After graduating design studies in Milan, I decided to move to the most beautiful place on earth - Dunedin, New Zealand.
This quest to find beauty and peace, led me to an intriguing and unexpected job: a designer in the university’s center for teaching and learning (HEDC). There, I learned that design and teaching are not far apart at all.
The design thinking process is devoted to solving complex challenges in creative and practical ways. The world of teaching is filled with complex challenges, from finding ways to explain difficult concepts, through to designing a curriculum, or helping students experience a topic rather than be told about what it is.
Collaborating with my colleague, Dr. Clinton Golding, an educational philosopher, we began teaching lecturers how to solve their challenges using the framework and the tools we developed. They found it useful and reinvigorating, and reported a positive change in their practice.
I recently moved back to my family in Israel. Now, I work with businesses to implement innovation in their organizations using design thinking. With that, I didn’t leave NZ and education behind me. Clinton and I are in the final stages of writing our book: Reinvigorating Teaching using the Design Thinking Framework. We hope it’ll continue to support teachers around the world to find creative and practical solutions for their teaching.
Thanks for the opportunity to share my life with you. I’d love to hear from you.
Best wishes and peace to all,
Ayelet Lazarovitch
Kiryat Tivon, Israel
[email protected]