Ontwikkel een innovatieve mindset

Within a department of Industrial Design, my natural working habitat, innovation is like the floor we walk on or the air we breathe. Designers are generally driven to create new meaningful propositions that, one way or another, break with the status quo, be it on a social, cultural, technological, business, personal or other level. Designers aim at localizing (making matter concrete), questioning (reflecting on its quality) and opening up (expanding its sense); the three abilities that Sennett (2008) sees as the basis of craftsmanship, and which I consider closely interwoven with design and innovation.
At our department, this innovation-oriented attitude is not only applicable to the things we design and our way of designing, but has also been the basis for our educational approach as of the department’s foundation in 2000. In this chapter, I would like to show you what a Dutch innovative mindset could entail and how my journey at Industrial Design might inspire you to explore and implement your own educational innovations. I will first describe some major shifts in societal and educational paradigms, which form the basis of our work. Then, I’ll describe our own position and approach towards education. I elucidate our stance with four concrete examples of innovative ways of learning: self-directed life-long learning; city-situated learning; embodied ways of learning; and tools to support 21st century skills of children. I’ll conclude this chapter with three questions stimulating you to explore the Dutch innovation mindset even further from the perspective offered in this contribution.