By Marco Ceccarelli
Innovation is ideas, plus implementing them.
With these words, CEO of Catholic Education Western Australia (CEWA), Tim McDonald, recently described a new initiative aimed at providing those working within CEWA with the permission and confidence to create change.
Entitled “Studio Curious”, the initiative acknowledges innovation as a key element to effective learning, yet considers ways of implementing innovative ideas as a fundamental step that will enable students to flourish and teachers to reach their full potential.
Together with one of Australia’s leading innovation consultancies, Knowledge Society, CEWA is set to forge new paths within Catholic education that will enable members of its community – teachers, principals and other staff – to be educational front runners in an increasingly interconnected world.
By combining a fit-for-purpose space with a rigorous and creative process, Studio Curious encourages participants to come together, share ideas and learn about what is occurring around the world at the cutting edge of education, pedagogy, and school and education reinvention.
Placed within Studio Curious’ six-week Accelerator Program, participants will practise and learn “design thinking” for education.
A proven discipline for realising ideas and solving problems, design thinking focuses on observing the needs of real people and the solutions they desire. As a creative and thoughtful way of bringing ideas to life, it also allows thinkers to explore the multiple pathways that might lead to the right answer.
Participants of the Accelerator Program will also learn about innovation across the economy and in different social settings. Through a range of collaborative activities, they will apprehend how to research and realise a project or initiative that is important to them, prototype it and test it for wider use in their school, community or the system at large.
Finally, they will become acquainted with design-thinking techniques and a human-centred methodology for solving problems.
All Catholic Education Western Australia staff, of any age, location or experience level, are welcome to apply.
To find out more about Studio Curious, please visit: http://curiosity.ceo.wa.edu.au/.