Design for delight.

Intuit Education’s session on their Design 4 Delight framework was just one of many sessions focused on design thinking. This new approach to creative problem solving is on the forefront of innovation, making sure that organizations remain customer-focused and agile as they tackle compelling problems. With a strong emphasis on empathy, it’s important to frame all our decisions, organizationally, around the experiences of the student. Focus on quick, experimental approaches to tackle obstacles and rapidly test and pivot your approaches.

The future is fuzzy.

A glaring theme that impacted every session was the future of work. As mentioned in the breakout session description for my own workshop, 85% of the jobs of the future do not currently exist. Quickly, traditional industry will be disrupted by technology. Ted Dintersmith, in our podcast interview, explored some of the implications of this evolution – in the next decade, any job that has a sense of routine or requires labor will be quickly and more efficiently replaced by machines. This has significant implications on the future of education and how we educate our students. An emphasis on regional collaboration, hands-on learning via makerspaces, project-based approaches, and disrupting traditional models of education was uplifted. The future may still be fuzzy, but I’m positive community colleges will be on the forefront of creating the change needed to adapt to this new world.