Can you find a better problem to solve? Let’s face it. Most of us don’t like to have problems. Although problems are an integral part of our lives, and we are constantly moving from one problem to another, we still mostly see problems as something very annoying that we need to avoid. I have many things to say on this topic, but now I will focus on one outcome that results from our rush to find solutions. And this outcome means we are spending time, effort and money on solving

There is a lot of noise about getting girls into STEM. I see lots of article about it and countless posts on social media. So if there is such a desire to make it happen, why are we failing? I went to study computer science. Yep. I was one of those odd girls that studied technology in university. I could count the number of girls that studied with me on one hand. Throughout my years in uni, I was surrounded by boys. Then, I went on to start a career in the Hi-Tech industry. A

Do you love oranges? On a recent business trip to Sydney, I went to see the opera house, and it blew me away. This building has such fantastic architecture that it Wows you away. But for me, it wasn’t just about the aesthetics and uniqueness of this world heritage building. It was about the story behind it. The opera house is a story about having inspiration, thinking big, and innovating. The Danish architect, Jørn Utzon, wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries and dream big.

As part of the Glittering Minds program for schools, a year 4 inquiry unit on - “Natural and Processed Materials”, turned into a Design Thinking project on “How might we design suitable school uniform?”. In Design Thinking, we spend most of our time understanding the problem. As Albert Einstein said – “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution.” So the students explored: ✅The pro

This week, Edithvale primary school, who is working with Glittering Minds for a few years now, has presented one of their Design Thinking projects at Oxford university's #kidsConference2021. Hayden Callahan, Edithvale’s Project-based inquiry leader, talked about their Glittering Minds journey- “Glittering Minds has helped our school to learn all about Design Thinking. Due to this work with Glittering Minds, we have realised that we were missing this feedback loop and that the

Imagine you are telling your child to stop playing electronic games and the response you get is – I know you are not being mean now. I know you have my best interests at heart. How wonderful it would be to have such discussions around the use of electronic games at home? As part of Glittering Minds school programme, 9-year-olds worked on this question – How Might We design a computer game for children, that both parents and children are happy about? As Design Thinkers, these

If you ask five-year old children what is Design Thinking, what would they say? This week, I had the pleasure of attending a foundation class at one of the schools that participate in Glittering Minds programme. It was the children’s first session on Design Thinking. The teacher started by asking them – What do you think Design Thinking means? The children were happy to take a guess and some of their answers were – Thinking of designing thingamajig Using your brain Thinking o

Last week we had the pleasure of hosting Victoria’s Parliamentary Secretary for Schools, Mr. Tim Richardson, at one of Glittering Minds sessions. Tim spoke with teachers about the impact of our program on students’ life-skills, how students develop resilience, problem-solving skills, empathy, collaboration, creativity and more. The teachers also shared their own transformation, as a result of our program, and how this positive impact flows to literacy, numeracy and other area

Have you ever seen children as young as 7 years old performing data synthesis? Last week, we facilitated data synthesis sessions with year 3 and 4 classes. They are working this term on the question – “How might we design a positive and supportive learning environment at our school?” The students finished researching this question, including interviewing students and school’s staff members, and it was time to make sense of the information. It is a pleasure to see young childr

At Glittering Minds, it is important for us to measure the impact of our Human Centred Design for kids program on the students and teachers. On analysing the collected data, we see that the positive impact is vast. The students quickly develop many important life skills – problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, empathy and more. It is very rewarding to learn that the impact on the students continues well beyond their time in the classroom and impacti

What do you think children will answer when asked what is Human Centred Design? Here are some answers from year 4 students – "A mindfulness program" "A company of people that design countries" "I think HCD means how humans are designed" "I think it is something when people gather up and design stuff" "A design that is centred to something in the world" "I think human centred design is based on what humans need and how humans work together to create great things." "Humans and

At Glittering Minds we believe children learn best by doing, and we don’t stop there. Children learn better when they learn in a highly collaborative and playful environment. An environment that promotes exploration and hands-on learning. An environment which enables agency, where children take on ownership over their learning experiences. Through our learning environment, children develop resilience and an ability to cope as they try out different possibilities and test thei

What kind of thinking is required to solve a problem? As humans we love to solve problems. We love it so much that when we are given a problem, we often jump straight into solution. Are we stopping ourselves and asking, “is this the right problem?” or “do we have the correct solution?” Problem solving is an important skill in our everyday life. We need to use it in our personal and professional life. Are primary schools today enable student’s success by developing this capabi

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us, now is the time to prepare the next generation for the future. According to a report by The Committee for Economic Development of Australia, “Technology could make almost 40% of Australian jobs, including high skilled roles, redundant in 10-15 years” and “65% of children entering primary school today will work in completely new job types that don’t yet exist.” There is an urgent need to address the impact of new technologies on