My particular interest is in multidisciplinary education. I was intrigued to see aspects of this at Stanford, IDEO, Apple and Jump. Stanford employed a number of different pedagogies in terms of ten week courses, year long projects and research degrees. However in my view they appear to be focussed upon making the best better. By this I mean that each course takes self selected groups, who are ‘misfits’ within their own disciplines and provide a pedagogy that better suits their nature. ie they appear to offer the environment to take a small t and develop a capital T. (maybe I am stretching the metaphor here!)
Whereas, I think the more interesting question is is it possible to take an I to a T? All the companies visited seemed to want to recruit t shaped people and make them more t shaped. Yet, of the companies visited Apple appeared to value I shaped people the most highly and Jonathan Ives himself explained that his in depth craft skill was his most important asset. Nevertheless he acknowledged the importance of having empathy with other disciplines. It appears that this is most effectively gained though direct experience of team problem solving within a business environment. Whether we can, or should, recreate this within the HE environment is an issue I shall hopefully reflect upon more fully at the end of the tour.
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