“The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you’re trying to design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing – building empathy for the people that you’re entrusted to help.”– David Kelley
A day long CBSE Workshop based on 'Design Thinking & Innovation' was hosted by SAI International on September 3, 2022 in a hybrid mode. The workshop was conducted by eminent luminaries Prof Ravi Poovaiah, IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay; Ms Rupa Chakraborty from Suncity School Gurgaon, Ms Prajukta Kulkarni, Founder, Nodes; Shri Harish Sanduja Director, Birla Public School, Qatar; Dr. Pooja Rawat, Innovation Officer, MoE's Innovation Cell and Dr. Ajanta Sen, Director, Jellow Labs. It was graced by CBSE Officials and RO Bhubaneswar, Sri K Srinivasan & had around 100 teachers participating from various schools across the zone, from far off Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and of course from various parts of Odisha as well.
The workshop aimed at discussing and brainstorming the best practices that can be implemented to enhance innovative and creative thinking skills from a teaching & learning perspective for all the teachers. The faculty members were introduced to the why and what of Design Thinking by Prof Ravi followed by virtual sessions with Shri Harish Sanduja. A hands-on learning session with Ms Rupa and Dr. Sen was every enlightening for the teachers where they learnt about Design Thinking, Content creation and Teaching-Learning of Design Thinking.
They were further introduced to the task book, design output and trained about how to relate it with concepts to create a prototype. The workshop entailed a gamut of multiple sagacious activities specifically catering to amplifying creativity, innovation & critical thinking. The teachers were assigned a task to work in groups and ‘Design A Toy’ that can be used in classrooms to deliver complex concepts and thereby, understand the various Design Thinking Principles like linear or sequential vs circular and looped, or vertical vs horizontal, analysis vs synthesis and cognitive vs intuitive. Each such presentation was assessed by the peer group members.
Such Design Thinking workshops are facilitated meeting where multi-disciplinary teams plan and prototype user-centred designs. Unlike lectures or presentations, Design Thinking workshops are used when teams want to arrive at a user-centred solution while working together. Overall, it was a hands-on, activity-based engaging session for teachers & faculty members built around the Design Thinking process.
