Frugal Education

Creative, practical, and sustainable education

In a nutshell, Frugal Education is about harnessing the power of design thinking, leveraging available resources, and embracing sustainability to develop creative, practical, and sustainable education for all.

The concept takes its inspiration from the practice of Frugal Innovation: the art of reducing the complexity and cost of products and services, and their production, to meet the needs of developing countries, conscious consumerism, and sustainability. Building on this foundation, the concept incorporates aspects of design thinking, systems thinking, the circular economy, doughnut economics, and sustainable development, and applies them within an education context.

Design with an
Open Mind

Leverage Available
Resources

Build at the Speed
Of Need

On this site you’ll find a set of guiding principles, each of which has been broken down into three frugal aspects. Whatever you’re looking to create, from in-class activity to learning space; module content to course design; innovation lab to university campus; we recommend you consider each aspect, and their relationship to one another, to help guide you in the creation of great frugal education practice.

Latest Posts

Defining Frugal Education: A Position Paper

Defining Frugal Education: A Position Paper

I'm pleased to share my latest paper on frugal education. This research delves into how frugal innovation practices can revolutionise educational environments by leveraging available resources creatively and sustainably. In the wake of the global pandemic, the...

Sharing is Caring: Showing off your work is a good thing!

Sharing is Caring: Showing off your work is a good thing!

I thought I'd post this book recommendation after a series of interesting conversations at work about how our specific team shares its work online. Through blogs, websites, and social media we've built an engaged community of like-minded educators, creators, and...

Talking Frugal Education on the Pedagodzilla Podcast!

Talking Frugal Education on the Pedagodzilla Podcast!

I recently had the pleasure of meeting the Pedagodzilla podcast boys at this years's GameChangers RemixPlay 5 event and sat down for a chat along with Sylvester Arnab to talk about about frugal education and playful learning. As always, they did a stellar job of...

Remix Play 5: Reflections

Remix Play 5: Reflections

This week we finally got to deliver the GameChangers: Remix Play 5 event, which was sadly cancelled last Autumn due to the passing of the Queen. It was a resounding success and included a host of inspiring talks and playful activities. The theme this time around was...

#Dispatches: Current Projects and Changes Ahead

#Dispatches: Current Projects and Changes Ahead

It’s been a busy few months in the GameChangers team with new research bids in development, ongoing case studies in full swing within the ACES project, and a whole host of other initiatives underway at various stages of development. There isn’t much I can share at...

Recognition of Playful Research Excellence in the REF 2021!

Recognition of Playful Research Excellence in the REF 2021!

We had some wonderful news recently as the GameChangers initiative was included as one of Coventry University's impact cases for the Research Excellence Framework 2021 (REF2021) gaining a 4 star rating for research excellence in the process! (that 4 out of 4 btw 🤩)....

#Dispatches: LEGO Serious Play without the LEGO!

#Dispatches: LEGO Serious Play without the LEGO!

I was speaking to a colleague today who had a question about using Minecraft as a potential alternative to LEGO in a teaching environment. He was looking for something he could deliver virtually as some of the lessons he delivers are now online as a result of the...

A ‘Living’ Model for Frugal Education

A ‘Living’ Model for Frugal Education

An idea that I've been noodling around with for a while now is a model to represent frugal education design. I want something simple that I can share with people to more clearly articulate the idea with fewer words. I'd rather save those words for a paper in the near...

Print Your Own Frugal Education Action Cards!

Print Your Own Frugal Education Action Cards!

After a busy few weeks on your various research projects, I've found the time to complete work on the Frugal Education Action Cards and create a nice landing page for the resource here on the site. You can now download both print-ready PDFs and Adobe Illustrator...

Frugal Education Action Cards: Built at the Speed of Need!

Frugal Education Action Cards: Built at the Speed of Need!

I recently blogged about my work creating a set of Frugal Education cards, designed to support educators in the application of frugal practices, and the cards are now being adopted into in-class activities at Universiti Malaysia, Sarawak (UNIMAS). The Creative Culture...

Prototyping Frugal Education Cards

Prototyping Frugal Education Cards

I've been hard at work noodling away on a collection of frugal education 'action cards' to help others apply frugal practices within their education designs. This idea came off the back of my recent work developing the frugal education aspects. The 'cards' expand upon...

Developing Frugal Aspect Research Instruments

Developing Frugal Aspect Research Instruments

Expanding on recent work developing frugal education aspects, I have also been developing and piloting research instruments for evaluating these frugal aspects within new and existing education designs. The instruments take the form of two surveys. One more...

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