One of the critical infrastructures that the pandemic of COVID-19 has impacted negatively is education. Most of the countries where the pandemic has spread have resorted to extended periods of lockdown and movement control. Even though it has controlled the rate of infection, it has impacted students and scholars worldwide. In this regard, there is an increasing need for design thinking in education to cope up with such situations. The concept of design thinking used to identify the problem, design, and develop a system and implement it in the scenario.
Why Design Thinking in Education?
The process of modern education is more than student and teacher engagement. Researchers claim that modern education brings in many stakeholders in its system. Parents, regulatory bodies, career counselors, and organizations are a few of these stakeholders. Design thinking helps to create a system where all the stakeholders can interact with each other and ensure the all-round development of a student. The new application of digital classes does not hold good in this year of design-oriented thinking and development. For instance, COVID-19 has forced students, teachers, and parents to remain in their house. A design-oriented process helps to bring them together where students can field their issues, teachers can look for resolutions, and parents can act as the mediator between the two.
Design Thinking application in Education
From the perspective of education, design thinking can be incorporated all its levels starting from planning to monitoring. This pandemic has taught us that there is an increasing need for digitizing the education system not only in cities but also in suburban areas. Regulatory bodies should identify the exact need of the students both from a social and practical point of view. This will help proper training and grooming of students from their homes with the participation of their parents. Career counselors as well as organizations can also become a part of this design thinking process. For instance, an integrated system can be developed where all stakeholders including students, teachers, and parents can be included for or better decision making towards the students' career. Its implementation is also easy because education is a linear process in most countries which helps in better monitoring and controlling.
Overcoming COVID-19 barrier in Education
The pandemic has indeed compelled the governments to shut down schools and colleges for indefinite periods. While digital education has been effective, it does not guarantee the same level of quality that a face to face education can guarantee. This is exactly where the concept of design thinking comes in. Students will benefit when their exact means can be identified, developed, and implemented in the teaching process. Countries like India and China have already experimented with specialized coaching and 1-on-1 teaching process to improve the quality of education during these lockdown periods. An application of design-oriented modeling can help to develop these models bye pinpointing the needs of the students underlining them with the teaching curriculum.
A parting thought!
Education is one of the most important components of social welfare. Like employment and necessities, education should also be given equal importance in these troubled times. Design thinking will only help to remodel existing education processes by replacing necessary components with the strategic needs of students' development.
Successive monitoring is also required for safe implementation of the design thinking model.