How Design Thinking Helped Students in Rural India Take Control of Their Learning
By Raj Singh Rajawat, Research Fellow
What happens when students shape their own learning paths — without classrooms, textbooks, or exams? In a small village in India, a design-thinking experiment showed us how powerful personalized education can be.
In a small rural village called Pabal, on the outskirts of Pune, India, a quiet transformation is taking place. At a vocational education center run by a local NGO, students who once dropped out of school are now teaching themselves advanced skills — like electrical wiring, video editing, or CAD design — with minimal instruction and no fixed curriculum.
They’re doing it through a new model called Adaptive Project Discovery (APD) — a learning-by-doing framework built on the principles of design thinking. The idea is simple: if students can define their own goals and are given the right tools, can they direct their own education?
Spoiler alert: the answer is yes.
What Is Adaptive Project Discovery?
APD blends several pedagogical ideas into one:
- Design thinking (with empathy, ideation, and iteration)
- Project-based learning
- Personalized and adaptive content
- Minimal facilitation and high autonomy
At the heart of the model is a belief in agency. In our 4-month pilot, 12 students explored different “learning tracks” based on their own interests — ranging from agricultural entrepreneurship to defense training to software development.
Rather than sitting through the same lecture or curriculum, each student followed a personalized path using curated online materials, YouTube tutorials, hands-on project ideas, and Google Classroom resources. The facilitator didn’t teach — they coached.
The Power of Starting With Empathy
We began by listening. In our first week, we conducted casual interviews with students in places where they felt safe, such as workshops, kitchens, and playgrounds. We asked them simple questions:
“What do you want to do after this course?”
“Where did that interest come from?”
Many students came from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. Most had never used a computer before. Their dreams, however, were anything but small. Some wanted to start their own farms. Others wanted to work in software. One wanted to join the armed forces.
This empathy phase revealed something profound: student interest isn’t random — it’s shaped by exposure. Those who had seen someone doing the work, or had been introduced to it through workshops, were more likely to pursue that skill with clarity and motivation.
A Week Without Instructions Changed Everything
In the first week, students were given one instruction:
“This space is only for you to explore your interests.”
They were shown how to open Google Classroom, use a digital library, and access free resources. But from there, they were on their own.
One student, who dreamed of becoming an onion farm entrepreneur, learned to use Excel by creating an invoice, used Google Forms to design a market survey, and crafted a land proposal in Word — without any formal software training.
When asked how he felt after that week, he simply said:
“अब लग रहा है सर, हम जो सोचते हैं वो कर सकते हैं” “Now it feels like we can actually do what we dream, sir.”
What We Learned
Not everyone succeeded — but those who did, thrived.
- Students who had a strong initial interest stuck with it.
- Average daily study time for engaged students quadrupled (from 30 minutes to 2 hours).
- 10 out of 12 students completed a real-world project — like a business plan or CAD model.
- All showed improved digital literacy.
- Many even added their own materials to the digital library.
By the end, these students weren’t just consumers of content — they were designers of their own learning.
What’s Next? Scaling and Equity
This model is now being expanded to a new cohort of 40+ students — including learners with disabilities and limited formal education. The NGO has also redesigned its entire one-year program to include a one-month “exploration phase” at the start — so students can decide what they want to learn, not just how.
For educators and systems struggling with dropout rates, engagement gaps, and curriculum rigidity, this pilot offers a compelling insight:
Students don’t need more content. They need more ownership.
Why This Matters
At a time when the world is rethinking the purpose of education, this case study offers a glimpse of what’s possible when pedagogy is shaped around the learner — not the system.
Design thinking isn’t just for apps and startups. In this village in Maharashtra, it’s helping students reclaim their future — one project at a time.
If you’re an educator, policymaker, or learning designer, we invite you to explore the APD framework. You don’t need high-tech tools — just high-trust environments.
Let’s give students the space to dream, and the support to build.
Raj is a design researcher and education innovator exploring how human-centered methods can reshape learning in under-resourced communities. He recently led a field study using design thinking to enable personalized digital learning for rural youth in Maharashtra, India. His work bridges pedagogy, technology, and social impact to create inclusive, self-driven education models.
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