The process of Design Thinking is established as a team-based innovation framework. At the HPI D-School, we help diverse students from different areas to internalize, interpret, learn and apply the mindset and process in a project based, experiential learning approach. The HPI D-School was already seen as a pioneer in facilitating breakthrough innovation in learning and teaching with its key design approach to offer a modular studio space to foster creative teamwork and collaboration.
When COVID-19 hit and campus closures became imminent, it was a daunting task to design a comparable experience in completely virtual, then hybrid, and now hi-flex learning modalities. In this talk, the speakers will showcase the different prototypes, learnings, and iterations that took place over the last 2 years, sharing with the audience the key takeaways and hypotheses for the future of learning.
We will start with learnings from the first course design enabling individual, independent and asynchronous learning. Further on, we will share findings from comparing the replication of an offline/onsite to an online/remote course design. And finally, we will showcase new forms of hybrid learning and coaching in a newly designed spatial environment. The speakers will explain their own approach to undertaking the various layers of this learning design challenge, the underlying pedagogic rationale, the capacitating of facilitators, as well as demonstrating the impact from the different perspectives of students, facilitators, and partnering organizations. The guiding principle became for us the concept of “psychological safety”, a space characterized by an inclusive approach enabling interpersonal trust where participants feel free to collaborate and to take risks by speaking out loud to enable them to pursue even disruptive innovations. The team will also showcase tools, technologies and furniture adopted, hacked, and used along the way.