Shafina Vohra [00:00:00]:
You will never have, let’s say, if I’ve given a paired task and the task is exactly the same to the whole class, guarantee you 110% every single time. There will not be a single pair in the classroom who will have the same pieces, the same way of explaining that exam question using Lego. But they will all be correct in their answer, and that is where their individual creativity comes out. So it is a tool.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:27]:
Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:30]:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:32]:
This is the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:36]:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the fields of education.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:42]:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:50]:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood [00:01:02]:
So let’s begin.

Cyndi Burnett [00:01:04]:
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Fueling Creativity and Education podcast. Today we welcome to the show Shafina Vora, who is an a level psychology teacher in London where she teaches at an inner city college, and she’s currently doing a phd in design engineering at the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College. Her focus is creativity in the curriculum. She has designed and developed a Lego innovation program that you’re going to hear about today that is student led, comprising industry projects, teacher training, and play, with a focus on creating workshops for primary schools around solutions for real world issues. This is now a flagship free community program. This work has led her to be a top ten finalist of 2023 for the global teacher prize. So welcome to the show, Shafina.

Shafina Vohra [00:02:00]:
Thank you. And thank you for the lovely introduction. Hello.

Cyndi Burnett [00:02:03]:
So can you tell us a little bit about your journey into the field of teaching?

Shafina Vohra [00:02:08]:
Okay, so my journey into teaching was not the very typical one where you’re usually eight, nine years old when you know you want to become a teacher. That wasn’t me. I wanted to do more sort of product design, industrial design, but I didn’t have those opportunities. It was actually a life changing car crash. That’s mentioned on my global teacher prize nomination, where I ended up having to leave university and just focus on recovery, so on and so forth. And I wanted to understand my mind, my own mind. And I think that is where I started ideating a lot. I started doing graphic designing, freelance graphic designing.

Shafina Vohra [00:02:45]:
I think that was my creativity side kind of pulling me back into it. And then it was just when I sort of started to walk again and things. A local school, high school just had an opportunity to come and support teaching and learning, and I took it up. It wasn’t for a qualified teacher, it was just to come and help. So I did. And the feedback was just overwhelming. Like Shafina, you need to train as a no, no, this isn’t me. And I kept saying no.

Shafina Vohra [00:03:13]:
And he pushed me into it. He said, you’ve got nothing to lose, just try it out. So I did, and here I am. And I really thank him for making me do this because I absolutely love what I do. I love teaching. So, yes, not a typical route into teaching.

Matthew Worwood [00:03:29]:
How much? Just out of curiosity, because in the show we spoke a lot about passion and being really fully committed and avoiding burnout. You said you love teaching. How much do you think your creativity in the classroom is dependent somewhat on your love and passion for teaching?

Shafina Vohra [00:03:46]:
Oh, 100%. Because I will be honest with you, I got quite bored of the same content on repeat because the curriculum doesn’t stays for a good couple of years before it undergoes a change. But because it’s an exam driven curriculum that I teach, there isn’t much room for creativity. And I, being a passionate creative, needing to do things differently, needing to try new things, it’s an internal thing for me. It’s just very intrinsic to me. I started just taking risks in the classroom and I thought, let me try this in a different way. Let me try this in a different way. And then I just did a lot more digging in research on pedagogy, on creative thinking, on how adolescents learn, on the neuroscience of it.

Shafina Vohra [00:04:30]:
And I think that gave me confidence to want to try new things. So I knew that if I teach like this, the learning will still be done. In fact, the learning will probably be done better. They will still do their exams, but their experience of learning with me will be very different. So, yeah, I completely agree. I think it has to come from a place of passion and a place of positive energy. Otherwise, we all know you can’t be creative if you’re walking around with a lull in your head. It’s not going to work.

Shafina Vohra [00:04:57]:
So I think very much the passion of your subject. For me, I love psychology. I mean, it’s one of those subjects that just changes every day because there’s new things coming out about it every day. So I think that keeps me going, that it remains fresh for me. I think just my personality, to be honest. I love reading, I love researching, I love trying new things. I think that’s probably what enables me to be creative in my classroom.

Cyndi Burnett [00:05:21]:
So how can we enable creativity in the curriculum? So we were talking beforehand about test taking and all these rigid tests, and I know there’s a lot of tests taking in the high schools in the UK, and it’s similar here. So I have a teenage son, and I know you have teenagers as well, Shafina, and I’m looking at all these AP tests he’s taking, and all of the curriculum is designed to take these tests and do well. So how do we build in creativity into these kind of courses?

Shafina Vohra [00:05:50]:
There are no black and white ways in terms of how to do it. I think for me, it’s about thinking about what your learning objectives are for that particular curriculum or that subject. So for me, I would just say to answer that question bluntly before I explain, is to just try new things. There are so many resources out there, whether you’re into the digital technologies, whether you are into hands on to the creative side of things, I. E. Drawing, arts and the sciences, whether you’re into the maker mindset, engineering, coding, all of that, or a combination of all of those. It’s about understanding what that student needs to learn in that classroom. How are they going to get there? And they don’t have to get there in the same way.

Shafina Vohra [00:06:31]:
So, for example, my Lego curriculum, I never, ever imagined it to be this big. It was a tiny little idea as part of my PhD, a small idea of just doing something differently, inviting schools. And then I just saw a natural, organic sort of pathway happening. And I thought, well, why don’t I train my teachers? And, like, based on the earlier question, creativity has to come through passion. And it was a few teachers that were very interested and excited about, yeah, I want to learn. I want to learn. Train me. So I trained them.

Shafina Vohra [00:07:06]:
So I had my early converts, as I say, and then I think it was word of mouth and it was students starting to say, oh, we really like these lessons because it was our industry. People coming in and saying, oh, my God, you use Lego in the lesson. What? And before I knew it, I was training all the teachers in our college, and it then became a faculty wide. It’s a tool, it’s one of our delivery tools. And I wanted to understand how English does it, how maths do it, how digital does it, how science might do it. And so I’ve had to work with them and give them very simple ideas like, okay, what’s your learning objective for this lesson? What do they need to know by the end of this lesson, given that you’ve got 25 to 30 very different students in your class. And so it’s just a spark, if I’m honest with you. Just sit with them, give them a tiny idea, just spark the idea in their minds.

Shafina Vohra [00:07:55]:
And before you know it, I’ve never consulted again. They’re just on their way and it becomes embedded in the curriculum when you have staff buy in and that comes through demonstration and that comes through supporting them and that comes through showing them different ways of doing something. Because I know for a fact that a lot of teachers I’ve seen, I’ve worked with have been resistant to change. They’re comfortable in their zones, they want to teach the lessons they’ve spent hours preparing and they will teach the same lessons every single year. And I think it’s about breaking that cycle by showing them that there are different ways of doing this. So I think it requires collaboration to embed it in the curriculum. I think it requires staff training, I. E.

Shafina Vohra [00:08:37]:
Convincing them of the pedagogy, giving them the research based evidence. Strong teachers are going to go by evidence in the research arena. And modeling, like we model to our students, modeling to staff, this is how it’s done, this is why it works. And letting them have a go. And the thing with creativity is it’s not like solving a maths problem where you can either be right or wrong. It’s about trying it out, see if it works. How does it work? How does it add value? Does it actually enhance the learning process? And it’s, from my experience, it’s not something that would happen overnight. It’s taken me seven years from a tiny little idea, through research, through my passion, to then, if I was to give an analogy of a gear system, you’ve got different cogs in the gear system.

Shafina Vohra [00:09:22]:
You’ve got different sized cogs in that, ones that are smaller, ones that are bigger, and how they work together. I think that is how the Lego curriculum, or a curriculum enabling creativity needs to work. You need to have lots of people, I’m not saying everybody, but you do need to have majority of the educators in that process, in that mindset, in that approach for it to work at curriculum level.

Matthew Worwood [00:09:45]:
Now, I know we want to talk to you about the Lego curriculum because it’s certainly something new for our podcast. And Cindy and I, and I’m sure a whole bunch of people listening absolutely love Lego. And I almost spoke about the Lego box sets that were behind you. But before we get to the Lego curriculum, I just wanted to talk a little bit about how your actions in the classroom expanded to your school and a much larger community. You kind of referenced a few things, but I think there’s probably a lot of teachers that are doing some really amazing things inside their classroom environments. And I think at the grassroots level, change at the grassroots level, creativity, everyday creativity, as we think about it becoming, proceed creativity and expanding beyond the classroom, having the impact in the school, the district. We need educators like you to continue to expand their ideas out the classroom environment. So can you give us, not necessarily a step by step process, but can you identify some of the things that you did that enabled your curriculum to begin to start having an impact in other people’s classroom environments?

Shafina Vohra [00:10:47]:
Oh, yes. Thank you. That’s a good question because that is actually part of the whole Lego curriculum. As I’ve said, initially, early days when I joined the college, they were already doing robotics, coding. We’re a new school then they were already doing free sessions for children around the schools, around the borough where we live, where we teach, and just having students have a go at Lego mindstorms, which is the coding and the programming side of Lego. And when I joined, it was already happening. We were doing just fun things. Okay, let’s learn how to code.

Shafina Vohra [00:11:18]:
Let’s learn how to make a robot move forward, backwards, left and right, so on and so forth. And then I thought, hang on a minute. I could see a natural pattern emerging. I’m like, okay, so we’re already doing this. Why don’t we turn this into an actual, not a partnership, but something like a pathway. So we actually invite schools and we start designing programs for schools. So I started designing just myself, workshops around sustainability, green energy, energy conservation, living on Mars, all sorts of different things. Mini little workshops for children who are nine and ten in primary schools.

Shafina Vohra [00:11:49]:
And these would be free. And we trialed it, and it was a huge success. Oh, my God, when can we have more? And I did a lot of networking, Matthew. I volunteered at a lot of events, whether it was the BET show, the welcome Institute, the London Brain Project, on podcasts, on things. And I just reaching out to people who I was on a similar wavelength with in terms of, okay, this is what I’m doing. Is there really an interest in this? Are other people doing things like this that are similar or maybe different? And I think that had a huge impact in me saying, right, I think I’m in the right direction here. So I think it was seeking that not verification, but kind of. Okay, that sounds interesting.

Shafina Vohra [00:12:28]:
Okay, explore this a little bit more. And then I started designing and developing more workshops, and that kind of led to our primary workshop program, which is our flagship program. Yeah, so that’s the primary school. And through that, I would invite staff to come to the hall, come and see these children, come and see what we’re doing. I was then invited on further events, further podcasts and news and interview pieces. And I think staff teachers at least started to see that, oh my God, we’re getting a lot of interest out of this. Even at government level, people are talking about what we’re doing. This is free for children.

Shafina Vohra [00:13:01]:
The schools are loving it, some people coming back for more. And I think that’s when the interest in what I was doing grew. And then we were approached by industry, because we’re an industry led school. And then industry started saying, shafina, we’d love to collaborate with you. We’d love to bring some children in collaboration with the Institute of Imagination, the Lego group myself, us raising robots, other companies. Can we run a mini pilot mayor of London program in your school? And again, that got more people involved. And then I thought, oh God, there’s another pathway. I can see the projects lab.

Shafina Vohra [00:13:33]:
So then we started doing more projects and getting invitations to do projects. And then I said, right, we need to have the Lego solidified in the curriculum. I need for teachers to really understand why this works. So I was doing mini staff training and then bigger staff training sessions, getting everybody hands on, on board. And now it’s actually in our curriculum because all the teachers have Lego. They’re using it in different ways. They actually have to map it out in their curriculum, where they’re going to use it, why they’re going to use it, the impact of it, and so on and so forth. So it started, as I said, a very early, tiny experiment.

Shafina Vohra [00:14:08]:
But when I started going out of my comfort zone and meeting people and doing interviews and flying to different countries, sharing how we do this, being invited by moes and companies, and Lego education being one of know. Shafina, can you come and share your work? I think all of that collectively being on the news, my TED talk, everything people started seeing, oh my God, there is an actual interest in this stuff. So it has taken a lot of effort on my part, but I wanted others to see that this really works. Just try it. For me, it was just have a go, and if you’re not happy, fine, I won’t bother you again. But I’ve never had to have that other conversation because it’s just all of them have taken to it. So I do think your passion can sort of expand. As you said, but you have to put in the really hard work.

Shafina Vohra [00:14:55]:
As I said, you’ve got to show them. It’s very hard to convince practitioners of 30 years who are exemplary teachers, as you said, who are fantastic in the classroom, and they’re very confident in their classroom, and they get the grades and they do everything right. And I’m thinking those are the ones I want to challenge. Come on, let’s try and change this. And I have had teachers that have never used it and will never use it, and that’s fine. I’m not judgmental about that. My point is, can I show you a different way of doing something? And that has led to other areas of the curriculum now trying different tools in terms of creative learning, like digital technologies, employer engagement, and things like, I think, you know, if you’re an innovator, don’t do it for yourself. I think there has to be a shared practice, and that’s what we do really well at my college.

Cyndi Burnett [00:15:42]:
So, Shafina, I want to take a step back, and I want to talk about the Lego program. So I want you to imagine that Matt and I are teachers. Oh, wait, you don’t really have to imagine that because we are sort of born teachers. So I want you to think we come to you and we say, we really like to do this Lego innovation program. Can you tell us what we will be doing?

Shafina Vohra [00:16:03]:
Yep. So it depends whether you want to do it as a teaching level just within your subject. It depends if you want to do community level, I e. Delivering workshops for young children in the community you live in for free, which is student led by your students and delivered to young children. Do you want to do it with industry and industry players as a big project that gets in lots and lots of departments, or do you want it just to be an after school club that you just come and play? This is what I would ask you. Which aspect of my program do you want to be involved in right now?

Matthew Worwood [00:16:36]:
I’m going to say classroom. I’m going to tell you I’m really pumped. I love Lego, but I’m a little bit nervous about taking on too much right now. So I’m just thinking about me in my classroom and integrating into my curriculum. Do I have to give a subject.

Shafina Vohra [00:16:50]:
Make up one if you don’t have one?

Matthew Worwood [00:16:53]:
I don’t know. Should we say math? Cindy?

Shafina Vohra [00:16:55]:
I’m not.

Matthew Worwood [00:16:56]:
Follow the conversation. Let’s do math. Math. I’m a math teacher and I’m very good, by the way.

Shafina Vohra [00:17:00]:
Okay. So I would firstly ask you, what is it that the children are learning. What are they learning? So obviously, I teach a level. So each lesson goes really, really fast. We might have a topic that goes, that’s. That’s awarded 910, 1112 lessons, for example. But I know in primary it’s very different. You kind of follow a theme throughout term and so on.

Shafina Vohra [00:17:20]:
So I would first ask a teacher, I would first ask you, Matthew, what are you doing in maths? What are you teaching in maths at the moment?

Matthew Worwood [00:17:25]:
And I would ask Cindy, so we’re.

Cyndi Burnett [00:17:28]:
Teaching fractions, how to add and subtract fractions mostly.

Shafina Vohra [00:17:32]:
Okay. So at the end of that lesson, your children need to know how to add and subtract with fractions. Okay. I’ll show you one example of how you can do that. Now, can you try an example in your own. Done. That’s literally done. I have had a converted teacher in history.

Shafina Vohra [00:17:50]:
This is seven years ago, who said, shafina, are you crazy? Me Lego with grade ten in a history lesson? This is too complicated. I can’t teach them. And I said, give me five minutes. What are your learning objectives? So she said, they were looking at the war in, I think it was Afghanistan and Russia. Don’t get me wrong. Don’t quote me on this. My history is really bad. But she was teaching them, and it was a really intense lesson.

Shafina Vohra [00:18:08]:
I said, okay, do this. Divide the class into three groups. Do it like this. Do it like this, like this, like that. She did it. She looked at me, she goes, can you come and just stand there so things don’t go wrong? I said, you won’t need me. I’ll come there. I stood there two minutes.

Shafina Vohra [00:18:22]:
The class was under control. Zero behavior management, full engagement, loads of creative thinking going on. Fantastic models. They wrote it up and their marks were even higher.

Cyndi Burnett [00:18:32]:
Five minutes.

Shafina Vohra [00:18:32]:
I do not need to sit with you for more than five minutes because you own that subject. You own that class. You know what child is, at what stage of learning, which child might need more support, which child is ready to go above? And I will just sit with you and show you one example, because that’s how I train teachers. I will not tell you how to do it. I will show you one example and then over to you. Now you have a go. And that is where, in my mind, in my observations and experience, the magic will happen. Because if I tell you how to do it, it’s not going to come from within you.

Shafina Vohra [00:19:02]:
But if I give you the opportunity and the space to try it out, which is what I do in all my workshops and sessions, you’ll just figure it out and then you’ll never ask Shafina again. I can guarantee you that you will have a set of Lego kits in your classroom and you will be a fantastic practitioner.

Matthew Worwood [00:19:17]:
You know, what’s interesting about that is in some way similar to, at least in higher education, you work with an instructional designer that might be familiar with the learning management system, and you’re the content matter expert who’s familiar with your context. Or rather, you’re the teacher. But also sometimes with instructional designers, you’re also the content matter expert. And from that perspective, Lego is almost like a know. Is that a fair assessment?

Shafina Vohra [00:19:44]:
To a certain extent, it is just a tool. It can be used for your assessment, for learning your AFL. It can be used for recall, it can be used for. I get students to answer questions with Lego. I will say, right, here’s a six mark exam question on schema theory. Answer it with Lego. And they’ll look at me like, what, miss? I’m like, answer the question with Lego. Off you go.

Shafina Vohra [00:20:04]:
And what I find so beautiful about is because it’s a tool, because it’s an object that you can make multiple interpretations of. And how you use it will be very. You will never have, let’s say, if I’ve given a paired task and the task is exactly the same to the whole class, guarantee you 110% every single time, there will not be a single pair in the classroom who will have the same pieces. The same way of explaining that exam question using Lego, but they will all be correct in their answer, and that is where their individual creativity comes out. So it is a tool.

Matthew Worwood [00:20:42]:
Is that a little bit of the framework you’re alluding to? There is that I get given some bricks and you challenge me to explain, like, for example, fractions using these Legos. Is that an example of a type of activity that I would be challenged to do?

Shafina Vohra [00:20:55]:
Yes, because it’s a tool. So you use the term a tool. How do we use tools now? You might use a butter knife in so many different ways. It comes down to divergent thinking, right? We all know divergent thinking. We know, how many uses can you think of? Of a paperclip or of a brick? It’s that classic divergent thinking question. It’s exactly the same thing. And they might not have all the same pieces. And I make that on purpose.

Shafina Vohra [00:21:17]:
I will not have the same pieces because I want to see how are they thinking about this. And it lends itself to metacognition as well. Fantastic metacognition going on because they’re thinking about, well, what am I trying to show here? Why am I doing it in this way? And I’ve only got four minutes to do this, and I need to make sure that I use all the keywords. And so it’s a tool, as you said, it is a learning tool. And so because it’s a tool, there is not a right or wrong way to use it. And I think that’s why students absolutely love it, because they will make their learning journey, they will meet their goal, but they’re going to get there in a different way. And I think that needs to be enabled in classrooms. Whether it’s Lego or something else, it doesn’t matter.

Shafina Vohra [00:21:56]:
I think there needs to be an exploration of using different tools in learning because that also goes down to neuroplasticity. And I can go on and on about that, but I won’t. How we make different connections, how your emotions, how your cognition, how your affect, how the environment, all of the different factors that affect you. But when you’ve just handed a box of Lego, you’re going to be smiling, you’re going to be happy, because in your head you’re thinking you’re playing. But I’m, as a teacher, I’m structuring that. I’m guiding that play in inverted commas, because there is a learning aim behind it. So it’s not just here, guys, make what you feel like and tell me what you thought. It’s right, guys, here’s what you’re doing.

Shafina Vohra [00:22:34]:
Get on with it. Let’s hear some feedback. And then we get to the point of, some of them would have gone well beyond my expectations, some of them would have just met it. But you will almost find nobody going below that because they’ve had a very lovely tool to use to get their thinking out.

Cyndi Burnett [00:22:51]:
So, Shafina, I know you said that this is a free community program. Can we give our listeners a link to this program?

Shafina Vohra [00:23:00]:
Yes, I can show you. It’s on padlet. So I’ve got a padlet where I’ve designed. When I say I’ve designed myself and my student team. So my a level student team, so these guys are 1718 years old. They co design, they design the workshops and then they deliver the workshops to children. So they are in this program for a year. It’s like an in house work experience program.

Shafina Vohra [00:23:23]:
They get roles like HR manager, branding director, logistics design director. They get all these roles. The only one we don’t have, Cindy’s finance, because we don’t engage in any monetary transactions. But these students have these roles, and they then become the facilitators running the workshops. And so it’s a win win for my students because they are training their public, developing their public speaking skills. This is over and above their normal subject. So they have to be very disciplined, time management, work with people they don’t like. But they’re bringing in so much creativity to the program because they’re all from different subject areas.

Shafina Vohra [00:24:00]:
And for the children and the schools, it’s a win win because not many schools can afford Lego. We know that. And not many children have played with Lego, especially in an inner city area. And not many curriculums have the time to think about how to embed creativity when all they have to do is do their maths and English and maths and English and maths and English. So it has just turned into this massive program, because, as I said, it’s free for all. So, yes, I will happily share the link with you. And we want to collaborate with more schools. We want this to go international even more than it is.

Shafina Vohra [00:24:32]:
And I’d be more than happy to work with schools who want to develop this program in their respective communities. I would love that.

Cyndi Burnett [00:24:38]:
Now, Shafina, you mentioned the cost of Lego. And so I’m sitting here thinking, could it be things that are other than Lego? So I did junk inventions with a school this past week with fifth and 6th graders, and I brought in lots of boxes and containers, and we did inventions around with junk. So could it be other items beside Lego, or is there something special about Lego?

Shafina Vohra [00:25:00]:
Yes, I would say absolutely yes to you, because I use other things, too, and so do other teachers I work with. It’s about having that maker space mindset. Now, the reason we have Lego is because when the college was being sort of developed, we had the Lego innovation. It used to be called a Lego education innovation studio. So my principal actually brought lots and lots of Lego as part of our curriculum. So the natural next step was, well, okay, we have all this stuff. How do we actually make use of it? And I’m well aware, fully aware, with all the different people I’ve worked with, that they don’t have access to it. So it doesn’t have to be Lego if you don’t have it.

Shafina Vohra [00:25:35]:
That’s the first thing. And a lot of the work I do involves lots of different objects. It could be lollipop sticks, it can be pipe cleaners. It can be the arcit models. It can be anything. Anything that has a construction based approach to it. That’s the second thing. I would also like to add that Lego group itself has started build the change program where they give schools recycle Lego.

Shafina Vohra [00:25:57]:
So people that don’t want Lego, they donate it, and then it goes to other children and communities. And the guy who’s behind it is a really dear friend of mine. And so they are, as a company, also recognizing that not everybody has access to it for various reasons. So they are doing that. But because we already had the Lego, it was just killing me to see that why is this all not being used? And I had to find a way of making it usable. But absolutely, I’m not selling a brand. It’s about a concept. It’s about a concept of learning, getting involved, using your hands, making things, playing with things, that low stress approach to learning, and massive benefit to cognition, as we know.

Shafina Vohra [00:26:40]:
And that’s what I’m trying to promote here. It just so happens that my tool is Lego.

Matthew Worwood [00:26:48]:
Do you want to bring more creative and critical thinking into your school? Look no further than our podcast sponsor, curiosity to create.

Cyndi Burnett [00:26:56]:
Curiosity to create is a nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging professional development for school districts and empowering educators through online courses and personal coaching.

Matthew Worwood [00:27:07]:
And if you’re craving a community of creative educators who love new ideas, don’t miss out on their creative thinking network. Get access to monthly webinars, creative lesson plans, and a supportive community all focused on fostering creativity in the classroom.

Cyndi Burnett [00:27:22]:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. So, Shafina, we have a lot of upcoming scholars like yourself, listening to the podcast. So I would love to know what you intend to do with your research. What are your next steps?

Shafina Vohra [00:27:43]:
Oh, thank you. That’s a really big question. Okay, so I’m interested in curriculum design, creative curriculum, and it’s not just Lego. So let’s just leave that one aside for the moment. I have an idea in my mind. I’m currently processing, hopefully more on that when I’ve got a solidified thing in place. But I’m looking at how we can create sort of a global curriculum that enables any school, anywhere, any age group to tap into this kind of learning. So kind of workshop based learning, project based learning with creativity and problem solving at the heart of it.

Shafina Vohra [00:28:22]:
The condition would be solving real world problems around energy, nature, animal ecosystems, plastic waste, all the different big things that we’re currently facing. Kind of like a plug and play curriculum is what I’m working on at the moment. And curriculum design, as I’ve said earlier, I’ve designed this Lego program. As I said, not intentionally. It was just an organic process that occurred. And I’ve kind of verified or validated my interests, my skill set. I know that I understand curriculum really well. I know I can see where the flaws are with different curriculums, I can see where the strengths are with other curriculums.

Shafina Vohra [00:28:59]:
And I would love to sort of take this leap once I’m done with my phd and I can have life back again to think. But I would love to have a very easy to use global curriculum that anybody can use. Just like the Lego program, which is free for community, free for all, exactly like that, but on a global scale with different subject areas, different subject specialists, something that is industry linked as well. So that’s the idea I’m working on. That’s something I would love to absolutely pursue going forward and just keep up research, really continue to research and teach. I mean, I do a lot of voluntary work at university. I do a lot of teaching and tutoring in design engineering. So I tutor on the undergraduate masters, on the postgraduate masters with the Royal College of Art and Imperial.

Shafina Vohra [00:29:47]:
A lot of the projects I’ve been part of have won awards or have been shortlisted for awards, all in the field of ed tech, whether it’s AR VR, mixed reality, whether it’s AI, whether it’s tangible, whether it’s board games, whatever it is in the education sphere, I feel that I have. I think it’s my passion and my experience that’s enabling me to drive my ideas forward. So that’s where I hope I can be going forward.

Matthew Worwood [00:30:12]:
I think that’s wonderful and we wish you all the best in that. I think if I was an emerging scholar listening to that, I think it really is about that relationship between research and practice. All the way through your story, you’ve spoken a lot about how you’ve utilized your experience to maybe identify problems or identify opportunities, but then you seem to also then go and engage in research, tap into your network, reach out to industry colleagues, make connections, and then go through this iterative phase within a community that you’ve developed. So I think that’s so powerful. And I think within education, there’s aspects that every single one of us, every single teacher should adopt is that balance between engaging in practice and then going and utilizing research, online research to try and inform the practice that we’re doing in the classroom.

Shafina Vohra [00:31:02]:
Thank you. That’s really sweet of you. I mean, it’s hard. It is hard. And research is also in ten different dimensions on its own. You’ll get some that will completely disagree with what you’re doing and you’ll get some that’s actually promoting the kind of stuff you’re doing. And I’m not afraid to take risk. I’m not afraid to try things.

Shafina Vohra [00:31:20]:
And if they don’t work out, they don’t work out. But I think seeing doing this for seven years now and seeing directly the impact it has on our students in our curriculum, I mean, that’s evidence itself. And I’m hoping to evidence some of that in my research as well, to kind of tell the full story. But, yeah, I think a lot of very strong practitioners and strong teachers do engage in research. I mean, there’s so much out there on research led teaching, research led practitioners, and I think everything is moving so fast. There’s so many new things on our fingertips now, so many new things that should we use AI? Should we not use AI? It’s about, well, how can we use it effectively? How can we use it creatively? How can we make sure that the learning isn’t affected, but is actually enhanced? So I do think that teachers need to be engaged a lot more with current research and just not be afraid, really just go with your gut feeling, that gut feeling inside you. I think that drives you.

Matthew Worwood [00:32:15]:
Great story. But if I was a listener, one of the things risk taking, I think, was a big central theme within this podcast episode. Now, time’s getting a little bit tight, so we do have to finish with our final question, which is to ask you for three tips that you would share with our community who want to bring creativity into the classroom.

Shafina Vohra [00:32:32]:
Try your ideas out. As I just said, risk. You said that was a big thing. You have to take risk if you want to see if things work or not. They don’t have to be big risks. They can be small risks. So try your ideas. The second thing is, collaborate with people outside of the classroom.

Shafina Vohra [00:32:47]:
So I’m not just talking about your colleagues. What’s happening in the world, what’s happening in industry? We’re in industrial revolution 5.0 now. We’ve done and dusted with fourth IR and research. So research, keep on top of the research. And I think all of those tie into don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone, because that’s what I did. And it got me back into my happiest comfort zone, to be really honest with you. And I was just thinking, why doesn’t everybody do this for me? It’s just common sense.

Shafina Vohra [00:33:17]:
Why doesn’t everybody do know? But those would be my top three tips.

Cyndi Burnett [00:33:22]:
Well, Shafina, our time is up, but thank you so much for coming onto the show. I know it’s late out in London right now, so I really appreciate you coming onto the show. And for those of you listening, if you enjoyed this episode and you have colleagues and you want to share this episode with them to share, hey, maybe we should start thinking about Lego inside of our classroom when we teach that boring lesson that we have. Then please send them this episode.

Shafina Vohra [00:33:49]:
And if you have any questions, feel.

Cyndi Burnett [00:33:51]:
Free to reach out to Matt and I at questions@viewingcreativitypodcast.com. My name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood [00:33:59]:
And my name is Dr. Matthew Warwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:34:02]:
This episode was produced by Matthew Warwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create, and our editor is Sam Atkinson.