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Development of Innovative AcadeMy ON the basis of DT teaching
Start date: Nov 1, 2015, End date: Oct 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The DiamonDT (Development of Innovative AcadeMy ON the basis of DT teaching) aims at fostering independent, open-minded and innovation-oriented thinking of future higher education graduates based on Design Thinking (DT) methodology. The project is coordinated by Lodz University of Technology (TUL), together with its partners in the field of the higher education from Spain (UV - University of Vigo), Norway (UiT - University of Tromsø) and Poland (UTP - University of Science and Technology in Bydgoszcz). This project is a dedicated response to the current and anticipated future requirements of the European labour market. The institutions with different but harmonizing and strong backgrounds and educational experience form the project’s consortium, as it will help to achieve a broad complementarity of educational and research practice. DiamonDT project offers a development of an educational path based on Design Thinking methodology addressed to three target groups: students, academic teachers and implicitly business environment as well. An educational path based on Design Thinking will lead to an improvement of the human resources potential influence on the labour market and it will definitely influence the development of the economy innovativeness both at the local, global and the European level. Nowadays Europe needs higher education not only to pass relevant knowledge and help students to prepare for professional life and work, but also to equip them with a set of transversal skills and team work experience. In order to meet these requirements DiamonDT offers ways to upgrade the educational systems improving the way of teaching in the field of enhancing the creativity and focusing students attention on development of innovative solutions tailored to the real needs of local communities as well as global society. The main goal of the DiamonDT project is to provide an innovative tool into the methods of teaching and learning. It will be realized by creating an education path implementing the Design Thinking methodology as well as conducting interdisciplinary projects based on that method from the different disciplines of science and various areas of everyday life. The strength of the project consortium lies both in the infrastructure as well as in the strong background for proficient education of DT methodology. Lodz University of Technology provides a newly created Design Thinking laboratory (DT4U), while in case of other partners these are DT Labs (UiT) and Shopa (UTP) as well as practical experience in DT based LLP projects (TUL and UV). All of the project partners have either strong connections with industry partners or unique, well equipped spaces for solving of social and business problems in creative way, or both. DT4U workspace is located in one of the most modern buildings of Lodz University of Technology called the Factory of Engineers of 21st century. The project results, which will be achieved, include: the development of teaching materials for study courses: course programme for first-cycle studies including proper course sheet, the development of materials used for training of tutors in DT methodology, multilingual course materials and DT handouts. The most important result will be a handbook of good DT practices, which will include practical guidelines on the DT educational process for both teachers and students, sample documents and description of case studies, projects, examples used during the project realization and remarks collected from students and DT mentors working with the national and international groups. The handbook will be a universal tool for European HEIs that will help them use DT in the classroom. Tens of tutors will be trained during professional courses held locally and in foreign partner country. A number of departments of each HEI participating in the project will implement the DT course that will be developed within the project into their curricula. Hundreds of students will take part in national and international Good Practice Academies. The numerous business contacts with industry will be established thanks to the common project. In addition, the project also involves the implementation of the soft type results: equalization or increase of knowledge among students as well as tutors, development of competence of both. All the above mentioned results will be obtained through various activities, meetings and events planned in the project. The main of them are: professional training of the selected academic staff - Masterclass for DT Tutors, introduction of a pilot course in Design Thinking into the first-cycle study programmes of participating institutions and organization of summer events for students: National Good Practice Academy and International Good DT Practice Exchange in the period of 24 months. The knowledge and experience gained by the academic teachers within the project will allow them to introduce changes in the process of education by introducing Design Thinking methodology into study programmes on the selected faculties/courses offered by partners participating in the project.

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