LifeDesign for Middle Adulthood

The LifeDesign for Middle Adulthood Program

The program allows individuals in their middle adulthood to understand Design Thinking as a general methodology to address a wide range of life stage relevant significances and problems that may include career progression, affective relation, family, joyfulness, health, wealth, personal and sociocultural identity, and others. Throughout the program, individuals learn, nurture and develop their own version of Design Thinking through a range of carefully customized content-specific live-projects (Note 1). The live-projects enable individuals to enrich the meaning of life; to chart purposeful life journeys and to design lives based on the rising awareness of their life-view, work-view and world-view. This is especially important as views of oneself, or self-awareness, is transformational in LifeDesign for individuals in their middle adulthood. As with most of the lifelong learning initiatives, the program facilitates the steering of our life orientation based on individuals’ potential, interest, personality and experience. In essence, the LifeDesign for Middle Adulthood Program serves as a platform for continuous, multifaceted and progressive lifelong learning and development.

(Note 1) - The customization of live-projects is based on the principle that enables students to explore combinations of latent potentials such as linguistic, logical-analytical, visual-spatial, musical, physical, self-sensitivities, others-sensitivities, creative, and innovative capabilities. The list of latent potentials can be largely referenced to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences.

For examples,(1) a “Creative Writing Project" that emphasizes the linguistic, creative, and visual-spatial capabilities; (2) a “Entrepreneurship Project" that emphasizes the others-sensitivities, innovative, and logical-analytical capabilities; (3) a “Recipe Creation Project" that emphasizes the creative, innovative, logical-analytical, visual-spatial, physical, and others-sensitivities capabilities.

What do individuals or learners in their middle adulthood get out of the program?

The program helps learners to:

acquire and internalize Design Thinking as a general set of knowledge, skills and attitudes to tackle a broad variety of life stage relevant transformational and developmental tasks through the suite of customised live-projects (Note 1);
discover and explore their latent potentials and intrinsic interests through the live-projects and lifespan counselling;
apply empathic sensitivity, critical reasoning, creative thinking and innovatory capabilities to resolve life stage significances and problems;
engage proactively in LifeDesign and developmental initiative for the transformation of life-view, work-view and world-view;
nurture self-confidence, self-efficacy and self-awareness; and
enrich lifelong learning and developmental portfolio.

Program Structure

The LifeDesign for Middle Adulthood Program is a series of project-based learning:

Number of project:

a series of projects, minimum two projects

Project duration:

six to eight two-hour-sessions per project

Time span per project:

typically once or twice a week across a one-to-two-month time-span (session per week is based on the feasibility of the learners’ work and personal schedule and a more compact schedule can be arranged based on request)

Class size:

from individual class up to group of 12 learners at the same tier of life stage maturity

LifeDesign counselling/coaching:

two to three group counselling sessions (certain students may benefit more through individual counselling/coaching)

Instructors:

methodology and content experts (sometimes an instructor can be both the methodology and content expert)

Pre-requisite:

no (group formation is based on a tier-based approach)

Program Delivery

The program can be delivered in either Chinese or English (Note 2).

(Note 2) - Using English as the delivery language provides opportunities for learners to practise the language skills in a less formal learning environment.

Program Cost

The program cost is determined on a sliding scale of fees to support individual learner's affordability.

Program Coordinator

The Program Coordinator and Lead Instructor of the LifeDesign Program is PY. PY has diverse academic knowledge and professional experience in the design and creative industries. The relevant knowledge and experience were acquired through PY’s employment as Assistant Professor at the School of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Director of Creative Industries Singapore for the Singapore government, and other private sector assignments. Prior to that, PY had studied mechanical engineering and industrial/product design. To fulfil his passion for lifelong learning, PY broadened his knowledge-base by following his belief in “uncovering one’s potential and beyond” through learning. His Master of Business Administration, Master of Education Psychology and Master of Counselling have been fundamental to his success in roles built on a variety of responsibilities required of an educator, a lifespan planning counsellor/coach, and an education psychologist.

"Forty

the old age of youth;

fifty

the youth of old age."

- Victor Hugo

Is "Design Thinking" a specialized skill for designers only?

No, Design Thinking is not just for design professionals. Design Thinking is much more than just a disciplinary skill; it has broader applications to a wider audience.