Team 3ST: Evolution Phase Reflection

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!!