Introduction
Wow, watching the video below was a Deja’ Vu experience. The concepts discussed within it emulate what we are trying to achieve throughout the Paramedic Science and other courses within Higher Education.
Specifically, we are trying to engender work-ready graduate attributes within our students. Current university graduate attributes include problem-solving, critical thinking, communication, teamwork, and cross-cultural competence, to name a few.
While our university developed these over a decade ago, they still meet many of the 21st-century skills identified by future-looking groups such as the World Economic Forum, Deloitte and the Institute for the Future. The graduate attributes themes common to these organisations include creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, communication, cross-cultural competence and teamwork (Davies, Fidler, & Gorbis, 2011; World Economic Forum, 2018)
Why is this important?
The attributes we need to engender affects the pedagogies and learning theories we employ to teach content, along with the technology we use to assist us in creating the environment. At the heart of this are the digital or physical learning spaces we employ to achieve these goals. A learning space which fails to progress our aims fails as a concept.
Deja’ Vu number two
Watching Mulgan speak on the mismatch between the school system and employers, and the school system and students prompted thought on one aspect of 21st-century skills, creativity. Specifically, the TED talk delivered by Sir Ken Robinson ‘Do schools kill creativity’?
This video, with over 66 million views challenges the way we are educating children and the takeaway from all of this is to consider how to design our learning spaces creatively to meet the growing demand for work-ready graduates.
How do we do this?
For me, achieving this goal means a never-ending series of iterations, both within the physical and digital learning spaces. In turn, successful iterations are made by undertaking a process of design thinking.
Where would I start?
By asking what attributes our students need to succeed within the workplace?
Getting back to the heart of what we achieve allows us to start a design brief. From here, we can design the learning spaces, moving between our current knowledge and concepts which engender the process (Hatchuel, Le Masson, & Weil, 2004).
Conclusion
Throughout Mulgan’s video design thinking and how this applies to innovative learning is evident. The application of the process to our discipline has the potential to engender the graduate attributes we are trying to achieve within our course.
References
Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis, M. (2011). Future work skills 2020. Retrieved from Palo Alto, CA: http://www.iftf.org/uploads/media/SR-1382A_UPRI_future_work_skills_sm.pdf
Hatchuel, A., Le Masson, P., & Weil, B. (2004). CK theory in practice: Lessons from industrial applications. Paper presented at the DS 32: Proceedings of DESIGN 2004, the 8th International Design Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia.
World Economic Forum. (2018). The future of jobs report. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2018
