Crafting an Innovative India

Purpose of Education

• “The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort.” ~Ayn Rand

• “The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think—rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.” ~Bill Beattie

Current situation

• Modern educational systems are built upon a model of teaching known facts, methods and algorithms to children.

• As a result, the children accumulate a lot of diverse knowledge and acquire abilities to deal with standard methods, techniques and tools.

• However, too little attention is paid to developing those thinking skills which let children think out of the box, develop logical, abstract and creative thinking, cope with conflicts and non-typical problems.

• In the times of accelerated competition there is a growing necessity to produce new ideas continuously, such thinking skills become crucial to achieve success in life and build a preferred future.

Some Situations

Examples

• To help understand let us revisit the story of Ekalavya and Dronacharya, where Dronacharya asked Eklavya to give him his right thumb as his Gurudakshina, to which Eklavya promptly cut his right hand thumb and gave it to the Guru. How could Eklavyaprovide the said dakshina to his guru and yet not lose his thumb?

Examples

• How do we divide two unequal volumes which are in two containers equally without using a measuring device?

Examples

• How would you measure the distance from a 90 degree bend in a wall to a fixed point if the measuring scale we have is damaged from the edge and we have access to no other things

Examples

• Every body loves to play Holi, children specially like playing with water balloons, as water balloons have a potential of hurting people government put a ban on them, however the government realized that they would find it extremely difficult to enforce the ban and as a substitute low thickness plastic bags were allowed.

• After Holi there are many such plastic bags that are causing litter that if not cleaned will go and choke the drainage systems

• what can be done to improve this situation?

Time to Introspect

• Do you think that our education model in its current state will help students solve problems of the nature described earlier?

9

Solution

• Rather than Teaching knowledge in the form of instruction the model of education needs to be based in the form of a problem and a solution has to be found by the student by using problem solving models

Methods to solve such Non typical problems need to be taught not only to students but to Teachers too…….

TRIZ

One such Scientific Method that develops strong thinking minds

TRIZ

• What is TRIZ and why choosing this technique to support problem solving activities? – TRIZ is a Romanized acronym for Russian “Teoriya Resheniya

Izobretatelskikh Zadatch” meaning "Theory of solving inventor's problems" or "Theory of inventive problem solving". It was developed by the Soviet researcher Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues starting in 1946. In comparison with psychological methodology to boost creativity TRIZ allows a better problem definition, takes advantage of solution also from other fields, helps in overcoming compromises and move towards the ideal final result.

12

• The TRIZ approach is quite different from other problem solving methodologies. In most cases the problem you’re facing now, has been already faced by many other people at different times, at different places and in different situation. TRIZ allows to connect your problem to a standard problem and so suggesting a standard solution which provide you the direction to find out the best solution for your problem overriding your psychological inertia. But also in case you must deal with a completely new problem, ARIZ (the algorithm including up-to-date TRIZ tool in a structured sequence) will provide you an

• We have chosen the TRIZ among all the techniques supporting problem solving activities, because it offers a systematic approach to the generation of solutions

13

What is TRIZ

Benefits of TRIZ

• Many years of experience have proven that kids who were trained with the use of TRIZ, demonstrate much stronger skills and outperform their colleagues. In general, TRIZ helps with:

• Reducing psychological inertia • Increasing the degree of creativity • Decreasing fear of 'non-solvable' problems• Decreasing fear of barriers• Increasing problem solving power• Improving memory• Increasing self-confidence• Improving communication skills• Improving analytical skills• Increasing independence• Increasing the ability to calmly deal with conflicts• Increasing the ability to ask right questions• Increasing the ability to make right decisions• Improving communication skills with adults• Better appreciation of life values

Approach• Teach the Teachers on TRIZ education at basic level

– 51 Hours work shop mode• Use experts to work with teachers to design better teaching models that

have TRIZ integrated in teaching curriculum• Run creative competitions in schools based on various structures of

TRIZ• Run Problem solving competitions• Educate students till the base level application of TRIZ combined with

creative imagination development

Who are currently doing it?• There are 800 schools in Russia who actively teach teachers and

Students this model of strong thinking• The European union commission has kicked off a Euro 7000 million

project for the period 2007-2013 with the intention of improving education models in which TRIZ based education pays a large part

• Lets all contribute towards an INNOVATIVE INDIA