Design Thinking for Higher Educaiton

The final speaker at at the IEEE TALE 2019 engineering education conference, was Chathura K. Sooriya-Arachchi, Institute of Information Technology, Sri Lanka on Design Thinking Approach to Higher Educaiton Teaching and Learning.

"We live in a world that demands creative problem solvers, creative thinkers who can come up with innovative ideas and solutions to situations. However many believe that creativity is a trait one needs to be born with, whereas creativity is a muscle that needs training. There is great potential to incorporate creativity in teaching and learning. This interactive workshop aims in sharing a number of Creativity and Design
Thinking methods, tools and techniques that can facilitate teaching and learning, along with inspirational examples/case-studies from the real-world."

This was a useful overview of applying design thinking to creating better education.  However, I suggest that those teaching at university require basic training in how to teach, assess and design courses. Otherwise university academics waste a lot of time reinventing well established patterns of learning, or worse still training out approaches which are known not to work. I suggest the level of training which vocational education and training teachers are required to have, would be a good place to start (I noticed that Chathura is a Certified Trainer).