I am a designer...It may not be official yet, but I'm on my way there. My classes thus far in my first year as a master's student here at Stanford have been consistenly aimed at helping me understand my own process for designing. This means nailing down my own way of innovating and producing new ideas on demand. Everyone is creative some of the time, but how do you be creative when people want you to? I'm learning that more and more everyday as I undertake project after project. I now know what brainstorming really is and how to actually make it work effectively to produce new ideas. I know that sometimes it is important to be critical and sometimes it is important to be crazy. I know that, "If you don't take risks, you don't get gifts," as Professor Matt Kahn likes to say. I also know that failing often is a crucial step toward real innovation, and real innovation is what I hope to bring to this class. Design thinking and methodology is different from the standard analytical process common in most academic environments. It is not good enough that it should replace analytical thinking, but it complements analytical thinking, creating a greater output. I hope to bring that design thinking and the confidence in my own process to the class to produce more exciting and more innovative ideas about designing learning spaces.
In addition to my offerings to the class, I hope to gain a better understanding of learning environments. I hope to learn more specifically about ways to enhance environments to heighten the amount of learning going on in those spaces.
Dan Gilbert Looking forward to having you as pasrt of our community throughout the quarter. Nice to have people from beyond the School of Ed in this course.