How can you transform a bottle of water into something that has value for other people?
Duration
3-4 hours
Material
A plastic bottle with water to each group (½ a liter)
Description
How can you create value for others?
In groups of 3-4 persons you must discuss what you will do with the bottle. First you discuss these 2 questions: What is Entrepreneurship as a mindset? What does transformation mean?
Talk about the process. Create and facilitate a creative and entrepreneurial space. Use each other’s skills and competences, and use the surroundings and get out of the room! Come back with a product and present it for the group! You have 1 hour in the group!
Practice the first steps of design thinking: empathize, define, ideate and prototype
During a hackathon, participants have to solve a problem - a case - in a short time
Duration
24 to 36 hours
Material
Depends on the case (pen, paper, computer…) A case, preferably from a professional
Description
The school,
city or company present their case to the participants.
In what follows, students accept the challenge and try to find a good solution for the problem within the give time frame.
You prefer
to invite a multidisciplinary group for a hackathon. In this way, you can have
students from the teacher training course work together with students from
other courses, but also with external participants. By working in multi-disciplinary
groups you broaden everyone's perspective
During a
hackathon it's all about cooperation. You all work in a pleasant, informal
setting to find a good solution as quickly as possible. Teamwork, time pressure
and the necessary relaxation ensure an inspiring event where everyone gets the
most out of themselves. This provides an enormous boost of energy before,
during and after the event. You will see that after the event you will continue
to solve other cases full of energy and inspiration.
Students focus on the first three steps and if possible sketch a prototype of their solution. However, the emphasis is mainly on thinking up a solution rather than actually realizing it. That would be a nice bonus, but that is not the intention.
Success factors
Start from
a well-developed case. The goal to be achieved must be very clear for each
team. If not, solutions will be devised that nobody is waiting for.
Keep the
case realistic and adapt it to the available time and space.
Provide
different times when students can call on experts who have a good knowledge of
the case. This way, students can not only empathize better at the start, but
they can also question them if they get stuck in their process.
How did we use it at
the AP college?
In our college,
students from the Applied Computer Science and Electronics ICT course
successfully took part in a hackaton.
To activate teachers' creativity to solve challenges
Duration
1,5- 2 hours
Material
bookcovers volunteers
Description
It is an open book about life. There are no paper books in the Human Library. You meet people of flesh and blood. People with an inspiring story or a poignant testimony. Their stories are about loss, success, illness, hope, recovery… Talking with a Human Book is not only a good remedy against prejudices and taboos, but also ideal to inspire and develop creative thinking. How does it work? At the beginning of each Human Library you get an overview of the Human Books present. You choose the story that appeals most to you and get to know the man or woman behind the story. Each conversation lasts 20 to 30 minutes. During this time you will have the opportunity to get to know the Human Book in a personal conversation, from person to person. In The Human Library it is like a real library:
The Book is the person who wants to share his experiences.
The Borrower is the person who wants to borrow a 'book'.
The Catalogue is the collection of titles and short descriptions of each book, with keywords.
The Librarian is the administrator of The Human Library.
Vlaamse Vereniging voor Geestelijke Gezondheid (VVGG) (Flemish Mental Health Association). (s.d.). The Human Library. Consulted from https://www.geestelijkgezondvlaanderen.be/de-levende-bibliotheek
How did we use it at the AP college? Good education is one of the most important escape routes from deprivation. It is therefore important that our students gain insight into the complexity of this subject and are able to provide good education. In order to be able to set up a good education, it is important that students can come up with solutions for the obstacles they encounter. Poverty is one such obstacle. They have to be able to work in their school and classroom with few resources. In the past, we noticed that students often got stuck on the complexity of the problem.
The Human library not only helps them to grasp the complexity, but we also focus on the further development of our students' creative thinking so that they are able to come up with solutions with few resources and within a unique context. The Human books bring all students a unique story that not only inspires, but is also a starting point to find creative solutions for the problems they are confronted with in education.
Moreover, this form of work also enables them to test their actions or flourishing ideas against various experts.
Build your challenge without words! The purpose of this activity is to learn to collaborate without too many words.
Duration
30-60 minutes
Material
Spaghetti and marshmallows
Description
Are you planning a teaching material with an innovative approach or are you making a lesson plan with entrepreneurial thinking? Here you will have a chance to develop creativity and innovation and generate new ideas in a different way. You will learn to design and develop new educational products (resources) using a different kind of materials, in a very creative way and to reflect on the use of everyday material in you teaching.
