Old Ethelburgian Dr Kelestyn Gives Staff Masterclass During Visit To QE

Published by Queen Ethelburga's King's Magna on Thursday 12th of October 2023

We had the pleasure of welcoming Dr Bo Kelestyn back to our campus. Bo studied A Levels with us over a decade ago and is now an Associate Professor at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. During her visit to QE, she presented to all academic staff and delivered a fantastic follow up workshop on Design Thinking.

Bo’s current work focuses on championing the use of design thinking in Higher Education. She is working on several publications, SX by Design podcast, and the Designing Together project that aims to support colleagues with getting started with using design in HE. She is also working in partnership with Warwick School on the Warwick Design Thinking Award, the first in the UK school design thinking qualification. Bo is currently researching design thinking as a threshold concept, impact of the Warwick Secret Challenge and Challenge X on students' sense of belonging, design thinking and AI, and digital transformation in Ukraine.

The introductory one-hour workshop named “Design Project Zero” was extremely well received by over 150 academic staff in the theatre, where staff experienced different ways of thinking through discussion and appreciated a new framework and paradigm when designing their own resources. In the 1.5-hour session follow up workshop, Bo shared examples to help our staff reflect on their mindset as well as the tools that fit their work best.

Bo brought with her things she received as a student at QE. This included the paper bags labelled “L6” and “U6” with an old QE school crescent on the front. and her leavers’ yearbook. We are very grateful for Bo for all the support she has provided to staff and cannot wait to welcome her back again to collaborate with us on future projects.