Staff Excellence: Innovation Hub
The Innovation Hub supports Purdue faculty in transforming courses through funding, resources and collaboration, ultimately enhancing student success. By fostering interdisciplinary connections, the Innovation Hub helps faculty and staff implement innovative teaching practices, such as integrating GenAI into the curriculum.
Beth Fines, Rebecca Martinez, Lindsay Hamm, and Ed Berger, members of the Innovation Hub team, work together to advance teaching and learning at Purdue through faculty support, collaboration, and creative problem-solving.
The Innovation Hub supports Purdue faculty and staff in designing and implementing course-based transformations that drive student success. Through funding, resources and a campus-wide network of innovation partners, the Innovation Hub helps faculty elevate their teaching while fostering an environment of experimentation.
“Our goal is to help faculty enhance course experiences for students by providing support, resources and helping them navigate any barriers they face,” says Beth Fines, managing director of the Innovation Hub.
Funded by the Lilly Endowment, the financial support allocated by the Innovation Hub allows faculty to spend their summers building out their ideas and preparing to implement them in the coming semester, says Fines.
“We provide the resources for faculty to pause and be really thoughtful about trying some new approaches in light of both what we know about how students learn and what they are hearing from their students,” says Fines.
Projects are evaluated by the Innovation Hub throughout planning and implementation. “We support faculty in developing strong evaluation plans that help them to demonstrate the impacts of their projects on learners," explains Fines.
Andres Bejarano, professor of computer science, worked with the Innovation Hub while integrating GenAI into the computer science curriculum.
“They provided valuable feedback on our project proposals, which helped refine the project’s scope for CS education and facilitated the dissemination of our findings to instructors across other disciplines at the university,” says Bejarano.
The Innovation Hub funds projects across all colleges, with the ultimate goal of enhancing education for all Boilermakers. Insight from successful initiatives and project evaluations are propagated to other disciplines and populations across the university.
A key strength of the Innovation Hub is its vast network of like-minded faculty focused on student-centered initiatives, says Ed Berger, director of the Innovation Hub and associate vice provost for learning innovation.
By fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration, the Innovation Hub empowers professors to support one another. For example, a professor with an idea for a course innovation related to virtual reality may lack the technical expertise to implement it, while a colleague across campus specializes in that very technology. The Innovation Hub bridges these gaps, turning innovative ideas into impactful learning experiences.
“The Innovation Hub supports educational innovation across campus, and we’re thrilled to support an active and engaged network of faculty and staff who find new ways to support student success," says Berger.
By fostering innovative teaching practices and helping the innovators find compatible partners, the Innovation Hub helps prepare students for the world and their future. Visit the Innovation Hub website to learn more.
Giuliana Corliss
Communication Assistant for Teaching and Learning, tlcoms@purdue.edu