In today’s technology-driven, boundary-less world, where information is available at the fingertips, true learning takes place at the intersection of human experience and cognition.
On the one hand, we are witnessing academic perfection (with students securing 99% and even 100% marks) and academic inflation (with more students opting for Master’s and Doctorate degrees). But on the other hand, some of the world’s top organisations are looking for unique skill sets with no requirements of a degree!
The world is in the midst of a profound change, one that will completely alter the social and economic landscape. Often called the 4th Industrial Revolution, this one too will see a fundamental change in the world around us. With technology advancing at an exponential pace, we cannot even fathom the way the landscape will change in the next 8 to 10 years. In such a scenario, how can we, assist students to prepare for an undetermined future?
When it comes to school/university education, students are taught to follow a pre-defined path through a set curriculum, and any deviation from it is considered an error. Due to this construct, students adhere to predicable ideas and concepts to secure grades/degrees. They are afraid to try anything different, thereby diminishing the chances of developing something new!
In a recent survey of innovative capacity conducted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), India was ranked 52nd out of 129 countries. Now is the time to expand the scope of education and intertwine the fundamentals of design within curricula. There is need for a new skill set and an entirely new mind-set for the community at large. Today, curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication are as important as literacy, if not more. Understanding and mastering these concepts would simply turn the biggest challenges of this technologically disruptive era into the biggest opportunities of current times.
The 5Cs of design thinking
Curiosity: Asking the right questions – the whys and the why nots.
Creativity: Discarding the notion that there is only ‘one correct solution’ and opening up to exploring the unknown.
Critical thinking: Analysing the data and information available, joining the dots and looking at the whole picture to understand the web of interconnected patterns.
Collaboration: Bridging the gap across industries, geographies and cultures to bring in different perspectives and moving ahead with those that are inclusive and user-centric.
Communication: Non-liner, multi-layered, multi-lateral exchange of ideas, advancing towards the most meaningful solution.
By definition, design thinking is a process for creative problem solving through new and innovative ideas. It is looking at a challenge from a different perspective. The fundamentals of design thinking can be applied to any challenge (from a complex business plan to a simple school project) through a structured design process whose core can be summarised as:
The ability to simplify: To implement a complex project, it has to be broken down to its fundamental constituents and then systematically address the challenges at hand.
The ability to unlearn: Through the years, we have been trained to believe in a set of possibilities and anything that lies beyond this set isn’t possible. These ‘learnt barriers’ have to be broken to pave the way forward.
The ability to adapt:History repeats itself and in the current scenario, our survival depends on our ability to adapt. Ideas get outdated even before they reach the common user.
By incorporating these fundamentals, we can foster skilled and trained thinkers and problem solvers to find success in any sphere of life.
We now have the opportunity to create history. If India desires to progress from a country and economy of followers to a country and economy of leaders, we have to make a conscious and immediate shift in our mind-set and skill set from that of rigid education to true learning.
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