In June and July 2021, PMQ Seed teamed up with Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI)’s Design Thinking Team and tutors from Earnest Educational Psychology Service and Outdoor Wildlife Learning Hong Kong (OWLHK) to create the “GREEN & ME Train The Trainer Workshop”. Offered to designers and creative professionals participating in this year’s PMQ Seed educational work, as well as primary school teachers involved in the “GREEN & ME Outreach Programme”, the workshop provided training on applied design thinking, child psychology, environmental education, and more. Participants were encouraged to make use of relevant knowledge in their creative educational efforts. The training team will continue to offer professional advice for PMQ Seed’s educational programmes.
In order to equip creative education programme tutors and school teachers with concrete design thinking skills, Hong Kong Design Institute’s Design Thinking Team ran three workshop sessions at PMQ, in which participants worked in groups to complete a themed design project. The first session introduced participants to design thinking and the methodology of user research, followed by the use of roleplaying in understanding user experience. In the second session, participants learned to analyse data and ideate with different tools, using divergent and convergent thinking. In the final session, participants created design solutions to meet both user needs and project requirements. The final solutions were presented through sketches.
The Hong Kong Design Institute’s Design Thinking Team was founded in 2017, and is focused on developing design thinking partnership and training programmes. The team consists of higher education professionals with extensive experience in the field of design, who are passionate about facilitating the education and application of design thinking in tertiary, secondary, and primary schools, as well as the design industry.
Headed by the team from Earnest Educational Psychology Service, this workshop aimed at preparing trainers for understanding child psychology and empathising with young learners before their classes began. The six-hour workshop, divided into three parts, was led by educational psychologist Mr. Kenneth Chow and art educator Miss Idy Ng. Workshop content covered topics such as classroom management skills, communication with young learners, lesson planning strategies, classroom technology, as well as interpretation and application of empathy.
Kenneth Chow, the director of Earnest Educational Psychology Service, has over ten years’of experience in educational psychology service. Rooted in scientific evidence, the team provides positive and quality assessment, consultation, counselling, and treatment, in order to support different stakeholders in the educational settings. Personal treatment goals are customised for each student according to their abilities, learning styles, characteristics, as well as strengths and weaknesses. Through providing thoughtful psychology service, the organisation works to realise and promote a student-oriented and individualised educational approach.
Outdoor Wildlife Learning Hong Kong (OWLHK) presented a seminar on biodiversity in Hong Kong, aimed at familiarising tutors with local ecology. This was followed by an interactive experience of game education using the board game “Law of the Forest”, which deepened participants’ understanding of game application in environmental education. In July, The OWLHK team led teaching teams on an expedition to the Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve. Aside from learning more about local natural life, participants were introduced to the skills required in leading outdoor environmental education activities.
Outdoor Wildlife Learning Hong Kong (OWLHK) is a local non-profit organisation founded in 2016. The team advocates for diverse, interactive and highly effective outdoor environmental education methods. Their aims include providing the public with comprehensive education on Hong Kong’s ecology and biodiversity, promoting environment protection, and facilitating collaborations between local ecological research and environmental education. OWLHK members share the belief that they can contribute to Hong Kong’s ecological conservation and environmental education efforts through passion, professionalism and a sense of mission.
