On Wednesday, I was part of a facilitation team leading a 3-hour workshop for our whole school's faculty and staff (about 100 people) introducing Design Thinking. It was wildly successful!
If you so desire, you can read our "lesson plan" here: Intro to DT Lesson Plan
You can also find our slide deck here: Intro to DT Deck
Huge, giant, enormous, unending thanks to Mary Cantwell at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School, Jennifer Chan of Exhibit Change, and Ellen Deutscher at d.school for their input and support in developing our plan, and to my colleague and co-conspirator Shaye' Whitmer for co-facilitating with me!
Highlights:
- Our version of Jenn's Oreo exercise to highlight divergent experience was a huge hit, and participants shared some hilariously divergent methods for eating Oreos. Milk was sorely missed!
- We were quite proud of the final "HMW" offered to participants, and one of my brand-new-to-DT co-facilitators did an awesome job explaining our facilitator group first round of Empathize/Define to get to that "HMW"!
From: Let's reconsider and redesign our experience with food... To:
How Might We support keeping energy positive and healthy throughout the school day?
- Groups interviewing each other, sharing stories, and re-defining the problem statement led to a huge wealth of different areas of focus, almost NONE of which had a focus on food at all!
- Brainstorming butcher paper sheets were wild, colorful, and groups really got WAAAY outside the box in their thinking! (There wasn't as much "visual" as we hoped, and more "written words" than expected, but...)
- As soon as we released groups for prototyping, groups dashed to the materials tables to pick up construction items! Paper plates, pipe cleaners, Pringles containers, construction paper, and more!
- Team-to-team sharing after the first round of prototyping was positive, people utilized Greg Bamford's "I like, I wish, What if?" feedback scaffold, and groups actually reformed following that first sharing! Two pairs of groups merged (from 4 groups to 2), and one group split in half (from 1 group to 2).
- (When I was asked for "permission" for these changes to happen, my first instinct was to clench up and wonder whether that was "okay," but we totally rolled with it! Look at me... all flexible-like!)
The Final Products, delivered in one 1 minute elevator speeches!
1.) creating a new position in the school: The Recharge Coach!
2.) creating personal "mood meters" for everyone to self-monitor their energy levels
3.) creating mini-sensory-control chairs, including headphones and scent masks, for breaks
4.) implementing "UnTime" for everyone to pursue their own passions (Howdy, #GeniusHour!)
5.) creating a new committee: EDG@E (Experience Design Group @ Evergreen !)
6.) three different groups designed
7.) relaxation, play, and snack spaces
8.) into our upcoming building project!
9.) every staff and student keeping a "Smile File" to access when feeling down/stressed
10.) re-structuring the school day to include early-start/early-end options and late-start/late-end options.
I'm madly in love with the variety of solutions from huge new spaces to school organizational changes to small implement-it-tomorrow ideas.
I'm still working on typing up everyone's answers to the final reflections questions, especially "What do you NEED to move forward with Design Thinking?" and will add those soon. There are lots of requests for a committee to support teachers in implementing ideas in their classrooms, as well as requests for ways to use design thinking in decision-making processes within the school!
Next Friday (yes, on the third day of school), we'll be presenting Design Thinking to our school Board of Trustees, and will present these outcomes as well as give the Trustees some playful experiences of their own.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
#SXSWedu PanelPicker is live!
Today, Monday, August 19 - The #SXSWedu 2014 PanelPicker is live! There are 711 proposals for sessions highlighting innovative work happening at the intersections of education and technology, workshops playing with new products and techniques in education, and conversations around major problems that need solving in improving educational outcomes for ALL kids!
As an Advisory Board member, I'm going to be working my butt off for the next few weeks, evaluating session proposals to help select the best, most innovative, and most important to furthering positive conversations in education space for the 2014 SXSWedu.
As a SXSWedu participant educator (and 2013 alum), I'm also looking for sessions I personally want to participate in and promoting the bejeezus out of the sessions I hope to help lead! (I know that any individual can only formally speak in one session, so if more than 1 of my current 4 sessions is chosen, I'll be looking for awesome colleagues to take my place on some of them!)
Please visit and up-vote my proposed sessions!
Probing Needs & Prototyping Solutions: DT4EdTech
with Jennifer Chan, Stephanie Cerda, and Adam Taylor
In The Trenches with K12 design thinking
with Trey Boden, Dan Ryder, and Jennifer Chan
Lean In EDU Circles
with Alyssa Gallagher, Kami Thodarson, and Mary Cantwell
Win-Win! Strategies for EdTech/Educator Engagement
with Stephanie Sandifer, Dion Lim, and Jay Goyal
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Also check out these other awesome educators and their sessions, and up-vote them!
Stop.Collaborate&Listen: Teachers&Edtech Team Up by Stephanie Cerda and Ben Stern
Developing a 1:1 Culture in Schools by Martin Moran
Empower Your Students Thru 1:1 ACCESS by Jason Markey
SAMR SLAMR: Maximizing Learning Potential in App by Gabriella Meyers, Julie Garcia, Josh Mika
Innovation+Social Media in the classroom= NOW! by Don Wettrick
Primary Source Research and Narrative Presentation by Julie Wilcott and Richard Perry
Bridging the Digital Divide with BYOD Equity by Michael Mills, Tim Clark, Jessica Herring, and Sandy Kendell
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If you're a classroom teacher and want me to help promote your session as well, let me know and I'll add it!
As an Advisory Board member, I'm going to be working my butt off for the next few weeks, evaluating session proposals to help select the best, most innovative, and most important to furthering positive conversations in education space for the 2014 SXSWedu.
As a SXSWedu participant educator (and 2013 alum), I'm also looking for sessions I personally want to participate in and promoting the bejeezus out of the sessions I hope to help lead! (I know that any individual can only formally speak in one session, so if more than 1 of my current 4 sessions is chosen, I'll be looking for awesome colleagues to take my place on some of them!)
Please visit and up-vote my proposed sessions!
Probing Needs & Prototyping Solutions: DT4EdTech
with Jennifer Chan, Stephanie Cerda, and Adam Taylor
In The Trenches with K12 design thinking
with Trey Boden, Dan Ryder, and Jennifer Chan
Lean In EDU Circles
with Alyssa Gallagher, Kami Thodarson, and Mary Cantwell
Win-Win! Strategies for EdTech/Educator Engagement
with Stephanie Sandifer, Dion Lim, and Jay Goyal
----------------------
Also check out these other awesome educators and their sessions, and up-vote them!
Stop.Collaborate&Listen: Teachers&Edtech Team Up by Stephanie Cerda and Ben Stern
Developing a 1:1 Culture in Schools by Martin Moran
Empower Your Students Thru 1:1 ACCESS by Jason Markey
SAMR SLAMR: Maximizing Learning Potential in App by Gabriella Meyers, Julie Garcia, Josh Mika
Innovation+Social Media in the classroom= NOW! by Don Wettrick
Primary Source Research and Narrative Presentation by Julie Wilcott and Richard Perry
Bridging the Digital Divide with BYOD Equity by Michael Mills, Tim Clark, Jessica Herring, and Sandy Kendell
-----------------------
If you're a classroom teacher and want me to help promote your session as well, let me know and I'll add it!
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Ideation and Brainstorming: #dtk12chat IV
I missed most of tonight's #dtk12chat, being instead stuck in traffic. But the topic was incredibly important to me... How do we support the ideation and brainstorming phases of Design Thinking? In between deeply understanding the problem and testing out some solutions, how do we support students in thinking bravely, creatively, radically, and *big* about every potential idea and element that can lead towards a solution? Reading back through the conversation, here are the bits that jumped out for me...
Biggest take-aways:
Chapters:
- Q1 was "Why ideate?"
- This drew out a question re: difference between ideation and brainstorming.
- Followed by a conversation about setting up the learning environment for safe ideation, risk-taking.
- Q2 was "How do you set the stage for ideation?"
- Q3 was "What challenges do you encounter, and how to you overcome them?"
- This led to a conversation about teachers and admins doing DT together in PD!
- Q4 was "Top tip for getting ideation flowing, thinking beyond simple/obvious?"
- This led to a final brief conversation about "fitting it in" and integrating DT as mindset rather than a "unit"
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Biggest take-aways:
- Ideation is big and risky, and requires a safe environment, including and especially for quieter introverts, but also for "but my first idea is awesome!" loud kids (*ahem*)
- Ideation requires separating your thinking from "And what will the logistics of the final product be?"... instead, just get EVERY little idea out on the table!
Lots of great resource links (highlighted) as well as very concrete ideas shared below!
Chapters:
- Q1 was "Why ideate?"
- This drew out a question re: difference between ideation and brainstorming.
- Followed by a conversation about setting up the learning environment for safe ideation, risk-taking.
- Q2 was "How do you set the stage for ideation?"
- Q3 was "What challenges do you encounter, and how to you overcome them?"
- This led to a conversation about teachers and admins doing DT together in PD!
- Q4 was "Top tip for getting ideation flowing, thinking beyond simple/obvious?"
- This led to a final brief conversation about "fitting it in" and integrating DT as mindset rather than a "unit"
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A1: ideation helps students formulate and connect ideas! #dtk12chat
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A1: to ideate is to start the process - to identify possibility, sequence and causality - it's the 1st of many steps #dtk12chat
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A1: Ideation brings people together and inspires conscious evolution. #dtk12chat
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A1--Ideation allows 4 quantity of ideas & encouraging wild ideas that can bring u to new, innnovative places #dtk12chat
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A1: Ideation uncovers remote possibilities & fosters slow hunches #dtk12chat
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A1: We ideate to promote the fluid creation of possibilities in a risk-free and non-judgemental setting. #dtk12chat@jimtiffinjr Difficult for kids. That suspending judgment and reaching for something beyond what's cool with their peers. #dtk12chat
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A1 ideate to dig deep go beyond the surface find connection & meaning… Also, ideate to grow attachment #dtk12chat
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ideation is way for students to have their voices heard and to apply it to a project where they are vested. #dtk12chat
- A1=Ideation= to download paradigms & push pass them. Our brains like to categorize early. Ideation can/ should be uncomfortable.#DTK12CHAT
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A1= Ideation should democratize sharing rather than favour 'the loud', the confident, the few. #DTk12chat
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
How Might We...?
This evening was the second #dtk12chat, a twitter chat dedicated to discussing the application of design thinking in k-12 educational settings. As I describe in my reflections on the first #dtk12chat, I'm still sort of a design thinking noob, and don't totally "get" it. I'm learning to more deeply understand the process and mindset at the core of design thinking, rather than the steps of DesignThinkingTM.
While last week's chat was about defining terms and establishing common groups, the topic of tonight's chat was how to get *started* in design thinking. I was completely overwhelmed immediately, so this isn't going to even come close to a summary of tweets, but rather a simpler organization of ideas. (The chat started out with rounds of virtual hugs and welcomes, since this group is so enthusiastic about working together to bang on these ideas!)
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(Several tweets summarizing Jim Tiffin's awesome DT/MakerEd combo project with tiny makers!)
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(Everyone leading me through a deeper level of understanding the "empathy" bit... The idea is to get *outside* yourself and probe another person's needs.)
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Of course, "topics for future conversations" came up! Really just the one though... but it's a big'un!
1.) HMW embrace the ambiguity of the DT process? (As well as teach and support that ambiguity for our learning colleagues.)
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If you made it all the way to the end, I'd love for you to let me know... What can I do to make this chunking more useful to others? Going through the process of blogging is useful to *me,* but I can't tell whether it's even parse-able to anyone else. Can you see the conversation chunking? Would it help to have headers or some kind of other organizational structure? (I'm trying to get my school colleagues into twitter, so would like to create a few resources to show them my own learning.)
While last week's chat was about defining terms and establishing common groups, the topic of tonight's chat was how to get *started* in design thinking. I was completely overwhelmed immediately, so this isn't going to even come close to a summary of tweets, but rather a simpler organization of ideas. (The chat started out with rounds of virtual hugs and welcomes, since this group is so enthusiastic about working together to bang on these ideas!)
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Q1: Start with Questions: Where do you start with design thinking? #dtk12chat
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A1: Helpful for me to "jump in" and experience design thinking with others. Hard to understand until you see in action #dtk12chat
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A1 A piece I wrote that describes my process, "Developing the Design Mind" http://davidjakes.me/?p=467 #dtk12chat
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@scitechyEDU A1 movement supports creation of ideas, post-its all over classroom walls helps w/ brainstorming, sets up sharing #dtk12chat
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A1 We start at the elementary level, and emphasize DT at a way of approaching problems. #dtk12chat
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A1) We have a back-to-school intro-to-dt plan, & want to start w tchrs sharing needs, and small groups picking 1 to deeply probe #dtk12chat
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Q1: At this point, Im digging deeper in my framing of questions (thx @jennzia @jscottsanchez) & looking towards more impact #dtk12chat
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A1 This year my plan will be to start day one w/DT allow students to assist with the design of the course. implement Ss ideas #dtk12chat
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A1: Maybe start with building questions that are What if... Why is that.. How might we... Keep a running a log? #dtk12chat
It seems that questions are a BIG piece of starting with design thinking. #dtk12chat
@am_gallagher @scitechyedu Photos of a walking brainstorm I did w/ ELLs @ writing (scroll down). http://workshop99.tumblr.com/ #dtk12chat
@TheRealJamCam I do this with my Digital Media course: HMW design a digital media course for middle schoolers. Whole DEEP process #dtk12chat
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@treyboden my thought HMW create W History class that allows student interest/voice to develop the topics of conversation #dtk12chat
@_Ms_J reminds me of our use of visible thinking routines to get started See Think Wonder 4 example #dtk12chat
@danielscib @scitechyEDU when ideas and generating are visual, it makes it easier to build together and to share ownership #dtk12chat
Q1 Where do you start? Taking a cue from @boadams1 Take a walk have students and yourself do observational journals to Discover #dtk12chat
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@am_gallagher @boadams1 here is a blog post inspited our future nature walk http://itsaboutlearning.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/fsbl-yesand-dtk12-mvpschool/ … #dtk12chat
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(Several tweets summarizing Jim Tiffin's awesome DT/MakerEd combo project with tiny makers!)
@am_gallagher @treyboden ...for instance, the Kindergarteners had to create a throwing game for Nursery students.... #dtk12chat
@am_gallagher @treyboden ...the K's had to imagine what would work best for the N's, not for K's. This was the empathy element. #dtk12chat
@scitechyEDU @am_gallagher @treyboden DT was integrated into #makered project. The K's were making LED throwies for a PE class. #dtk12chat
@scitechyEDU @am_gallagher @treyboden Ks knew the game was for the Ns, so they kept asking themselves ?s from a N point-of-view #dtk12chat
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(Everyone leading me through a deeper level of understanding the "empathy" bit... The idea is to get *outside* yourself and probe another person's needs.)
In DesignThinking, can "client" be yourself? I have X problem, probe myself (maybe w peer help), then to prototyping & iteration? #dtk12chat
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@LindseyOwn For sure! #dtk12chat
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@LindseyOwn I think that seems difficult, but still possible. Having an external perspective is important. #dtk12chat
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@LindseyOwn Absolutely!! We practice the methodology on each other in the office all the time. Eg: I want to eat healthier lunches regularly
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@LindseyOwn I think looking 2wards others who might B having the problem will make it a better setup Outside perspective #dtk12chat
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@am_gallagher @scitechyEDU So kids cld use dt to help design sol'ns to each others' probs? I redesign YOUR at-home homework spot? #dtk12chat
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@LindseyOwn @am_gallagher @scitechyEDU Great idea. Or redesign another grade's classroom :-) #dtk12chat
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@LindseyOwn @am_gallagher #dtk12chat exactly go2 each other & interview learn abt their user, discover a problem and focus needfinding
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Flash Round: Best HMW statements you have used/seen/experienced/hope to use... GO! #dtk12chat
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HMW design environments to facilitate inclusive learning? #dtk12chat
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HMW design the places where learning happens? #dtk12chat@treyboden @WickedDecent here's some eye candy http://beautifullearningspaces.tumblr.com/ #EdDesign @_EdDesign #dtk12chat)
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HMW build more inclusive empathetic communities? from @_Ms_J & HMW design a digital media course? from @treyboden #dtk12chat
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@LindseyOwn HMW… design a living mural that personifies our grade (who we are right now? Or HMW… (who will we become)? #dtk12chat #art
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@treyboden HMW create spaces for high/low energy? HMW create personal spaces, small group spaces, and community spaces? #dtk12chat
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A4 HMW create a learning environment that allows for student interest/voice and covers the necessary curriculum? #dtk12chat
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@chrisandres003 @treyboden HMW design ongoing way throughout the year to share ourselves & establish/maintain strong community? #dtk12chat
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@LindseyOwn @treyboden Yes and serve others #dtk12chat
So start teachers:"HMW solve some snag in tching routine?" Start kids:"HMW org for a great school yr?" then progress from there?
Hard to keep track of different scales of DT... content classes for kids, school level for kids, teachers, community... Range! #dtk12chat
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@LindseyOwn & that's important for folks to know. DT isn't a stdnt thing or an IDEO thing. It's applicable in nearly any setting #dtk12chat
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@Matt_Arguello @WickedDecent @treyboden How about y'all three do a here's-what-dt-looks-like-in-my-classroom session together??? #dtk12chat #sxswedu)
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Of course, "topics for future conversations" came up! Really just the one though... but it's a big'un!
1.) HMW embrace the ambiguity of the DT process? (As well as teach and support that ambiguity for our learning colleagues.)
@am_gallagher @danielscib @scitechyEDU the "messiness" is embracing the complexity & ambiguity, both physically & mentally #dtk12chat
@jennzia @danielscib @scitechyEDU super hard for some to embrace. Could prob have an entire chat on strategies to help #dtk12chat
@am_gallagher @danielscib @scitechyEDU I like as a session for future discussion. HMW we embrace ambiguity of the DT process? #dtk12chat
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If you made it all the way to the end, I'd love for you to let me know... What can I do to make this chunking more useful to others? Going through the process of blogging is useful to *me,* but I can't tell whether it's even parse-able to anyone else. Can you see the conversation chunking? Would it help to have headers or some kind of other organizational structure? (I'm trying to get my school colleagues into twitter, so would like to create a few resources to show them my own learning.)
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