In last week’s Sustainable Supply Network Management for the Next Decade course, Griffith University lecturer, Mr Omid Haass creatively used building blocks to help students learn about innovation styles.
In this interactive game, invented by Omid’s esteemed colleague, Dr Erin Evans, the aim was for students to learn to develop a team, brainstorm, and allocate tasks while dealing with time and communication constraints. In the process, they were exposed to uncertainty and ambiguity as some of the characteristics of the Industry 4.0 era, a name given to the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies.
In small groups, students were given an envelope containing a card with a photo on it, and a box containing a limited number of plastic building blocks. Students were then asked to create the object on the photowithin a set time frame using only the contents of the box.
“My passionate learners really enjoyed the challenge and learned a lot through this fun and entertaining game”.
“Students learn to be innovative by adopting different innovation styles, such as bending, blending and breaking, to tackle the complexity and uncertainty of their tasks” Omid said.
The competition and teamwork games-based learning promotes, motivates students to use interactive, collaborative problem-solving skills to apply their chosen strategy to solve a given problem.
