Challenge    I am currently an undergraduate sophomore student and a member of the Undergraduate  Business Association (UBA) events committee. Our challenge is finding ways to improve  student engagement in our Zoom meetings during the covid-19 pandemic. In our in-person  meetings before quarantine, students were able to engage with one another by chatting with  new people, grabbing food, meeting with guest speakers or club officers, and participating in  giveaways and raffles. The interactions made the meetings lively but after the transition to  online meetings, the atmosphere felt dull. We needed to improve the environment of our  meetings fast in order to keep students and guest speakers interested while retaining and  increasing membership.     Selection    Our team decides to use the Learning Launch tool as we have already used the mind mapping  tool to identify common themes and patterns that made the meetings uninteresting, which I will  elaborate on in the next section. Learning Launches are small, cheap experiments where we  are able to test our ideas and determine if they should be continued. We already answered the  three questions: What is? What if? and What wows?. Now, we are ready to move to the final  stage, What works? and test the tool in our live meetings.     Application    Our first step is identifying the problems in our online meetings from our mind maps. We  conclude that the lack of students turning their cameras on made it awkward for guest speakers  to have closer connections with the audience and the lack of interactions between students  made it difficult to develop friendly relationships. Our first learning launch is to encourage  students to turn on their cameras by stating the task in emails and asking them to turn on their  cameras during the meeting. When students turn on their cameras, they are more likely to pay  attention instead of doing other tasks off screen such as scrolling through their phones. Next,  we implement break out rooms before the meeting begins to allow students to introduce  themselves and interact with one another. A club officer is placed into one of the breakout  rooms to encourage conversation or icebreakers, which are games intended for people to  introduce one another.     Our next learning launch is engaging the audience throughout the presentation. We use zoom’s  tools such as “raise hands” and polls throughout the meetings to ensure the audience was  actively listening. The polls ranged from questions on the presentation slides to icebreaker or  fun questions. In addition, we have a live Q&A portion at the end of meetings where students  are able to directly ask questions to the speaker through their microphone. When students ask  their questions through the microphone instead of text, the speakers are less likely to  misinterpret the question.

Insight    At the end of the meeting, we emailed surveys to ask students for their feedback. From the  results, many students enjoyed the new tools we implemented as it made the meeting more  interesting. Furthermore, several students recommended that we can continue our giveaways  by holding virtual raffles and have prizes such as an online gift card. From our learning  launches, the insights we gained were the need to have great teamwork and student feedback.  Working as a team is important to keep the meetings lively from encouraging conversations in  break-out rooms to planning the schedule of the meeting to stay within the time frame.  Feedback from the students were huge in ensuring that membership won’t drop while providing  us new ways to improve such as the online raffles. This led me to think that collaboration and  customer feedback is essential in the Design Thinking process. Working as a team helps  generate new ideas while customer feedback helps with improvement.     Approach    Due to the success of the Learning Launch tool, our team would continue to utilize the tool as  we strive to improve our meetings. Instead of relying only on zoom tools, we will try different  alternatives such as using Poll Everywhere or Kahoot. Members may get bored of the meetings  if they seem redundant, which is why experimenting with new tools would keep them interested  and help us improve by finding new ways to interact with them. In addition, we can also try  different online-meeting platforms such as Google Meets to determine which platform is more  efficient.


Challenge I am currently an undergraduate sophomore student and a member of the Undergraduate Business Association ( UBA ) events committee . Our challenge is finding ways to improve student engagement in our Zoom meetings during the covid-19 pandemic . In our in - person meetings before quarantine , students were able to engage with one another by chatting with new people , grabbing food , meeting with guest speakers or club officers , and participating in giveaways and raffles . The interactions made the meetings lively but after the transition to online meetings , the atmosphere felt dull . We needed to improve the environment of our meetings fast in order to keep students and guest speakers interested while retaining and increasing membership . Selection Our team decides to use the Learning Launch tool as we have already used the mind mapping tool to identify common themes and patterns that made the meetings uninteresting , which I will elaborate on in the next section . Learning Launches are small , cheap experiments where we are able to test our ideas and determine if they should be continued . We already answered the three questions : What is ? What if ? and What wows ? . Now , we are ready to move to the final stage , What works ? and test the tool in our live meetings . Application Our first step is identifying the problems in our online meetings from our mind maps . We conclude that the lack of students turning their cameras on made it awkward for guest speakers to have closer connections with the audience and the lack of interactions between students made it difficult to develop friendly relationships . Our first learning launch is to encourage students to turn on their cameras by stating the task in emails and asking them to turn on their cameras during the meeting . When students turn on their cameras , they are more likely to pay attention instead of doing other tasks off screen such as scrolling through their phones . Next , we implement break out rooms before the meeting begins to allow students to introduce themselves and interact with one another . A club officer is placed into one of the breakout rooms to encourage conversation or icebreakers , which are games intended for people to introduce one another . Our next learning launch is engaging the audience throughout the presentation . We use zoom ’s tools such as “ raise hands ” and polls throughout the meetings to ensure the audience was actively listening . The polls ranged from questions on the presentation slides to icebreaker or fun questions . In addition , we have a live Q&A portion at the end of meetings where students are able to directly ask questions to the speaker through their microphone . When students ask their questions through the microphone instead of text , the speakers are less likely to misinterpret the question . Insight At the end of the meeting , we emailed surveys to ask students for their feedback . From the results , many students enjoyed the new tools we implemented as it made the meeting more interesting . Furthermore , several students recommended that we can continue our giveaways by holding virtual raffles and have prizes such as an online gift card . From our learning launches , the insights we gained were the need to have great teamwork and student feedback . Working as a team is important to keep the meetings lively from encouraging conversations in break - out rooms to planning the schedule of the meeting to stay within the time frame . Feedback from the students were huge in ensuring that membership wo n’t drop while providing us new ways to improve such as the online raffles . This led me to think that collaboration and customer feedback is essential in the Design Thinking process . Working as a team helps generate new ideas while customer feedback helps with improvement . Approach Due to the success of the Learning Launch tool , our team would continue to utilize the tool as we strive to improve our meetings . Instead of relying only on zoom tools , we will try different alternatives such as using Poll Everywhere or Kahoot . Members may get bored of the meetings if they seem redundant , which is why experimenting with new tools would keep them interested and help us improve by finding new ways to interact with them . In addition , we can also try different online - meeting platforms such as Google Meets to determine which platform is more efficient .