From March to May 2025, PMQ Seed partnered with the Design Thinking Team from the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI), architect, artist, designer, teacher from school and social workers who are professionals equipped with ample teaching experience, to host a series of Train the Trainer Workshops. The target audience of the workshops are mainly cross-disciplinary creative professionals participating in PMQ Seed creative education programmes this year, local school teachers and creative professionals who are interested in creative education. The workshops provided knowledge on applying design thinking in cross-disciplinary sectors, handling children’s emotional and behavioral needs and students with Special Educational Needs, participants were encouraged to apply the knowledge into their programmes and lessons. The HKDI team will also continue to offer professional advice for programmes of PMQ Seed throughout the year.
The sharing session (primary school) of the PMQ Seed Train the Trainer workshop series: "Creativity in Action - Case studies of children’s self-initiation taught by cross-collaborated creative professionals" took place last Friday. We were delighted to have lecturer Mr. Edwin Wong from the Hong Kong Design Institute (Edwin), school teacher of Pentecostal Gin Mao Sheng Primary School Ms. Chan Ka Ngai (Ms. Chan); the representative of the curatorial team of PMQ Seed 2024 Creative Summer Festival, product designer, visiting lecturer at the School of Design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, founder of Milk Design Limited Mr. Chi-wing Lee (Wing), Knot and craft designer Ms. Zoe Siu (Zoe), who shared with us their previous experience of children's self-initiation practices facilitated by cross-collaborated creative professionals and discussed methods to enhance the personal growth of primary students in design thinking training.
Edwin first began with the basic introduction of design thinking and demonstrated the importance of practicing design thinking in primary school. Highlighting the focus on the self-initiation of children in the PMQ Seed Creative Summer Festival, Wing then shared his experience last year inviting cross-disciplinary creative professionals to serve as design tutors, empowering children to take initiative. One of the design mentor representatives, Zoe, believed that her expertise in knotting and weaving could offer children a new perspective on plastic reduction, the theme of plastic waste problem and weaving, promoting children’s creativity and imagination. Zoe mentioned, “Our top priority in teaching is to not reject students’ ideas but to embrace their process of generating new opinions in their creative journey.”
Pentecostal Gin Mao Sheng Primary School was one of the schools that joined Zoe’s lessons. Ms. Chan recalled how her students designed a mini performance of doing a catwalk by themselves, showcasing their upcycled plastic bags by using the knotting technique. She pointed out that there are few chances for their school to join similar activities for students to create or initiate something on their own. However, after the showcase at the Creative Summer Festival and Learning and Teaching Expo, she observed that students were more willing to express themselves. “They communicated with others more confidently, demonstrating the positive effects on the all-round development of students through self-initiation.”, raised by Ms. Chan.
Followed by then, Wing elaborated on some previous experiences of applying cross-collaborated elements to the Creative Training Class designed for primary school students. Depending on the theme each year, Wing and his team collaborated with various creative partners, including advertisement/video-making studios or Forest Bathing guide, to form a diversified cross-collaborated professional teaching team and design courses based on the design thinking process, bringing fun and educational experiences to students while promoting design thinking process to different aspects of life.
Through the sharing of past experience and practice, teachers and experts in the creative industries who are interested in creative education can learn more about design thinking and solving problems in creative ways through a people-centered perspective. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to presenters and every participant for your participation.
PMQ Seed has expanded the prorgamme to junior secondary students since last year. Last Friday, we conducted a sharing session “Sharing (Secondary School): Enhancing the teaching effectiveness of STEAM education – Case study of design thinking courses”. We were honored to have lecturer Edwin Wong from the Hong Kong Design Institute, Mathematics teacher of Ho Dao College (Sponsored by Sik Sik Yuen) Mr. Tsang Siu Fung, as well as teaching team representative of the Creative Training Class (Junior Secondary): co-founder of AaaM Architects and architect Mr. Kevin Siu, with us to discuss how design thinking training could help nurture the problem-solving mindset of secondary school students and promotes the teaching effectiveness of STEAM at school.
Edwin first introduced the concepts of design thinking and indicated the importance of practicing design thinking at secondary schools, pointing out the complementary possibility between STEAM development at secondary schools and design thinking practice. Ho Dao College was one of the participating schools last year, Mr. Tsang mentioned that the school has been proactively developing STEAM education and hardware on STEAM development are sufficient and solid, while the school lacks the training of soft skills and design thinking.
Kevin shared that, the Creative Training Class conducted by AaaM Architects last year started with empathy, guiding students to discover the pain point in the plastic pollution problem. The course included interviews in the community which encouraged students to experience and analyze data, in order to trace the root problem by themselves. Students then designed people-centered solutions from the user’s perspective, fostering interdisciplinary studies and team spirit. Kevin and his team carrying out the five stages of the design thinking process in simple terms supported the lack in soft skills training and enhanced the development of problem-solving skills, unleashing students’ potential in STEAM. From Mr. Tsang’s observation, “students were more engaged, punctual, and expressive in the course, gaining a lot from the problem-solving process.”
Through the sharing of past experience and practice, teachers, experts in the creative industries who are interested in creative education, hopefully understand more about design thinking and its application in secondary schools. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to presenters and every participant for your participation.
