IDEA - Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

IDEA201 Innovation Tools & Mindsets (1 Credit)

Challenges assumptions around what is needed to innovate and who innovators are. Through hands-on activities and reflection, you'll be invited to step out of your comfort zone, think and work in new ways, and gain confidence in your creative abilities.

Credit Only Granted for: IDEA201 or IDEA258A.

Formerly: IDEA258A.

IDEA210 Innovation + Sustainability: Designing your own Sustainable Future (3 Credits)

This hands-on, project-based course tackles the intersection of environment, creativity, and business to develop sustainable solutions to pressing environmental problems. Students work in teams and use design thinking and other human-centered methods to address real-world design challenges. Students will integrate entrepreneurial methods to shape their college and career journey towards a more sustainable future and learn how to motivate and empower others to adopt more sustainable behaviors.

Credit Only Granted for: CPSP249E or IDEA210.

IDEA258 Special Topics in Innovation (1-3 Credits)

Special topics in innovation

Repeatable to: 6 credits if content differs.

IDEA311 Design Your Purpose (1 Credit)

What do you want to do once you graduate? What about with your life? These are the big questions we begin to tackle in this course. Use design methods and mindsets to explore your personal and professional development goals and explore potential career paths. Using empathy, brainstorming, and prototyping techniques, you'll imagine potential futures for yourself and test them to see if they are a good fit for you.

Credit Only Granted for: IDEA311 or IDEA379A.

Formerly: IDEA379A.

IDEA345 Becoming a Design Thinker (1 Credit)

Learn design thinking tools and mindsets to create change in meaningful ways and cultivate your curiosity in this dynamic, hands-on course. Encounter new approaches to learning from others, synthesizing qualitative data, visualizing your ideas, and navigating ambiguity (among others!) while applying the tools and techniques to real-world applications. No prior experience or knowledge of design thinking is needed.

Credit Only Granted for: IDEA247 or IDEA345.

Formerly: IDEA247.

IDEA358 Special Topics in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (1-3 Credits)

Special topics in innovation and entrepreneurship applying concepts in real-world applications

Repeatable to: 4 credits if content differs.

IDEA369 Peer Innovation Coaching (2 Credits)

Deepen your role as an Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Peer Innovation Coach (PIC), where you will be coaching and guiding student teams in the classroom as they learn to use innovation methods. There is both an experiential component and a classroom component. The experiential component involves coaching and teaching innovation class sessions throughout campus, and the classroom component involves discussions, reflection assignments and scenario role-playing to help improve your coaching and teaching. While some of the content in the classroom component will be seeded by a set of course readings, much of it will also be seeded by your own experiences in the experiential component.

Prerequisite: IDEA247; and permission from the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Repeatable to: 6 credits.

Formerly: IDEA358A.

IDEA379 Advanced Topics in Innovation (1-3 Credits)

Advanced topics in innovation

Recommended: IDEA247.

Restriction: Permission of the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Repeatable to: 6 credits if content differs.

IDEA398 Special Topics in Coaching (1-3 Credits)

Special topics in coaching others

Restriction: Permission of the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Repeatable to: 6 credits.

IDEA398C Special Topics in Coaching: Carillon Peer Mentors (2 Credits)

Prepares students to serve as Peer Mentors in the Carillon Studio (IDEA101). Students gain exposure to a variety of design abilities, methods, and mindsets that prepare them to apply human-centered design to their work in and beyond the classroom. Each Peer Mentor is paired with an IDEA101 instructor, and together they teach aspects of design to first-year students in Carillon Communities, leading them through individual and team projects that encourage them to creatively solve problems. Students build upon their prior experiences in Carillon Communities as they develop skills in communication, leadership, mentorship, and design thinking.

Prerequisite: IDEA101.

Restriction: Permission of the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

IDEA459 The Innovation Studio: Experience Design in Performance Contexts (3 Credits)

When you think of classical music, do you picture ball gowns, men in powdered wigs, and music to fall asleep to? For many, these common misconceptions create barriers to encountering live classical music. The Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship partners with the National Orchestral Institute + Festival to challenge long-standing assumptions and explore the potential for belonging, experimentation, and awe that live classical music offers. This interdisciplinary design studio serves as a collaborative, experiential space to explore and develop ideas for future NOI+F festivals. We'll cover tenets of Experience Design like Phase 0, relational empathy, immersion, world building, and diagramming, and draw on practices such as Futuring, Improv, and Human-Centered Design to create innovative, audience-centered experiments. Whatever your experience level with classical music, design, or powdered wigs, you'll deepen your creative intuition and uncover new ways of working and thinking.

Jointly offered with: IDEA659.

Restriction: Permission of the Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

Repeatable to: 6 credits.

IDEA498 Independent Study: Experiments in Design and Innovation (1-3 Credits)

Students will work on a self-selected challenge and/or real-world project using design tools and methods, with an emphasis on employing a human-centered, creative problem-solving approach. This course requires a high degree of self-direction in all aspects of the project work, including defining specific milestones and deliverables. There will be regular coaching from an Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship team member. Previous design experience required.

Prerequisite: Previous design experience required; and must have Permission of Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship .

Repeatable to: 6 credits.

Additional Information: For more information on design see https://innovation.umd.edu/about-us/what-design. Contact department for information to register for this course.