Reflection – Story Telling

Challenge

Our college has got autonomy recently.  Some teachers from different background, different age groups

are selected to set up the syllabus of recently autonomous college. I am fortunate to be a part of that

team. Looking at the new demands of the industry and society we need to revamp our entire

curriculum. It is a cognitive process and requires strategic planning. Stakeholders are teachers, parents,

society, and industry experts. It is human centric challenge. In order to be among top colleges syllabus

plays a vital role. Our program expects a student should be self-motivated, self-driven and up to industry

expectation. We will try to bridge the gap between the current college curriculum and industry

expectations. Students should also get motivated for research and higher studies.

Selection

Story Telling would be more appropriate tool for this point of view statement. Storytelling starts at a

very young age and we do it naturally. Storytelling has a deep understanding of human emotions,

motivations, and psychology. It is one of the best tools to make user comfortable and friendly. Our

empathy stage would involve many different people of different backgrounds. It will be an easy tool for

everyone to share their experiences, difficulties they are facing. We will get to know all types of

feedback from everyone. This is definitely important stage of restructuring the curriculum.

Application

Since story telling is natural human tendency, we could open up deeply rooted problems in the system.

We used to start with our questionnaire initially. It gave us a head start and then many times next

discussion was just the continuation of earlier question. Our all stakeholders are our users and we are

interested in knowing their views. Since our stakeholders are quite a few, we decided to group them

based on their program selected. We assigned our team members to these groups. Based upon past

interactions, we typically created personas for each of these groups. A persona is a realistic description

of fictitious people. Personas help us to imagine the characteristics of the group. Some of our users are

not available in the campus. We arranged telephonic calls to discuss the challenges they face in current

scenario. We also created Google forms to get the feedback from as many users as possible. This

feedback was shared with higher authorities and their suggestions were noted down. Another very

important activity we did was to study the existing curriculum of various other universities, which are

running programs similar to ours. Now we had large collection of data but in the text form. We used

different data visualization tools to represent this text in various other forms like charts, bar graphs. The

next step was to analyze the acquired data and come with some conclusions.

Insight

With frequent and long discussions we realized concerns of various stakeholders. Some of the key

insights I would like to mention. There is a huge gap between what colleges teach and what industry

demands. Now-a-days students are more comfortable in online e-learning rather than classroom

teaching. Curriculum should encourage students for self-learning. An internship is a period of work

experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Such internships can be offered to

students as a part of curriculum depending on their interest and ability. This will help students in getting

early placements. Organizations can use this period as training cum evaluation period. If candidate is

found suitable, the internship can be converted into job offers directly. We also realized that storytelling

has a deep and emotional understanding of people’s motivations and needs. It creates a common

thread which keeps everyone one the track and stay focused. All the insights that we could capture was

because of the stories narrated by our stakeholders. So we all agreed that story telling was the perfect

tool that we used for our point of view statement.

Approach

This exercise is to be repeated every time we revise the syllabus. I would like to use the learning launch

tool of design thinking when we do the next revision syllabus. Learning launch tool helps us to learn

from our past experience i e first revision of syllabus and gives the next direction. Insights gained in the

current exercise will definitely help to shape up our curriculum. However some drawbacks if any can be

identified using the learning launch tool. Actually it is not a bad idea to use both storytelling and learning

launch tool for the next revision of the syllabus. Storytelling in the next revision will help us to know the

views of other stakeholders about the first revision of syllabus. Combination of both tools will give us

more effective results.


Reflection – Story Telling Challenge Our college has got autonomy recently . Some teachers from different background , different age groups are selected to set up the syllabus of recently autonomous college . I am fortunate to be a part of that team . Looking at the new demands of the industry and society we need to revamp our entire curriculum . It is a cognitive process and requires strategic planning . Stakeholders are teachers , parents , society , and industry experts . It is human centric challenge . In order to be among top colleges syllabus plays a vital role . Our program expects a student should be self - motivated , self - driven and up to industry expectation . We will try to bridge the gap between the current college curriculum and industry expectations . Students should also get motivated for research and higher studies . Selection Story Telling would be more appropriate tool for this point of view statement . Storytelling starts at a very young age and we do it naturally . Storytelling has a deep understanding of human emotions , motivations , and psychology . It is one of the best tools to make user comfortable and friendly . Our empathy stage would involve many different people of different backgrounds . It will be an easy tool for everyone to share their experiences , difficulties they are facing . We will get to know all types of feedback from everyone . This is definitely important stage of restructuring the curriculum . Application Since story telling is natural human tendency , we could open up deeply rooted problems in the system . We used to start with our questionnaire initially . It gave us a head start and then many times next discussion was just the continuation of earlier question . Our all stakeholders are our users and we are interested in knowing their views . Since our stakeholders are quite a few , we decided to group them based on their program selected . We assigned our team members to these groups . Based upon past interactions , we typically created personas for each of these groups . A persona is a realistic description of fictitious people . Personas help us to imagine the characteristics of the group . Some of our users are not available in the campus . We arranged telephonic calls to discuss the challenges they face in current scenario . We also created Google forms to get the feedback from as many users as possible . This feedback was shared with higher authorities and their suggestions were noted down . Another very important activity we did was to study the existing curriculum of various other universities , which are running programs similar to ours . Now we had large collection of data but in the text form . We used different data visualization tools to represent this text in various other forms like charts , bar graphs . The next step was to analyze the acquired data and come with some conclusions . Insight With frequent and long discussions we realized concerns of various stakeholders . Some of the key insights I would like to mention . There is a huge gap between what colleges teach and what industry demands . Now - a - days students are more comfortable in online e - learning rather than classroom teaching . Curriculum should encourage students for self - learning . An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time . Such internships can be offered to students as a part of curriculum depending on their interest and ability . This will help students in getting early placements . Organizations can use this period as training cum evaluation period . If candidate is found suitable , the internship can be converted into job offers directly . We also realized that storytelling has a deep and emotional understanding of people ’s motivations and needs . It creates a common thread which keeps everyone one the track and stay focused . All the insights that we could capture was because of the stories narrated by our stakeholders . So we all agreed that story telling was the perfect tool that we used for our point of view statement . Approach This exercise is to be repeated every time we revise the syllabus . I would like to use the learning launch tool of design thinking when we do the next revision syllabus . Learning launch tool helps us to learn from our past experience i e first revision of syllabus and gives the next direction . Insights gained in the current exercise will definitely help to shape up our curriculum . However some drawbacks if any can be identified using the learning launch tool . Actually it is not a bad idea to use both storytelling and learning launch tool for the next revision of the syllabus . Storytelling in the next revision will help us to know the views of other stakeholders about the first revision of syllabus . Combination of both tools will give us more effective results .