LTTA 6 – Biohacking Creative Thinking

What skills do researchers need other than scientific?

Nowadays, to be a successful scientist in the modern world, it is needed a deep knowledge of a discipline, mastery of the scientific method, the ability to think critically and solve problems creatively and collaboratively. Creativity is not just a talent, it is also a frame of mind, and creativity can be learnt and improved using particular techniques; is one of the soft skills and is supposed to help develop innovative solutions to problems. The Creativity concept will be discussed and questioned.  Creativity requires an openness to innovation and mental flexibility and should be trained.

Design thinking provides a natural bridge between the arts, sciences, and other subjects. The goal of the workshop is, also, to promote the application of Design Thinking to the research work as a useful method for innovation in science and science education.

There is also a need to train scientists and researchers to develop creative skills (culture, visual literacy, soft skills for communicating their research projects, etc.) as well as visual communication skills, organisation and information design (data, set data visualisation, information visualisation, data visualisation and infographics, visual narratives), etc.

The Workshop:

In this workshop, during 5 days at i3s, participants will attend a systematic interactive training course where they get to practice the mentioned skills with others so they can learn these skills quickly and with long-lasting results.

This Design Thinking Workshop and other creative methodologies will be used as a tool to promote creative thinking in scientists having Biohacking as the subject. In this framework, design thinking presents the knowledge in multidisciplinary strategies, practical methodologies, and development of tools for the research on, in and into science and Higher Education. The LTTA will revisit gene editing (in vivo, in vitro, and in silico) protocols experimented with previous HYBRID activities, in the attempt to successively trim them to expand their multidisciplinary and educational functions.

Besides i3s teachers and researchers, partner institutions in the HYBRID project (Aalto University and Waag) will provide inspirational expert lectures and presentations covering subjects such as Design Thinking, Storytelling and Data Visualization including artistic practices and conceptual questions related to the development of these fields.

Participants:

will range from teachers, and HE students, proposed by each HEI partner institution, to citizens (artists, science communicators, entrepreneurs, etc.), moved by inner motivation. This workshop is designed for different kinds of participants (engineers, scientists, artists, entrepreneurship).

Themes:

1. Revisiting Gene Editing protocols
2. Creative skills in practice; 
3. Design thinking
4. Data visualization 

Workshop Aims:

1. to train Scientists and science students to develop
2. creative skills (culture, visual literacy, soft skills for communicating their research projects, etc.)
3. visual communication skills, organization and information design (data, set data visualization, information visualization, data visualization and infographics, visual narratives), etc.
4. to train Arts and Humanities researchers and students to develop
5. lab skills (namely in molecular biology; microbiology and gene editing in vivo, in vitro, and in silico)
6. scientific thinking/method (hypothesis, experimental design, controlled setups, conclusions drawing)

Expected results:

1. At the end of this course students should be able to apply some creative skills in their practice (culture, visual literacy, soft skills for communication of their research projects, etc.) as well as visual communication, organizational, and information design strategies (illustration data set, information visualization, data visualization, and infographics, visual narratives, story telling), among others;
2. At the end of this course teaching staff and invited teachers should: both gain awareness that it is necessary to rethink the learning/teaching methods and pedagogical approaches, learning spaces, or/and the role of science educators/creative educators at higher education;
3. Hybrid Lab Network staff should collect information and materials to refine the multidisciplinary educational proposals (toolkit and course syllabus), as well as to tune ideas on best practices for transdisciplinary teaching.