a better place.
Elliot Felix: Yeah, I hope so too. And it comes right back to your definition of student success, where you know yourself. You've gained confidence and comfort in discomfort and challenge, and you're ready to take on the world. I love the model, I love the meta model, and I really appreciate your time and insights today, Julia.