RightFit

Orientation/Recruitment geared towards applicants from TORONTO who we may know VERSUS students we do not know that may be from OTHER INSTITUTIONS/OUT of PROVINCE/INTERNATIONAL. Our newest task is to distinguish the tensions and find out who benefits by each tension and create a draft pro-pro chart. Later, Baycrest will visit us to check out where we are, and if we are on the right track. Before creating a pro-pro chart, we defined what the two tensions meant, one side for people who we may know and one side for people we do not know. Defining what they mean will help us have a better understanding of the two tensions. Next, we had to establish our stakeholders. We asked ourselves, who would benefit if the institution hired someone they know? Who would benefit if they hired someone they do not know? We decided to pick the RRI, students that get tapped on the shoulders and students that raise their hands.  Students that get tapped on the shoulders are students that are...

Jamison wearing the maroon dress shirt, Nogah on his left. An addition to our trip to UofT, we were given an opportunity to interview Jamison Steeve. Mr. Essabhai and his previous classes have been going to UofT for interviews with other people. He would ask for someone who has an interesting and outstanding career. The purpose of the interview is for us to have guidance or a role model in life. Especially in terms of leadership and career choices. Hopefully, by doing the interview, we acquire a lesson that we can use in our own life. The best candidate is Jamison Steeve. The day before we interviewed Jamison, we were told to email Mr. Essabhai some questions. After, he gave every group a printed out sheet with questions. It was funny to see more than half of the questions Mr. Essabhai printed out, were created by Joshua and Christine. Most of the questions were answered even before it was asked. Jamison had an amazing quote that stood out to us, "Every job has a tax, ...

The University of Toronto invited us for a workshop with Nogah Kornberg. Nogah would improve our process of integrative thinking. Nogah had a great idea by answering any questions so we get comfortable. With that thought in mind, Joshua asked, "Who is your celebrity crush?" There were a lot of giggles and the atmosphere went from serious to foolish. It definitely helped our group connecting with Nogah. After the questions, Nogah gave us an activity. Create ideas to support student well-being at John Polanyi, write it down on a sticky note and stick it on a chart paper. She explained how no idea is a bad idea. If you have an idea, then write it down and explain to your team about your thinking. With all of the ideas, we came up with, we split them into 3 groups. Seen before (Top right), could be fun (bottom) and out of this world (Top left). We amazing ideas such as mandatory therapy/counseling, creating a system where you have friends in all of your classes and more. ...

Mr. Essabhai gave us the most nerve-racking task ever. Meeting Taddy Blecher. He is a management consultant and educational entrepreneur. Before we met him in person, we knew he created a free university in South Africa, and he featured in Roger Martin's book, Opposable Mind Ch 7. When Mr. Essabhai announced we were going to meet Taddy Blecher, we were all nervous. We pictured a scary, intimidating man. When you actually meet him, we swear to you, he is the most passionate man alive about  the education system in South Africa . He  would give students the interest, excitement, and motivation to be part of his journey .  He came into our classroom and observed what we have been doing for the past few weeks. Causal models, pro-pro charts, system maps, and data dumps. Then, we all gathered around and talked about our school system, what makes this class unique and what's happening in South Africa. With the passion that he has, without a doubt, he emer...

At first, we didn't see the advantage of creating causal models. We didn't see the worth of the method to answer any question we had. Despite our original thoughts on causal models, we understood their value after we completed our first. We chose to answer the following question: "What causes an employee to fall in love with an institution?" because we believe it will help us with our final solution. Based off this causal model, we can try to reach out to passionate students and attract them to Baycrest's orientation. Through this causal model, we were able to understand how this model would help us in the future. It would change the way we think. Before creating any causal model, we would come up with solutions for the problem. It is not a good idea to come with conclusions too quick because the thinking process pushes you to create the most fascinating answer. If we did not answer "What causes a person to fall in love with an institution" our ...

After our trip to Baycrest Health Science , Mr. Essabhai gave us a new task: creating a data dump. As a team, we began to write down the information about the issue at hand, along with the thoughts and insights that we had during our visit. We divided the information into four categories.  1) What surprised us. 2) Ah-ha moments important new insights. 3) Possible tensions. 4) New questions we have. When we started this project, we didn't fully understand what we were delving into. We thought we would spend most of our time simply creating a series of causal models and systems maps. But after visiting Baycrest, we realized we would have to undergo a much more complicated process to solve the recruitment problem the institution faces. After creating the data dump we knew we were we going to struggle due to the sheer amount of questions we had. How were we going to use the information? How were we to find the answers to our pressing questions? The assignment's overwhelming ...

Bella's Ice Cream is based off a real-life issue with an ongoing ice cream business (Ben & Jerry's). We attempted to solve the problem the business faces. This activity helped us with our main project because it challenges us to go further in depth by developing our integrative thinking skills. The company at hand is at a crossroad and needs to decide whether it is more beneficial to maintain the status quo or change their business model. The status quo for Bella's would mean keeping their unique set of ingredients, procedures, employees, etc. that differentiate Bella's from their competition. In this case, they use fresh ingredients from organic producers, their employees have good wages, and the production environments are above average. Since they chose to use the top ingredients available, it makes the production expensive and inevitably results in higher prices and lower profits than their competitors. Unfortunately, if they decide there are willing to ...