Teaching Design Thinking Differently

'Design Thinking- such a drab subject!'

'We know the five phases - EDIPT!' 

'We have seen enough examples on YouTube.'

When your MBA class is so forthright in expressing their views, you have to think differently. Taking a cue from Dr Abdul Kalam's famous quote 'Creativity is seeing the same thing as everybody else, but thinking differently', we converted the remaining sessions of the course 'Innovation In Business' into a Design Thinking Workshop. In a workshop you are supposed to use some 'tools' and 'do'  and 'make' something like in a carpentry workshop. 

We asked the class if they would recommend the college to others? The answer was a chorus 'No'! Do they regret the decision when they joined the college? This time another chorus 'Yes'! When asked why, many reasons came up. That ignited Ghumakkad's mind to do a 'live' workshop on issues plaguing the students' minds. For a class of 70 students, we identified 24 'live' issues being faced by the students. Teams of three each were free to choose any one issue. The process was repeated for both the sections of 70 students each. The die was cast. Few of the issues selected by the students are listed below. Am sure students at other colleges would not feel much differently.

• Improving student quality
• Developing college pride & sense of belonging
• Branding of the College
• Entrepreneurial Support
• Attendance through biometrics

Each team was given 48 hours to complete the first step of Design Thinking 'Empathise'. It involved interacting with the people concerned for the issue at hand. It could be other students, faculty, staff or management of the college. It could also be other colleges in the same geography. By actually empathising with the people concerned, the students learnt the nuances of Step-1 of design thinking. Whether it was mere observations or an interview or a focussed group discussion or collection of facts and figures, the students gained 'insights' of the issue at hand. These insights were then utilised for further steps of Design Thinking.

Remaining steps namely Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test were completed by each team after two days in the class itself. Breakout areas gave freedom for brainstorming. The teams had two hours to deliberate the issue and apply the design thinking to come up with suggested solution. The teams were also given a chart paper and coloured markers to summarise their design thinking effort and present it to the class for greater learning. The posters were thereafter displayed in the college foyer for wider viewership by other students, faculty, staff and management of the college. The whole event thus generated lot of enthusiasm and energy by the students in experiential learning mode. Sharing few pictures of the event below.

Through the workshop, the students could address many real-life issues like how to select the internship company? Big vs small? Branded company vs a startup? And so on.

The whole design thinking workshop was conceived on the go. The idea came because of students' disenchantment with the college (a normal reaction towards the end of the two-year-PGDM-program). Germinated in the class, a 'drab' subject was successfully transformed into an invigorating and participative workshop. It led to experiential learning. See the video clip below of the poster designing in progress.

For teachers like Ghumakkad, there is never a dull moment. With 140 inquisitive and restive minds around, it is a pleasant challenge to devise and conduct such 'live' learning events. Special thanks to all the students who participated, both the class reps and Dr V Jayashree for the wholehearted support.

Sharing below the links to some of our other 'live' teaching and learning events which had also ensured experiential learning at PG level:

Uri the Movie- Management Lessons

Shershaah Beyond The Movie

Real Life to Real Time Cases

Hope you enjoyed the teaching and learning of Design Thinking with Ghumakkad. Do share your experiences of other modes of experiential learning.

Thanks for browsing.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with the PGDM Class of 2024@VVISM Hyderabad/ 30th March 2024

#learning #experiential #PGDM #MBA #highereducation #nep2020 #designthinking #workshopmode #reallifeissues #insights #innovationinbusiness #creativity #learningbydoing #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh

Shining Buddha

 Green slopes of a hill, statue of Buddha shining despite muted sunlight.

Give the picture a caption and win KBG-78, the 78th edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad, online caption contest.

Here is another copy of the picture minus the contest logo for better visualisation of your caption.

Now go ahead and give a caption to the above picture of Buddha in a garden! Let your imagination run wild!

How to Submit a Caption

For the first-timers on KBG, you can respond using any of the six channels below:

1. Leave a comment on this post
2. Send email to hbindia@gmail.com     
3. Respond on the FB post
4. Comment on Instagram @ghumakkadhb 
5. Comment on Twitter @HarshBh21184761
6. Send a WA message. If you want your WA number to be added to Ghumakkad's list, send an email.

So folks, get going and give your caption pronto! If you feel like, you may submit more than one caption.

Previous Contest

KBG-77, the 77th edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad Caption Contest had featured a picture of the Test Results of Covid rapid testing. It received a huge response summarised in our story 'Humour despite Covid'. We are sharing two of the winning captions below:

Hope we have succeeded in diverting your mind away from a world struggling to bounce back after devastating impact of Covid on global economy. After long layoff, Ghumakkad had travelled to Goa recently. We will bring you a story on 'Goa in Monsoon' soon! Till then spread joy and cheer all around like our logo shown below. Thank you Ramya Sriram for such a creative logo.

Now, be your creative best and shoot your response. Most catchy captions will be the Winners of KBG-78! All the best.

Thank you all the readers for your continued support.

Stay connected, stay safe.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 5th October 2022

#buddha #greenhillslope #goa #monsoon #shiningbuddha #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kbg78 #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #takeabreak #captions #creativecaptions #travelfun #learningtogether #travelphotography

The Fort Needs Your Attention

 A 500-year old fort. May be in ruins. But still very imposing.

Does it tickle your brain? Suggest a caption to win KBG-54, the 54th edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad, your favourite online caption contest! Shorter the caption the better it is.

A word about the picture. The fort built during 15th Century AD overlooks the Tehsil town of Jahazpur (also spelt as Jahajpur) in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan India. Located 200 kms south of Jaipur, Jahazpur is not really on the tourist map. Swastidham a Jain temple is under construction in Jahazpur. When we visited Swastidham with another couple in 2018, the fort caught my eye from a few kms away. One afternoon, me and our driver set course in general direction of the fort. The approach, the climb, the ruins and the view were all worth the effort. The driver actually refused to climb with me saying 'yahan to bhoot rahtey hain'- this place is haunted. You may browse the full story in our earlier post titled 'The Ruins of Jahajpur Fort'.

Now get going and give your caption pronto!

For the first-timers on KBG, you can respond using any of the six channels below:

1. Leave a comment on this post
2. Send email to hbindia@gmail.com 
3. Respond on the FB post
4. Comment on Instagram @ghumakkadhb 
5. Comment on Twitter @HarshBh21184761
6. Send a WA message. If you want your WA number to be added to Ghumakkad's list, send an email.

The timing of the KBG Contest is chosen to suit the readers in most of the time zones across the world.

Hope we have helped you in overcoming the Covid boredom to some extent.

KBG-53 showed a picture of a cable stay bridge in a lake. One single picture generated more than 50 creative captions. For complete list of the captions and the winning entries, click the story 'Trust Me'. Two of the winning captions are reproduced below:

Be your creative best and shoot your response. Most catchy captions will be the Winners of KBG-54! All the best.

Stay connected, stay safe.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 19th March 2021.

#travel #jahazpurfort #rajasthantourism #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #powerofobservation #lockdownfunathome #beatthecorona #lockdown #stayhomestaysafe  #captions #travelfun #historyofmewar #craetivecaptions #pqs #picturesquequotations #fortsofrajsthan #hillforts #virtualtravel

World Creativity and Innovation Day

Can you learn to be creative?
And innovative?
Who can teach you creativity and innovation?
Schools, colleges?
Nature also teaches you creativity!

How?
Look at this picture taken in Jaipur the Pink City, India where Nature painted the sky pink at dawn!

Or, this wild grass twirling in a creative pattern?

Or, a raindrop perched on a leaf and teach us about entrepreneurship. 

Or, the morning mist which has a life lesson for all of us!

Nature is our best teacher.

Here is wishing all our readers a very happy WCID- World Creativity and Innovation Day. May you be more creative and innovative in whatever you do. Be it technology, business, education, healthcare, entertainment or any other field of human endeavour- we need to be innovative in all three aspects. Namely, Innovation in:

1. Thinking
2. Doing and
3. Sustaining

Here are the links to some of the earlier stories on creativity and innovation in India which may be of interest to the readers:

Innovation and Rural Wisdom

Sugarcane Juice at doorstep- Excellent Jugaad

Innovations in Teaching

Innovate to Evolve- A woman entrepreneur's story

Zoo with a difference- Story of Innovations in Indore Zoo

Feel free to reach me for any query.

Press on and be creative!

Thanks for browsing

    -  Harsh-the-Ghumakkad/ 21st April 2019

        hbindia@gmail.com

#wcid #creativity #innovation #thinking #doing #sustaining #nature #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh