A Design Thinking Approach to Higher Education
Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.com My first full-time job in university administration was working as an adviser at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. As the name implies, students at Gallatin designed their own major (called a "concentration" in Gallatin parlance), drawing not only on Gallatin's curriculum of interdisciplinary seminars... Continue Reading →
Photo by Prateek Katyal on Pexels.com As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on the American economy, many students are seeing their summer internships cancelled and even withdrawn by employers. Even those fortunate enough to still have an internship are likely to have a summer experience very different that the one they imagined months ago when they interviewed... Continue Reading →
A key part of Life Design is the idea of "radical collaboration", the bringing together of a diverse group of individuals with different experiences, skills, backgrounds and outlooks as a way to increase both the number and the variety of ideas that are generated. With many in-person workshops moving to an asynchronous virtual format, many... Continue Reading →
New video out from the godfathers of Life Design, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans in which they discuss the concept of Generative Acceptance. COVID-19 is a gravity problem that has ushered in a new reality (or as they describe it, a "new normal" that will soon just become our "normal"). Accepting this reality is a... Continue Reading →
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com In Life Design, while the exact structure and focus of a problem statement can vary, there are a few things to keep in mind when you are trying to define the problem. I've already covered the 5 common pitfalls to avoid, so now I want to address what makes for... Continue Reading →
In my experience working with students as both an academic adviser and as a Life Design Educator, I’ve observed that students often stumble into a few common pitfalls when trying to define the problem facing them. These include: Defining a problem as an either/or question. Should I work at Google or Facebook? Pursue academia or... Continue Reading →
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the “DEFINE” step in the Design Thinking process. With everything going on in our lives, it’s tempting to speed through this step and start generating ideas and potential prototypes. I’m guilty of this in my own workshops and programs, often devoting only a couple of minutes to defining... Continue Reading →
Welcome to the blog of my site, Education * Designed. This is where I will be posting the thoughts, ideas, and prototypes that I am working on in my role as Director of Life Design for the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Over the next weeks and months, my colleagues... Continue Reading →
Education * Designed 