Group Admins
Public Group
active 2 years ago
Description
Some strange things seem to be happening in the learning technology and teaching and learning debates at the moment. There appears to be a growing presence of an anti-technology ‘resistance’, challenging the efficacy of technology (Egan, 2016), question the motivations of those using technology, demean the status of social media as an active and fertile ground for intellectual debate (Anonymous, 2016) or actively argue that we need to ‘get back to chalk’ (Sørensen, 2014). The debates mask what is in effect a wicked problem, with the solution much simpler than it might seem; it doesn’t matter what devices are in their hands. What matters most is good teaching. This session will briefly introduce the design thinking approach (Meinel and Leifer, 2010) the London School of Economics applied to supporting and scaling innovation, putting good teaching at the heart of the institution. It will provide some short examples from the experiences of the LSE, starting with our ALT award winning Students as Producers initiative, through our learning spaces redesign and our innovative approaches to problem solution and debate (LSE2020 and Future Happens, with the University of the Arts London). It will provide the participants with an opportunity to apply the design thinking approach to their own shared wicked pedagogical and technological problems. Participants will leave the session with some practical tools and strategic thinking approaches that come together to support the scalability and sustainability of educational and technological change initiatives.
References
Anonymous 2016, ‘I’m a serious academic, not a professional Instagrammer’, The Guardian, 5th August 2016.
Brown, T. & Wyatt, J. 2010, ‘Design thinking for social innovation’, Development Outreach, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 29-43.
Buchanan, R. 1992, ‘Wicked problems in design thinking’, Design issues, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 5-21.
Egan, G. 2016, ‘Why academics should NOT make time for social media’, Times Higher Education, 26th August 2016.
Meinel, C. & Leifer, L. 2011, ‘Design thinking research’, Design Thinking Understand-Improve-Apply, pp. xiii-xxi.
Sørensen, B.M. 2014, ‘Facebook fight: why we banned laptops, iPads and smartphones in lectures’, The Conversation.
