Training K12 Teachers on Design Thinking
Over the past few months, I have engaged with different schools on how they are adopting the NEP 2020 and implementing things like the Entrepreneurship Curriculum, Design Thinking etc. These posts are a way for me to document these interactions and share the learnings along the way.
A lot has been happening in the education world. Schools have reopened. NEP is being implemented. Many EdTech orgs have shut shop.
The challenge before educators is clearly this: How do we prepare our students for a VUCA world? A world that is filled with Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. The education space in India is itself a living example of this world.
The argument behind the introduction of #DesignThinking in schools is that it is going to be helpful for us to deal with the VUCA world.
It is well known that the problems of tomorrow cannot be solved by the methods of yesterday.
#DesignThinking is seen as one way of enabling the students to be better prepared for the future. If implemented well and practised over the years, it brings about a mindset shift in the way one approaches life itself.
We need to engage with students in a different manner than in which we have been dealing with in the recent past. So we can no longer rely on the traditional methods of rote learning and the over reliance on marks.
The premise of Soochak platform we are building is that there is a need to make the students more of a problem solver and being able to relate to the knowledge gained and apply it.
Enabling students to leverage Design Thinking to do the above is a part of our objectives. We also understand that this will be next to impossible, if we do not engage in the development of the in-service teachers.
So while the NEP 2020 talks about it, and the CBSE goes on to launch things like Design Thinking Curriculum for the middle schools students, there has to be dedicated programs for the teachers too.
A majority of the stakeholders in the education system who are responsible for the development of the child and the pedagogy are unfortunately still trained in the past ways of learning and development.
Without the efforts to engage with teachers and upskilling them towards the expectations from the NEP 2020, the NEP will again remain a policy that was designed really well, but got implemented poorly, just like many of the examples from the past.
In a recent workshop at a school in Khagaria #Bihar, I got to engage with the teachers and tried to explain the importance of something like Design Thinking and why the CBSE has introduced it.
We spoke about the need for the introduction of Design Thinking and how it would be helpful. Amongst the things that we discussed at length was the changing profile and aspirations of the student and the parent.
What is interesting to note is that while there could be an interest towards the new topics such as these, there ought to be enough time in the existing routine to get an opportunity to implement something from this in their classrooms.
The journey is long and there are a lot of open ended questions. States are setting up task force for the effective implementation of the NEP 2020. We hope to play a role in it.
