A Design Thinking Approach to Higher Education
I recently came across the idea of a premortem when reading Steven Johnson's wonderful book, Farsighted. Cognitive scientist Gary Klein coined the term in a 2007 Harvard Business Review article. Drawing on research that found that imaging that an event has already occurred increases the ability to identify future outcomes, Klein and his colleagues developed... Continue Reading →
Over the past year, I've led a number of Life Design workshops for doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers at Johns Hopkins University. In that time, I've found that while Design Thinking works well for this group, many of them have trouble moving past their focus on a tenure track position in order to embrace the... Continue Reading →
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com The first several weeks of the fall semester is absolutely critical for first-year students, as it is during this period that they develop the relationships with faculty, staff, and peers that will connect them to campus and (hopefully) lay the foundation for a life-long affinity for the institution. At a... Continue Reading →
Photo by Sindre Stru00f8m on Pexels.com In his 2019 book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, journalist David Epstein turns our perceived wisdom about careers on its head. Despite the common belief that to be successful one must commit to a path early and devote as much time and energy as possible to... Continue Reading →
Photo by fauxels on Pexels.com In my last activity post, Re(Design) Your Summer Internship, I shared ways that students could employ design thinking to reimagine their summer so that they can continue to build their way forward and advance their career goals in spite of the COVID-19 restrictions. But what if you have no idea... 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As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on the American economy, many students are seeing their summer internships cancelled and even withdrawn by employers.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 →
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 