Student Showcase: Stephanie Boissonneault
Hello and welcome to our first of our set of Student Showcase articles! These articles will be designed to showcase student contributions and outcomes to TMU’s Zone Learning, a new model of experiential learning built to allow students to apply their degree coursework to real world startups, causes, companies, or ventures. The Zones, the topic of which depends on what the student is interested in exploring, are a useful resource for allowing students to develop a plan to bring an artistic or commercial project of their own to market as well as learn skills relevant to working for others.
Stephanie is one such student, a mature student in 3rd Year Nutrition. Her aim in her program is to become a dietician. She used ZON 100 as an opportunity to explore ways in which she could implement the things she was learning in class, much of which was theoretical. Zone Learning represented an opportunity to put the theory into practice.
According to Stephanie, Zone Learning is at its core an opportunity for students to learn from each other. The only requirement for a project is that it receives pre-approval to ensure it meets the evaluation goals of the course. If it does, students work on their project throughout the course and integrate specific classroom learning experiences. Evaluation tends to resolve around demonstrating how the Zone Learning skills were incorporated, as well as regular reports on how the students did so. The course's specific learning goals are based on the development of professional soft skills such as critical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving, and uncertainty thinking. As such, there is opportunity for dialogue and cooperation between students regardless of discipline and the nature of their project, and they’re encouraged to talk to each other about how best to incorporate these skills in their particular field.
Like many other students, Stephanie’s project changed multiple times over the course of her time in ZON 100. Her idea was initially a modest cookbook, but she learned from other students how to do market research, construct a webpage, and speak to potential customers, and changed her project to incorporate these skills. She decided to build a website, a virtual cookbook with interactive components such as nutrition tips and nutrition facts tables. Inspired by her peers with different backgrounds in media, she’s now learning more about working with video editing and graphic design. She’s also now diving into what it is to make a “food demonstration video” for said website, which she wouldn’t have thought about doing if she hadn’t met students engaged in video editing and design!
Stephanie wants to emphasize that Zone Learning Project I (ZON 100) provides a supportive environment to both students who are working towards building a business and those working on personal projects. The ZON 100's best function is being an environment in which students can explore their passions, leverage their skills, and build their projects. This course focuses on transferable skills critical to professional growth and development across fields, such as networking, communication, and project management.
Not only is Stephanie prepared to recommend the ZON 100 course, but she is also encouraging students to engage in other Zone learning opportunities on campus. TMU has different Zones, many of which have different ongoing projects or challenges throughout the year. Students can learn more about TMU's Zones here! Her best advice for students interested in Zones Learning at TMU is to set aside your fears and give them a try! They are an incredible opportunity to explore ideas that are dear to you and to engage in meaningful dialogue with students and faculty about the skills needed to run a venture of your very own.
Her best advice for students interested in the Zones is to give it a try as long as you have an open schedule! While the best benefits will come from sticking it out the whole way through, even just stopping by a Zone for the first few sessions will give you the opportunity to explore an idea that’s dear to you and to engage in meaningful dialogue with students and faculty about the skills needed to run a venture of your very own.
