ACT conducted an Enlightening Facebook Live Session on Design Thinking

An enlightening and interactive Facebook live session on ‘Design Thinking’ was conducted by Asian College of Teachers (ACT) on 18th June, 2021. The guest speaker was Ms. Adya Chakraborty who is a psychological counsellor, corporate trainer, motivational speaker, management consultant, mindfulness coach and design thinker. Ms. Chakraborty has more than 16 years of experience in customer service and soft skills. The session revolved around the idea of Design Thinking that has gained the status of global acceptance and is being employed by experts in practically every field from arts, science to engineering and business. Ms. Chakraborty explained that design thinking is all about a human centred process, i.e., understanding the needs of individuals and designing accordingly. Three fundamental things to keep in mind to produce a successful design is whether it is technically viable, economically feasible, and whether the idea is desirable. Even as a trainer or a teacher, an individual can include Design Thinking in their teaching process as it will aid them in developing an understanding of the learners for whom they are designing lessons or a curriculum, i.e., to gain a deeper insight into the learners’ needs through proper understanding, putting oneself in the shoes of the learners. It can be implemented in a flexible manner, serving equally well as a framework for a curriculum or act as a roadmap for an activity or group project. She also threw light on the fact that empathy is a major part of design thinking as it helps one to convert the ‘pain points to gain points’ and how it is becoming crucial for one to inculcate empathy in youngsters as well. She concluded the session by stressing on the fact that design thinking is way past the idea of being only for creative people, rather, it is for everyone. The only thing needed is to open the door of the mind and think. The live session gathered good views with several queries from the participants.