This week be brought our DT process full circle by taking ourselves through the very reflective phase of Evolution.  We began by discussing feedback from colleagues via Hangout, and also discussing and documenting what indicators of a successful program and process might look like.  This helped us to get into the mindset of our end users as they moved through our program, so it definitely employed our skills in empathy.  We also reflected on what skills of ours were sharpened and strengthened through our journey through the DT process as a team, which, among many things, included amazing collaboration, communication, and interpretation.  As a team we also reflected on what we thought of the DT process now that we had gone through it, and we all agreed that we enjoyed this rich and in-depth process, while also acknowledging how this process stretched us beyond our usual limits in terms of time spent and effort invested.  Together we looked at all of our feedback collectively, and discussed how this feedback might reshape our initial pitch for our product, and also the product itself.  The feedback was absolutely a vital part of this process, because it continues to color and shape our thinking for this program of ours. We realize that this program has the potential to work in many settings and with many different groups of people with minor tweaks to what is included.  For the purposes of this class we decided on a targeted audience, Vista Unified School District, and documented some things that we would keep in mind as we designed this program to implement specifically for this school district.  Narrowing in on this specific audience allowed us to think about who we would pitch the idea to, how to best pitch it, and what things we want to make sure we highlight as we go into the next iteration of our pitch and when we actually create the curriculum.  All of the things we agreed upon are here on our shared Google document.  These discussions took our team to yet a deeper level of creating within the DT process, especially for employing empathy for our end user.  If it is even possible, this phase of the process brought me more appreciation for the collaborative process and the sense of team work that it brings.  My team members are so great to work with, and it is really nice to know that we can count on each other for support, ideas, and usually a good laugh  :)

My contribution to this phase included meeting via Google Hangout to discuss and document our ideas for further developing our product based on feedback.

Our challenges continued to be the same of time and location, but at this point we are used to it, and have adapted, so it doesn't feel so much like a challenge anymore- just Life  :)  If I were leading students or colleagues through this phase of the process I would follow the same steps we did, but make sure to provide face-to-face time to collaborate.

Effective communication continued to be the most important element of this entire DT process, as it is the only way to elicit and understand ideas from team members in order to design them and bring them to fruition.  The power of synergy is amazing, and we employed so many different methods for communication during this process, that every type of idea was able to be expressed and understood.  This was a truly powerful experience to work through the entire DT process as part of a design team.  I know all members of Team 3ST are moved to actually work together to create this curriculum and program for professional development on stereotyping in education.  We have people asking us to design it now so that it can be implemented in school districts and higher ed.  We want to do this, and I believe we will, but for a little while we are going to take a necessary break while we all focus on finishing our master's program.  Then we can reconvene with fresh eye,s and possibly a little more time on our hands, in which to bring all of these ideas to life.  Thanks Team!!

Wow- our experimentation phase was a long one. Here is the link to our collaborative google Doc which has grown to an impressive length! I was looking at it this morning and it was really neat to see how far we have come in this DT process! To arrive at the experimentation phase felt like an accomplishment. 
What Experimentation Phase Looked Like For 3ST:
We began this week with a Google Hangout in which we collectively brainstormed possibilities for the name of our online, gamified professional development focused on stereotyping in education for teachers.  We had quite a long list, and then a synergistic moment between Jose and Matthew in our verbal conversation led to our name of 3ST: Racial, Cultural, Gender Stereotyping in Education.  Matthew developed several nice logos for the team, and I thought he did a great job.  Here's one:

Then we moved into the design of our actual prototype.  This was done through a mixture of synchronous and asynchronous methods.  We met several times together online to talk about ideas, and we also individually documented our ideas and added resources and examples on our group document.  We were all over the place in our thinking, which was great, and reminded me a bit of our ideation phase because we were finally designing our product, and it felt like a creative process, although our thinking wasn't quite as divergent as during ideation. After we had many ideas and resources for our online platform we began to organize them into the levels of our program and to design the scope and sequence for how educators would learn about stereotyping in education. Finally, after we had a good picture in our minds and on "paper" for what our product would look like, we designed our pitch.  We decided we wanted to create a video that would pitch our online, self-paced, gamified professional development on stereotyping in education for educators.  Our first idea was to create a movie trailer using iMovie, and while that gave us a start with visuals and flow, the limiting time and format of the iMovie trailer template didn't give it an impression that was comprehensive enough for us.  So we went back to the drawing board and turned that trailer into an actual video that is several minutes long and contains narration of what the program will feature.  That was a long process, and Sara and Matthew took the reins on writing the narration for the longer video, with Matthew creating the video that we finally pushed out to colleagues when we were ready for feedback. Once our video was posted (which Matthew generously offered to do) for our peers to review and also sent out to others that we each knew, we waited for feedback. Our feedback was really good! People were most excited about the topic of our program, the online and gamified aspect and using 21st century learning tools, and the levels and badges offered.  They also inquired about several things such as set timelines for program completion, graduate credits offered, a social networking element and methods participants would use to demonstrate their learning, along with 3ST's evaluation process for those demonstrations of learning.  We received feedback that this program would be ideal for school districts, teacher credentialing programs, higher ed, and even the private business sector.  It seems we put our fingers on a strong pulse in the education community.

My contribution to the group this week involved several things.  I participated in all of our Google Hangouts and added many ideas and resources to our document.  I spent a long time researching resource possibilities on the internet so that we could see what was already out there on the topic and acquaint ourselves with possible methods for bringing this needed curriculum to educators.  I also created our first video, which was the iMovie trailer.  When I reached a frustration level with trying to edit the trailer in such a way that met our needs in the short, pre-set time and limited exposure to visuals in each frame of the trailer, I sent a beta version to my group and met with them via hangout that evening to talk about our options and decide on another format. When our video was posted for our peers I periodically checked Blackboard for feedback and responded to our peers' comments and inquiries on the threaded discussion.  I also sent our video to several people who represented all of the various levels of leadership and teaching in education, including my mother, who is a college professor and my school district's superintendent and director of HR. As feedback from those people came in, I added it to our shared document so that the other members of the group could see.

Our biggest challenge during experimentation phase continued to be time, and the need for synchronous collaboration, which usually took place via Hangout, in the later evening hours when our various schedules allowed.  Another challenge that was particular to this phase was that we were creating a video, and that isn't easily done in collaboration from different locations, so individual team members had to create the videos using the pre-generated ideas of the group.  That was tough because it didn't feel collaborative the way that every other part of our process did.

Looking back to reflect on this phase of the DT process, I think we executed it the best we possibly could given our circumstances and resources available to us.  If I were leading students or teachers through this process I would ideally want to provide face-to-face time for group members to collaborate in so that some of those challenges of location and time wouldn't be issues.

Effective communication was probably the most important element in our DT process.  It was only through effectively communicating our ideas and what we each saw in our mind's eyes that we were all able to imagine our end product.  I truly appreciate each member of Team 3ST for their willingness to text, email, or call when an idea arose or frustration ensued. We each employed the tenets of critical thinking to make space for a truly collaborative process that I found to be creatively stimulating and satisfying.

           Team 3ST (Smoothie, Sushi, Spicy, Thai) :)        Week 1: Discovery Phase



When our group got together via Google Hangout and began discussing what we might like to study for our Design Thinking project that will focus on social justice, I remember the topic of stereotyping rising to the surface very quickly.  We all work with young people who deal with stereotyping on a daily basis, whether at school or in the community, and we agreed that we would like to investigate how to help students and teachers with awareness and action around stereotyping.  We brainstormed many questions on a Google Document asynchronously, and ultimately came up with one overall question to guide our research: “How can we better deal with stereotyping in school?”  

We decided that we really have two groups of end users: students and teachers.  That is a bit tricky, as we have only a few weeks in this course, but we knew if we chose this topic, the two go together.  As Dr. Ward pointed out when I interviewed her last week, “We can’t deal with kids, and not adults.” Clearly, if we are educating students about stereotyping, we must also address the stereotyping that comes from the adults who are teaching them.  So, with two groups of end users in mind, we set out to figure out the best ways to obtain information on the topic of stereotyping in education.

Since this is a summer course, most of us are not working with students right now.  Jose is the only one currently teaching, so we created a survey, using Google Forms, which Jose would administer to his students.  We spent a good amount of time during our initial Hangout devising survey questions.  Collaboration and multiple points of view during this process was key, so that we could write questions that would elicit useful and focused data.  I really valued our synergy and teamwork during that process.  We work well together.  We also decided to interview two very gracious experts in the field of stereotyping: Dr. Cheryl Ward and Dr. Delores Lindsey.

As for my contribution to our Discovery Phase, I added information, resources, questions, etc. to our document as we worked asynchronously.  I attended several Hangouts with my team as we worked through this process.  I interviewed Dr. Ward via telephone, and she was wonderful to give me an hour of her time- a rich conversation- and I typed up the results of that interview and added that to our shared document.  I also set up and attended the Hangout interview with Dr. Lindsey (I managed to connect to the Hangout using my phone at a Starbucks- first time for everything!)  All of our gathered information was added to our shared document.

The only challenges for our team were time and location.  We didn’t have long to set up our research plan, interviews, survey administration, etc., so if felt a little crunchy at times.  But everyone we worked with was so great, so we made it happen.  The members of my team are all spread out across the county, and we are all very busy, so trying to “Hangout” was really challenging. There was impressive dedication to the cause though, and with good communication either by phone, email or text, we made it all work.  Team 3ST is a group of ultimate professionals, and it is my pleasure to work with them.

If I were to attempt this process with colleagues at my school site I would probably do it much the same way, except hopefully our timeline would be a bit more spread out.  I probably couldn’t count on my colleagues being so willing to do research outside of their working hours like Team 3ST did, so I would have to work with site administration to work it into our PLC time or something of that nature.  Overall though, I feel that our methods were good and effective.

We discovered a great deal about our end users for this project during this phase.  Learning about this process is enlightening and ultimately, only by going through the process am I able to understand how powerful approaching a problem with a design thinking mindset can be.

Emily Pilloton's Design Process (see videos below this post), as she applies it to the education setting for high school students, is brimming with critical thinking elements.  Critical thinking involves so much deep internal awareness of one's thought process, and a willingness to examine one's thoughts and habits of mind.  Critical thinking also involves a commitment to respect the truth and the ability to dwell in an inquiring mind and proceed from a place of empathy in order to have a balanced understanding of the problem or topic at hand, and to develop questions that address the issues of the many angles and perspectives present in and topic or problem. (Critical Thinking, 2015).  In Emily's Design Process she is teaching students to do this in so many amazing ways.  First of all, the design of the student day where students have three hours every school day to dedicated to truly digging in and doing the work necessary to gather information they need, is wonderful, and so needed in today's schools.  She says that her students spend that time doing "ethnographic research and doing the need finding, coming back into the studio doing the brainstorming and design visualization to come up with concepts that might work, and then moving into the shop and actually testing them, building them, prototyping them.” (Pilloton, 2010). From there students then spend more time practicing and developing their critical thinking skills by spending time analyzing those prototypes to see if the solutions will work.  All of this requires those critical thinking skills and qualities referenced above, especially empathy and an awareness and respect for the truth. Emily's approach differs from the maybe traditional definition of critical thinking because it isn't about just questioning, but it takes students much deeper into the seat and root of the problem at hand in order to research and truly understand the problem a hand; it engages empathy to guide students to that respect for the truth.

Chapter 2 and the Learning to Change video highlight who our students in our classrooms are, and when we look at that along with who our teachers and administrators are, the reality is that there is a great divide.  Our students have changed and evolved over time, and the way we do school hasn't.  In chapter 2 it is reported that "Today's students are using the Internet as their preferred tool for learning outside of school. . ." (Schrum & Levin, 2009).  This fact makes it clear that our digital native students are finding themselves in traditional classrooms that don't serve their needs anymore.  It is vital that teachers and administrators open themselves up to changing their mindsets by adopting critical thinking skills of having an inquiring mind and having a respect for the truth.  The truth is that it is time to school differently.  The truth is, the current traditional school system is failing our students because it really is obsolete and no longer serves our students in a way that is relevant and meaningful to them. How can we help our colleagues and administrators, many of whom are digital immigrants or digital resistors, see that and learn that?  My approach is to lead by example first.  I do what I do and then share it with colleagues.  We need to invite them into our classrooms so they can see that it is ok to release the reins to the students and learn alongside them.  As teachers, we are no longer the keepers of knowledge.  Digital natives don't wait for us to teach them things- when they have an interest in something they want to learn about, they go find a teacher on the Internet.  We have to make ourselves available and vulnerable to our colleagues- sharing out what is possible.  The results always speak for themselves. As one young man stated in the Learning To Change Video regarding the topic of technology,"It teaches people to think in a different way" (Learning To Change, 2011). This young man's statement leads straight back to critical thinking.  We all need to learn to think in a different way because the world is now different than it was 50 years ago.  Heck, the world is different than it was yesterday. We need to be open so that we can keep up.


References:
Schrum, L., & Levin, B. B. (2009). Leading 21st century schools: Harnessing technology for engagement and achievement.Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

YouTube,. (2015). Critical Thinking. Retrieved 16 July 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9IjF6aqy_E


YouTube,. (2015). Emily Pilloton: Teaching design for change. Retrieved 16 July 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=794&v=aiIxdFBA0Sw


YouTube,. (2015). Learning to Change, Changing to Learn: Student Voices. Retrieved 18 July 2015, fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAkWtSxKYaI