Improve the quality of your modules by engaging students in immersive, AI-integrated, game-based experiences, inspired by design thinking and custom-designed for your challenge.

We create better student experiences, improve learning outcomes & work quality, and reduce academic admin by combining learning science with UX design.

CBL Experiences

custom-designed for your specific challenge
Ask AI

We help you to frame a real-world challenge around a core module topic on your module.

Teams then use our modified ChatGPT interface to gather insights and create an innovation. Students then build on the ideas of others and vote for the best idea from across their class.

See example →

Eureka

Teams use playful online spinner wheels that decides which challenge they will tackle from a menu of options.

They then prototype & test their ideas using our customised built-in ChatGPT display. Individuals add their creative twist to another’s idea and vote.

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reimagine

Teams use fun Spin to Reveal tech that decides which solution enabler their team use to address their problem to be solved.

They then prototype & test their ideas using our modified ChatGPT interface. Individuals improve on another team’s idea and vote for best idea.

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target-education

"Transversal skills and competencies, such as collaboration and innovation, are commonly integrated into institutional policy and curricula to improve student employability and post-university life. The acquisition of such skills requires a different means of teaching students whereby they actively develop these skills rather than focusing on strict disciplinary learning objectives. Student-led approaches, such as CBL, can support this type of skill development and have been identified in third level policy and strategy as key to institutional reform, student progression, and mobility."

Gaebel et al. (2018). Learning and teaching in the European Higher Education Area

Why These Challenges Work

lhealthcare

Easily engage large groups in real-world innovation

Our CBL experiences guide students through a full cycle of design thinking and real-world innovation, without the time, cost and inefficiencies typically associated with such experiences. These experiences are accessible on-demand, allowing students to work at their convenience.

We use creative constraints to help teams identify specific problems to address. After brainstorming solutions, teams test their ideas seamlessly through our integrated ChatGBT interface. They can then easily iterate on their ideas based on feedback from ChatGBT and peers.

Enhance the student experience and improve learning outcomes

Our platform fosters creative (divergent) and critical (convergent) thinking - The 2 Big Future Skills*. Students develop an innovator’s mindset — empathizing, questioning, associating, adapting, and networking — by brainstorming original ideas and improving on others' ideas.

To deepen the learning outcomes, students receive an innovator’s playbook in advance. Upon completion, students receive a digital badge for LinkedIn and a personalised report to assess their capabilities and further their innovation journey.

* Source: World Economic Forum, The Jobs of the Future Report 2023

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Effortless experience for educators

How-to screencasts, instructional emails and a dedicated account manager make it a seamless experience for both participants and hosts.

Module coordinators and lecturers receive access to a dashboard with overall class performance across key problem-solving metrics including participation and performance assessment. This data is easily uploaded to the University VLE, allowing faculty to easily track & record student progress and share with faculty peers or extern examiners.

How it Works

  • Week 0
    Week 1
    Week 2
    Week 3
  • Week 0
  • Step 1
    prepare

    Prepare

    During a call with one of our innovation specialists we demo the challenge, consider how to best customise the challenge to suit your module content, discuss options for integrating into your module assessment or not and agree the communications strategy.

  • Week 1
  • Step 2
    Ideate

    Ideate

    Students receive a link to the challenge page, with an explainer video and guidance on how to participate. The challenge page will guide them through each step - empathise, define, ideate, test, prototype

  • Week 2
  • Step 3
    vote

    Vote

    Following the deadline for submissions, students are prompted to view all of their classmates ideas, appreciate the divergence of ideas submitted and then vote for their favourite one.

  • Step 4
    build

    Build

    After voting, students pick one idea which they can build, combine and improve on with their own creative twist. They submit their suggested improvement, which provides each team feedback on their idea.

  • Week 3
  • Step 5
    awards

    Awards & Analytics

    The winners (and honourable mentions) for the best original team idea and the best individual build idea are announced in class. Each student then receives a personalised innovation report & digital badge. The academic host receives an analytics report.

Our Innovation Challenges were adapted for & hugely valued by

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What UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science said..

With an MSc class of 165 it has been very challenging to incorporate learning activities that truly enhance students creativity and problem-solving skills. This year, with the help of Anytime Creativity, we customised a challenge focused on the current, ongoing restructuring of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Participation rates were very high and the range & quality of ideas was superb. The voting component incentivised everyone to appreciate the diversity of ideas generated while the "build on others ideas" had students thinking in a different way. It was a brilliant experience for the students, and allowed me to integrate a much needed aspect into my module for a relatively small amount of work on my side. Highly recommended.
Craig Slattery
Assistant Professor of Regulatory Affairs & Toxicology
UCD School of Molecular & Biomedical Science
I liked that the Challenge was real-world because it made it so immersive. We had fun brainstorming so many different ideas and it made me think how we all look at problems from different perspectives. I also liked the voting because it forced me to analyse all the different ideas. It was a great Challenge and I learned loads about my creativity. Kudos all round.
Alessandra Wong Albujar
Student & Challenge Participant
UCD School of Molecular & Biomedical Science
I really enjoyed building on the ideas of others, looking through all the ideas that were submitted & thinking about how they could be improved. It forced me to think in creative ways that I don't often use. Overall the Challenge was a fresh & playful way for students to test their real-world healthcare innovation skills. Well done for arranging it.
Allison Laws
Student & Challenge Participant
UCD School of Molecular & Biomedical Science

FAQs

The best way is to make the experience part of the module assessment process for a related subject. This ensures 100% participation and will encourage students to engage fully.

Alternatively a year head, module co-ordinator or lecturer could promote the experience as an engaging, immersive way for students to have a creative impact, now or in the future, on real-world challenges.

The time spent on each experience will vary greatly, depending on the student's commitment and passion for problem-solving and whether or not it is assessed. We estimate a minimum of 3-4 hours direct commitment per student plus undirected thinking and reflection time.
  1. Idea Submission. 3-5 hours to understand the experience, gather insights, land on a problem worth solving, brainstorm multiple solutions that address the problem, choose the best solution, test, iterate and prototype.
  2. Vote. 30 minutes to think critically through the other submissions and vote for their favourite idea.
  3. Build. 30 minutes to select an idea to build on and create a twist that improves that idea.
  4. Personalised Innovation Report. 30 minutes to hours and hours depending on the students passion for creativity & innovation. The report that students receive includes links to all ideas submitted, voting results, builds as well as a range of innovation resources that will help accelerate creative mindsets and skills sets.

After your decision to facilitate a CBL Experience we estimate that your commitment will be about 1 hour, allowing you to focus on delivering academic content. The 3 key 'back-office' responsibilities are;
  1. Challenge customisation. You work with our team of innovation speacialists to create a challenge that fits your module and can deliver impactful outcomes
  2. Team formation. You might choose to do this manually in order to create diverse teams and get different students working collaboratively. Alternatively you might just select teams automatically using that function on your VLE.
  3. Class/Email Announcements. You might choose to issue emails using our templates or you can send us the class list and we will manage the communication. That's up to you.

There is no limit. From say thirty to hundreds, thousands even. Our platform is designed to easily engage large groups in CBL experiences.

Our team of innovation specialists will work with you to understand which challenge will deliver the best results for your module. Each challenge incorporates different technologies to engage students and generate a wide variety of creative ideas.

Absolutely. We have teamplate challenges, but we encourage you to customise the challenge to suit a particular theme that you are focused on within your module. For example, the UCD School of Bimolecular and Biomedical Science customised the Connect the Dots Challenge to encourage students to think about ideas that support the European Medicines Association (EMA) with their revised medicines directive and regulations.
Again, we fully are on-hand to advise on customisation.