Tag: Design thinking

Designing for Humans: Thinking Beyond a Checklist for the Enhanced #PYP Planner

Designing for Humans: Thinking Beyond a Checklist for the Enhanced #PYP Planner

This past year we trialed a new PYP planner, and the intentions were good with letting the students’ responses to our provocations direct and lead the unit, but we ended up having a planner that was so complex that it became cumbersome to actually fully complete. It was christened “The Big Book”, which should have clued us in that this was an exercise in paperwork. Clearly, it’s back to the drawing board.

So what are “The Basics” that have to be on the planner? As I see it, there need to be 12 components that are fundamental to the planning document:

  1. Transdisciplinary Theme
  2. Central Idea
  3. Lines of Inquiry
  4. Key Concepts
  5. Learner Profile
  6. Approaches to Learning (ATL)
  7. Questions
  8. Provocations/Engagement Activities
  9. Resources
  10. Assessment
  11. Action
  12. Reflection

As I began to wonder what is the “special sauce” that would move a planning document beyond “the basics” and make this planner “enhanced”, I decided that I needed to go back and listen to the webinar that addressed this aspect of the enhancement.

My big takeaways from the webinar were:

  • The document takes us through a PROCESS of CO-CONSTRUCTING learning.
  • It encourages COLLABORATION with staff.
  • It fosters REFLECTION.
  • It not only documents STUDENT AGENCY but reminds us that this is central to the learning. Teachers need to consider the WHO just as much, perhaps more so than the WHAT.
  • It influences the ROLE OF THE TEACHER and how they inspire ACTION in students to support SELF-MANAGEMENT skills.

While I considered the ideas shared, I was thinking “What would be the purpose of even re-designing the PYP planner?” I mean, they have given us a “refreshed” and updated example that we may use and other schools have already created other templates that could be integrated into our school. Truly, there is no immediate demand that schools HAVE to create their own planner.  But now schools have the liberty to design their own, yet it isn’t a mandate. So, if schools were to embark on creating their own, it would only be for the sole purpose of improving their collaborative planning at their school in an effort to increase student agency.

Agency is about listening.

Sonya terBorg

As I contemplate the benefit of redesigning the PYP planner, I wouldn’t dare create a copy and paste version of the templates shared. Not because they aren’t wonderful, but because they aren’t unique to the needs of my school.–which would be the purpose of even embarking on this journey. I remember thinking that students should learn the way I taught- they should adjust to me. I could not have been more wrong. A great teacher adjust to the learner, not the other way around (7)In my past school’s pilot of the re-designed planner, it was a hard copy only. This worked well for our initial planning session, but on-going additions to the planner weren’t possible unless you were to have the hard-copy in your possession. And because it was a “big book” it took up a lot of space on one’s desk area, which became problematic since we had 6 Units of Inquiry plus 6 stand-alone Math planners. You might imagine the frustration of all those paperwork piles in one’s workspace, which created a disdain for planning since it meant that one teacher had this A3 sized booklet taking up a lot of real estate on their desk. This was an unintended consequence of going “retro” with our planning. I wouldn’t recommend this. So, with this in mind, if the planner isn’t digital, with equal-access available to all teachers, then it’s set up to fail. That’s like putting square wheels on a bike–it is taking us nowhere with collaboration.

With this in mind, I would utilize Design Thinking, focusing on human-centered design principles of really understanding what would be the needs of the users of this planning document. Also, since human-centered design considers the interaction along with the actual “product”, the experience is of vital importance. Here is the overview of the process:

designhc
Designed by Dalberg

Framing the Context: Understanding our Users and Their Problems

Human-Focused Design optimizes for human motivation in a system as opposed to optimizing for pure functional efficiency within the system. -Yu-Kai Chou-

What is the challenge: Let’s be honest, the main reason why teachers don’t appreciate using the PYP planner is that it seems like a time-consuming document that doesn’t seem to support their day-to-day planning of the unit of inquiry.

So how might we design a planner that is collaborative, compelling and ultimately results in better learning outcomes and increased student agency?

Hmm…..

In the first phase of design, Planning, we have to consider the audience for this document. Teachers, right? So, when we consider feasibility, we should ask ourselves what might be the biggest barrier that we will need to overcome in order for this document to work?

I’m rather practical so as a teacher, I would say TIME poses the biggest challenge to collaboration.

Thus, when we create this document we need to think about the amount of time it might take to fill out this document, especially since we might imagine that the initial planning will involve multiple teachers who represent a variety of subject areas. Trying to get all those educators in a room can seem like putting the planets in alignment. So, if we UNDERSTAND these teachers, then we must take into consideration that this document will most likely require at least 40 minutes of time to begin the planning process, with opportunities to plug into the document to give feedback and feedforward into the learning (at least another 30 minutes of individual or grade level teacher time). Lastly, there will need a final block of at least 40 minutes for teachers to get together to reflect on how students responded to this unit of inquiry. So, with that in mind, the document, from start to finish, needs to be completed in 3 planning periods; 2 of which will include multiple voices and perspectives in the room, and at least 1 planning period in which teachers or a grade level team get together to discuss how the unit is progressing and what direction it might need to take. So let’s just say, this collaborative document takes at least 2 1/2 hours to complete, give or take 1/2 hour.

Then, as we peel the layers of the onion, we know that the 2nd biggest challenge will be ensuring that this document is truly collaborative, with the opportunity for multiple voices to be present, particularly our subject area specialists, who often feel marginalized during planning.

Furthermore, this document must create a holistic process of learning about our students, so we can create learning opportunities for our students, in that we can examine what learning came from our students. It has to fuel conversation and inspiration among teachers to develop student-directed inquiries and motivate student-led action. Moreover, it should get teachers discussing how they can access the larger community, whether local or global, to tap into resources that expand the learning outside the 4 walls of the classroom.

Lastly, when teachers engage with this document, I would want them to feel excited and anticipating the best that could happen during this unit of inquiry. I wouldn’t want this to feel like “ticking a box” but instead designing learning that changes lives. (Because, truly, that is what we are doing, every day. How cool is our job, right?!)

Learning Phase: Perspective and Use by Teachers

I know that this planner has to contain the “Basics” but I’d think about the teachers first and not the “boxes” that it needs to tick. Already I’ve made some assumptions, such as identifying some barriers and challenges to using the planner. However, those are inferences and my own biased opinions. I have yet to tap into the perspectives of the teachers directly at my school, which might produce different ideas. I must put on my researcher hat and use some of the methods of Human-Centered Design to get an accurate picture of the challenge and its possible solutions.

empathymapdesignFrom a design point of view, I might start from one of the PYP planner templates shared, observing teachers “in the wild”, using the document during the collaborative planning process.  I would record reactions with the Empathy Map to evaluate their experience with the planner. Since I’m not just considering the physical experience with the document, I need to collate the responses of the emotional experience of the teachers when deciding how to help craft a new one. Remember, I’m not trying to devise a fancy planner, I want the planner to actually get teachers to have rich discussions that connect and extend the learning of students so that students can ultimately become self-motivated and feel a great urgency to take action. I’d need to be a fly on the wall, leaning in to listen and notice how planning is being “enhanced”.

Brainstorming Ideas

First of all, this is not me, alone, on my laptop or with a pad of paper and pen in hand, ready to sketch out ideas. It takes a team to cleave through the data and create mock-ups that will ultimately result in a prototype document. Every one of those template planners on shared on IB’s PYP resource page took a team of dedicated individuals to shape and mold the prototypes that we see today. And I use the word “prototype” very intentionally because no doubt these planners will evolve as those teams reflect on what works and what doesn’t work with its use. Just as our teachers have spent time reflecting and evaluating the “big book” planner that was created at my past school, all schools need to stand back and be critical of their work so that it can be refined and improved upon.

So when brainstorming ideas, it will require a group of diverse and interested educators who will not only ensure it contains “The Basics” of PYP principles but develops our teachers understanding of our student learning and improve collaboration among teachers. That’s a big ask. Needless to say, where we go from here is To Be Continued…….

If any brave and like-minded individuals want to share how their school is approaching this project, I’d be keen to hear more. Please post in the comments below so everyone can benefit from your learning and experimentation. 

#PYP “Sharing the Planet” by Design

#PYP “Sharing the Planet” by Design

I think one of the hardest decisions an educator has to do is to release the curriculum into the hands of the students. On most days, it’s just being in the “teachable moment”, but what if you handed over a whole unit of inquiry. Forget vertical alignment this once. Could you do it?

Last year we had a unit that was an abomination that I wrote about in Post Mortem Reflection: Autopsy of a Failed PYP Unit (Sharing the Planet). Needless to say, we WEREN’T teaching that unit again but then what would we teach?

In our new approach to planning, we usually properly launch a unit with doing provocations and THEN determine the learning outcomes. But I felt like we were trying too hard to interpret what the students were really interested in and assess their previous knowledge to determine the direction of the unit. Upon reflection, I felt it’d be better just asking them so we waste less time. I prefer to “pre-pack” a unit of inquiry rather than “unpack” it, so we took a Design Thinking approach to co-creating this unit with students.

design thinking.jpeg

With that in mind, we had to understand what the student’s prior knowledge might be. We felt a simple class discussion in which they could do a “turn and talk” then share their thoughts and feelings about what it means to “Share the Planet” would be perfect. Funny enough, they touched on every dimension of the transdisciplinary theme, which just seems like a testament of the genius behind the framework. Here are some note that captured some of their ideas:

IMG_8322.jpg

After reflecting on the ideas they shared, we summarized them into 5 main areas which touched upon the descriptions of the theme and highlighted the main concepts. We thought we’d have them rank them as their “learning priorities”. We spent some time describing the concepts and then gave them an opportunity to consider which ideas they felt most intrigued by. (The link to this doc is here.)

Screen Shot 2018-12-13 at 6.15.08 AM

While they were cutting and pasting their priorities, we went around and asked them to tell us a bit about how they were ranking them to gauge how much prior knowledge they might have of the concepts. The main concepts were:

  1. Sharing with living things
  2. Pollution
  3. Resources
  4. Earth Cycles
  5. Poverty

My favorite part of this exercise was actually when the students came back into the “big group” and talked amongst themselves about why they ranked the concepts in the order they did. Their conversations were gorgeous to listen to, and we found out if there were misconceptions or ideas that we need to clarify. Great data!!

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After that, we surveyed the class about their learning priorities to find out how we might craft central ideas to suit their interests. The students “took a stand” for what their first learning priority, and then we had them repeat the exercise for their second learning priority. We then added those up to get a total vote count. This helped us to define what the unit was going to be about: Sharing the planet with living things and Pollution were nearly tied.IMG_8335

Afterward, our team met and debated the concepts from this survey. We found it really hard to resist the urge to override the majority because we felt that “poverty” would be an interesting concept to delve into since most of our students have such limited appreciation for their high quality of life. Also, lower grades rarely touch upon this aspect of the transdisciplinary theme, and we were compelled by the challenge, especially since it would have a strong transdisciplinary math link with using money as the fodder for addition and subtraction. However, at the end of the day, we all agreed that if we were to honor the voice and choice of the students, we had to put aside our desires, but would see how we might add this concept to other units this year.

Once we were in alignment with that, we started to pour over our notes and curriculum documents to evaluate what they already have learned, examining our school Programme of Inquiry and ManagBac to get a bigger picture of where we might take the learning. We began to ideate, brainstorming some central ideas, and agreed on 3 potential central ideas. To be honest, we spent so much time looking at the data, we didn’t have much time to wordsmith anything unique so we modified a few that we found on other school’s POIs. If we had more time, however, we would have had the students help us write them in more to suit them specifically and in kid-friendly language. These were the central ideas that made it to the final round of debate and voting by the students:

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We discussed each central idea with the whole group then pinned them up around the classroom. Students took a moment to talk amongst themselves about what those central ideas meant to them and why they thought they would be interesting to learn about. IMG_8337After some time to discuss, we asked them to “take a stand” again, and migrate over to the corners where the central ideas were posted.  The vote counts were extremely tight, and we ended up having a near tie, which provided a great opportunity for students to debate and deliberate their choices. We asked one of the groups to re-choose and so the “leading” central ideas had to persuade those individuals to choose their central idea. It was fun to hear their interpretation of the central idea and their reasons why they thought that central idea would be the best one for our learning. At the end of this exercise, we came back as a teaching team to refine the central idea and create lines of inquiry that balanced student interests and the objectives of the TD theme:

Central Idea: Living things are affected by and often adapt to the natural world.

Lines of inquiry

  • Adaptations to weather (change)
  • Habitat loss (connection)
  • The impact of pollution on living things (causation)

Following the flow of a Design Thinking approach, we are in the prototype stage, and when we come back from holiday break, we will test this unit with our thoughtful provocations. It’s hard to describe the level of excitement for this unit by the students, and by us, the teachers. Emphasizing their voice and providing them with ample opportunities for choice grows their agency and engagement.

I hope you consider how you might apply a Design approach to co-constructing units with your students, no matter the age. I don’t know why we wait until the “Exhibition Year” group to have them write their own units. That puts tremendous pressure on those year group teachers. I understand that we didn’t have them write lines of inquiry, but we could certainly do that in our next unit since we already have a template of this experience to build upon. Perhaps this has sparked some thinking around this, and if you have alternate ideas, I would LOVE to hear them.

 

#Change in Education- Leadership through Design: How Schools can Rethink and Reimagine Themselves

#Change in Education- Leadership through Design: How Schools can Rethink and Reimagine Themselves

Four years ago I made a study of Design Thinking, taking courses, reading books and trying to figure out how I could bring it to our youngest learners. (Psst…I think it’s the Secret Ingredient to Student Agency.) My passion for it has not stopped. Beyond projects and products, however, I think schools could use this thinking approach, not just in our classrooms, but in every area of our school. Why? I think often schools make hasty decisions before really taking the time to really brainstorm possibilities and thoughtfully enact change. With a design-led approach, you can improve and amplify collaboration and innovation in schools through human-centered research, starting with empathy, considering the needs of the user or the audience of your “product”. It’s not about YOU–it’s about THEM!! I love that! It’s really the whole point of education–serving the needs of others.

Here is an overview from the d.school in which you can see how design thinking is a major departure from how school leadership might undertake challenges.

design slide

Currently, our “MakerSpace Man”, Al Gooding is utilizing this approach with a redesign of our primary playground. He is collaborating with Grade 5 and Grade 9 students to create a more interactive and engaging playground with our students. Although this project is underway, you can see how the primary students are “testing” out the materials, which included bricks, bamboo, tires, and rope. For a week, they collected data of how others used the equipment and what challenges there were to this sort of play.

As you can see in the video, there’s been immense enjoyment and creativity. It’s gorgeous to see how play has been transformed through this project. Now those Grade 5 and Grade 9 students are going back to the “drawing board” to reflect and continue to research ideas before unveiling a reworked design of what our playground could be like.

So if Design Thinking can be applied to our learning spaces, what else can it be applied to?

Hmm…..

I’ve been thinking a lot about report cards lately. It’s a topic that is near and dear to my heart, especially if you read my blog post on #ChangeInEducation: Setting a Match to the Report Card? A Couple of Questions on #Assessment in the #PYP. Naturally, I feel it’s worthwhile to take the time to analyze this entrenched assessment and reporting structure. So how might we approach a redesign of this?

  1. Define: Who is the report card for? Is its primary user students? parents? other schools?
  2. Empathy: Survey members of the community, such as students and parents FIRST. If they are the intended audience of this important document that provides feedback and articulation of a child’s intellectual and emotional growth, then we need to know their thoughts on it. What do they like and dislike about our report card? What do they wish it had on there? What do they wish we could eliminate?
  3. Brainstorm: Have staff get together and examine some of the information gathered. This can be a group of volunteers or this can be whole staff endeavor. We need a diverse group of thinkers and perspectives in the room so we could start playing What If?  This stage takes time–it’s not a 15-minute exercise. Creativity and divergent thinking require research and a touch of silliness so we can break out of the box of convention. We also need to consider how we create “teams of thinkers” so we can have groups that come up with a variety of strategies. We may even want to have students involved in this brainstorm–it’s about them, right?–they might offer some really great insights and ideas so we should value their voice.
  4. Iteration: We create mock-ups of what a re-imagined “report card” looks like. (I know in my mind right now, I’d create a more visual report card with infographics or some other visual design that would communicate better than a bunch of educational gibberish that is often put into reports.)
  5. Design Sprint: Share our best prototypes with our parents and students. What response do they have to them? What questions do they have? What needs are still not being met? (Can we meet those needs?). Then we go back to the drawing board, armed with their ideas for our staff to reflect upon to create a prototype.
  6. Unveil the Prototype (Test): Staff uses the new “report card” to communicate the learning. Teachers meet with parents to discuss the report to ensure they understand the information about their child’s learning. Students need to express their opinions as well. Do they think the report card summarizes their growth and learning well? Why or why not?
  7. Feedback and Moving Forward: We analyze various factors within the reporting process, such as how much time it took to “manufacture” the report, how well did the parents understand the report and how meaningful was the feedback system? What other challenges do we need to address? Do we still need to iterations to this or shall we continue with our re-designed report card?

Did you notice?

When we think about the “Enhanced PYP”, a design-led approach naturally cultivates formal and informal leadership within a learning community. There are voice, choice, and ownership on every level–admin, staff, students, and parents (perhaps even others outside our community). I believe that as we move forward in our quest to put “principles into practice”, we prioritize creating new ways in which we deepen our relationships within our schools and create a culture of inclusion.

I hope through these two examples of our playground and the report card, you might begin to see how design thinking can be transformative in leading change and innovation in your school.

 

#PYP “Pre-packing” vs. “Unpacking” the Central Idea: Design Thinking Based Approach to Writing Units of Inquiry.

#PYP “Pre-packing” vs. “Unpacking” the Central Idea: Design Thinking Based Approach to Writing Units of Inquiry.

Anyone who teaches the Primary Years Program knows preciously what I mean by the word unpack. But just for clarity sake, let me explain:

Unpack (verb): to explain and define the key conceptual understandings and “big words” used in a central idea and lines of inquiry, usually as a part of “tuning into” a new unit of inquiry.

Depending on the unit of inquiry, teachers can choose to go a more traditional path to explain the big words or they can create provocations that awaken the meanings. I suppose it depends on how much weight you want to give to these keywords or how long you want to dwell on them. Each unit is sort of unique in that way.

In an earlier post (#PYP The Sound and Light of Using Design Thinking To Write a Unit of Inquiry), I explained the experiment and struggle of using design thinking to construct a unit of inquiry. This past week, we presented two different “prototypes” of a central idea for a How The World Works unit that we are creating for our Grade 1 students. Here are the prototypes:

Version 1.1: Understanding energy can lead to discoveries and help us predict its behavior.

Version 1.2 Exploring light and sound can lead to discoveries and open up new possibilities.

When we presented these central ideas, we discussed them one by one and asked them what words they connected to and what did it make them think about. This was a very revealing exercise! The first reaction to the central ideas:

“Wow, that is long and hard sounding”

Second of all, only a handful of our 34 kids had much to say about the scientific concepts in either central idea, showing a deep need to develop real content knowledge.  Third of all, our English language learners preferred “light and sound” over “energy”, which was something that we needed to put a high emphasis on since we have a large group of them. Last insight was that they made the connection with the words exploring and discoveries to “finding out”, which then evolved into the idea of a “science experiment lab”–these words got an uproar of excitement in the group. They began seeing themselves as scientists, creating all sorts of investigations.

At that point, we voted on whether we would explore “energy” in general or if they wanted to just focus on “light and sound”.  The latter was the most popular with both our ELLs and our girls (which made me go, “hmmm….”) in high numbers for the vote.

So then I tried to capture the ideas that the students resonated with, while still honoring the nature of this transdisciplinary theme, and wordsmithed some new ones. Our grade level team discussed and debated them, which is an important aspect of using design thinking.

Central Idea, Version 1.3: Experimenting with light and sound can lead to discoveries and innovation.  

Team comment summary:

” I think it’s 1 dimensional, with the word experiment in it because there are many ways to explore light and sound that isn’t through experiments. “; 

“This sounds like an upper-grade unit because they can do more research into the innovation part”;

“Yeah, we’d have to unpack the word innovation and they don’t have much context for that concept yet”. 

Central Idea, Version 1.4: How living things hear sounds and see light impacts their experience of their world.

Team comments summary:

“Kids this age love animals, so I think they would really enjoy the learning.”; 

“Yeah, this is very Grade 1 friendly and we need to develop the concept of living vs. non-living”;

“Oh, and we could discuss sonar with underwater animals and how bats use echolocation. They’d love that!”;

“Would this have any scientific thinking and process skills though? They really wanted to do experiments and I think we’d lose the ‘science lab’ aspect if we made this the central idea. I mean, we could do experiments showing how living things experience light and sound differently but then it would just be proving scientific facts vs. exploring with our own original ones. In our original UOI, it was all about scientific thinking so maybe it covers a different TD indicator and this one definitely feels like an inquiry into the natural laws. But maybe we could write this into a line of inquiry”.

Central Idea, Version 1.4: Human understanding of sound and light can transform their experience.

Team comments summary: 

” This invites more inquiry-how many ways do humans experience light and sight?” 

“Yeah, when I think about this, I think about how humans first harnessed fire and this sort of discovery led to so many more advancements, as people tried to turn night into day.”

“Oh, totally– this has more of a transdisciplinary approach because we not only have the science bit with natural vs. artificial light but then you have social impact of candlelight to electricity.” 

“But if we only focus on humans, then this unit might not be as interesting as the one with animals. The concepts within electrical energy would be better for older kids. Our 1st graders would appreciate more the context of how animals and plants have senses that detect light and sound in different ways.”

” Good point-How about we just drop the word ‘human’ so we can keep it open for other living things and see where this unit takes us?”

Nods in agreement……..

So here is the new prototype that we are going with for our UOI:

Central Idea (v. 1.5): Understanding sound and light can transform experience.   

Lines of inquiry        

  • How living things hear sound and see light (perspective)      
  • Transformation of energy (change)
  • Ways we use the scientific process (reflection)

       Related Concepts:  Energy, Impact, and Transformation

Attitude: Enthusiasm, Creativity, Curiosity                              LP: Reflective, Thinker, Inquirer

Although this process may have taken longer than we would have liked, it was important to reflect on the needs of our students as well as appreciating what fascinates them and promotes curiosity. When I think about how the PYP has been reviewed, I think this exercise in Design Thinking honors the new emphasis on Learner Agency. In the new IB documentation, it states:

Your understanding of the learner is the foundation of all learning and teaching and will influence how you support student agency, and how the learning community considers children’s rights, responsibilities and identities.

Agency is present when students partner with teachers and members of the learning community to take charge of what, where, why, with whom and when they learn. This provides opportunities to demonstrate and reflect on knowledge, approaches to learning and attributes of the learner profile.

The Learner in the Enhanced PYP

Even though I think this is our first iteration at developing learner agency through “pre-packing” the Central Idea with student thoughts and viewpoints, I still believe that we have honored the core of the PYP programme and moreover have really carefully considered our learners over pulling units of inquiry out of the archives to see which one might “fit”. For our team, we have a higher level of excitement going into this unit (and maybe a little trepidation), knowing that we can’t wait to surprise and inspire them with the provocations and challenges that this Central Idea will bring.

How does your team approach honoring student voice and choice? Have you ever “pre-packed” a unit of inquiry (other than Exhibition or PYPX)?

#PYP The Sound and Light of Using Design Thinking To Write a Unit of Inquiry

#PYP The Sound and Light of Using Design Thinking To Write a Unit of Inquiry

I’ve opened a can of worms. After our last Sharing the Planet unit, I felt exasperated and wanted to shift some units around so we could develop more conceptual understandings in science. We have 3 units left since it’s the end of the term, so the choices were: Where We Are in Place and Time, How We Express Ourselves, and How The World Works. We thought that How The World Works would be the best fit for meeting those goals. The Central Idea was: Thinking scientifically helps us to make sense of the world. A lively debate ensued between my co-teaching partner and I–is this the unit that students need?? What other options might we have? So we decided to dig up “old units” to evaluate what was “best fit” for our students–the old vs. the “new” UOI. This didn’t feel very satisfying either. We had to write a new unit.

 

ben franklinSince we had a planning retreat we started wordsmithing some new central ideas so we could “get down to business” when our team is all together but then I experienced a perfect storm of inspiration after reading “Agency” and the UOI and Being a PYP Teacher: Collaborate with Your Students.These perspectives got me thinking that I really need to ignite student interest by tuning into what scientific concepts fascinate them and putting them at the forefront of our planning of this upcoming unit.   I find that design thinking is a creative and effective way to problem solve, so I thought I would take the opportunity to apply this process to crafting a Central Idea because student interest would take center stage naturally.

So even before we had our planning retreat, I created a poll using Plickers to have students express what their level of curiosity around 5 scientific concepts that would be new to students and are developmentally appropriate:

  1. The purpose of physical structures of animals and plants (adaption).
  2. The properties of materials and states of matter.
  3. Growth and care of living things.
  4. Natural Cycles of the Earth and Weather.
  5. Light and Sound Energy.

We discussed what each one of these “big ideas” might entail as we explored it during a unit of inquiry. Students made comments and asked questions about what sort of things we’d be learning about. After the poll, the students had to put these concepts into a list of learning priorities that I represented visually, just to make sure I captured their interests accurately.

 

learning priorities
The English language learner-friendly rating system

 

design slideI was very surprised that light and sound came in first place with 12 students indicating it as their first choice, with materials and matter coming in 2nd with 8 students picking it as their main interest.  Armed with these results, I felt confident enough that this basic knowledge of our 1st graders was enough to begin using Design Thinking to draft a unit. Although there are different approaches to Design Thinking, I decided to go with the d.school’s model.

Empathize: We began with thinking about how we perceive our students and discussing what we know about them as learners.  I shared the survey results and we considered how this unit could develop scientific thinking and experimentation.

Define: Then we began discussing the challenge of writing a transdisciplinary unit around light and sound that complemented a nearly equal student interest in materials and matter. This landed conversation us smack dab

Ideation: There are different ways to ideate but I chose to explore ‘prototyping’ as our framework for creating a unit of inquiry. We worked on our own and then collectively to come up with a “prototype” of what this unit could inquire into. Because we hadn’t designated a transdisciplinary theme indicator (ie: the natural world and its laws; the interaction between the natural world (physical and biological) and human societies; how humans use their understanding of scientific principles; the impact of scientific and technological advances on society and on the environment.), this broadened our swath of possibility.

“Ideation is the mode of the design process in which you concentrate on idea generation. Mentally it represents a process of “going wide” in terms of concepts and outcomes. Ideation provides both the fuel and also the source material for building prototypes and getting innovative solutions into the hands of your users.”
– d.school, An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE

As we explored related concepts in various domains, we collated what could be “driving” transdisciplinary ideas in a How the World Works unit in order to “build” a central idea around. What emerged from the ideation process was the conceptual understandings of :

  1. transformation
  2. energy
  3. data
  4. communication
  5. process
  6. classification
  7. movement
  8. diversity
  9. discovery
  10. behavior
  11. properties

Prototype: After deliberating and scribbling out all the perspectives that could make this a powerful learning experience, we settled on the central idea:

Understanding energy helps us predict behavior and can lead to new discoveries. 

  • Types of energy (Form)
  • Transformation of energy (Change)
  • Ways of knowing (Reflection)

Energy=science (light and sound)

Predict= math/science skills

Behavior=PSPE (personal social and physical education)

Discovery=Social Studies

We started digging into the curriculum documents, thinking that we had “nailed it”. But one of our team members sort of sat there blankly as we started choosing the conceptual understandings and learning outcomes. Our PYP coordinator said, “now aren’t you excited to teach this?” And she clearly articulated that she had no idea what this unit was about, which stung a bit because we had sat there discussing ideas for so long. Then she added that the “kids wanted to learn about sound and light and do experiments and we’ve written a unit about energy”.  We’d spent an hour on writing this so there was justification–“light and sound are forms of energy” in which she retorted, “But if I am a teacher who hadn’t been involved in this planning, I would have no idea how I might approach this.” She was right. She was right on both accounts. We had designed a prototype which hadn’t met the needs of the “users”–the students AND the teachers.  She echoed a feeling I’ve written about before in Central Ideas: The Good, The Bad and The Messy. How the Primary Years Program Can Rethink and Define Them. We’d been too clever, too adult and created something close to gobbly gook. We needed to go back to developing a central idea based on honoring the students’ curiosities.

After our meeting, we homeroom teachers continued this discussion and spent an hour debating if “sound and light” were topics vs. concepts. (Good lord, you know you’re a PYP teacher when you care so much about nuances.), examining curriculum documents.  We created a refined version that would require less “unpacking”:

Exploring how light and sound works can lead to discoveries and open up new possibilities.

  • Light and sound as forms of energy (form)
  • Transformation of energy (change)
  • The use scientific thinking in everyday life. (reflection)

Because I have never considered so thoughtfully the interests of our students, it is hard to say if this central idea meets the prototype criteria from d.school’s Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE:

  • the most likely to delight
  • the rational choice
  • the most unexpected

Nevertheless, I am going to push these versions of the UOI through to the students and move onto the next step of the process.

Test: On Monday, we will present both prototypes of the unit to the students and observe their reactions and collect their responses. Hopefully, this will provide greater clarity of how this unit could be shaped. I reckon that we will continue to refine this unit and engage in more pedagogical conversations.


So, this is what might be considered “first thinking” when it comes to “designing” a unit vs. “writing” a unit of inquiry. I feel very grateful to be a school that allows us to challenge how we approach our curriculum. Sometimes people in leadership can be more focused on efficiency vs. innovation in planning and implementation of our curriculum, desiring to tick off boxes rather than dig deep into what and, more importantly, WHO we teach.

“To create meaningful innovations, you need to know your users and care about their lives.” , d.school’s Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE

There is an award-winning designer, Onur Cobanli, who says that “great design comes from interaction, conflict, argument, competition, and debate”.  As a team, we are definitely in the throes of some of this. But I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions or comments that might help enhance our approach.

A Journey into Design Thinking to Tackle Classroom Challenges

A Journey into Design Thinking to Tackle Classroom Challenges

Design thinking isn’t a subject, topic or class. It’s more of a way of solving problems that encourage positive risk-taking and creativity.

-From LAUNCH by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani-

I am not proud to say this but I am really struggling with our school’s initiative to tear down classroom walls and combine classes to increase collaboration. I’m usually keen to try out new ideas but it’s made me question so many things about what is trending in education and has really made me “sharpen my stone” when it comes to classroom management.  But here’s the thing, I don’t want to ‘manage’ the students, I want to empower them. So I wonder what I am missing –how can I use this structure and type of learning to fulfill the needs of our 21st-century learners? How will this better prepare them for their future?  George Curous says “Change is an opportunity to do something amazing“. So I’ve taken on my innovator’s mindset and have begun to apply design-thinking to build a better functioning learning environment.

In Design Thinking, initially, you seek to understand your “audience” or the “user” and define the problems that they may have.  Currently, we have two perspectives to consider: our students and our team of teachers. Collectively we are a community of learners, but it’s important to put the needs of the children first–they are the reason why we are here anyway, right?!  But as teachers, we are the facilitators of this change, so I think our focus will ultimately be on the big WE, and cannot carve ourselves out of the equation when developing a flourishing community of learning.

user experience.jpg
The journey begins! What does our community of learners need? Why? How does it make them feel?!

Because this is the research and discovery phase, I am really digging into books and articles to find ways to make this work–not that we survive but to thrive in such an environment, and turn this challenge into an opportunity.

So I’ve begun to approach our situation through the lens of curiosity and ask questions about the challenges that are most immediate and pressing. As teachers, we have three main areas of concern: time for learning, the organization of the learning space, and conducting effective and engaging classroom discussion (in the large group and in small groups with our noisy space). Here is a list of just some of the questions I have begun to formulate about our collaborating Grade 1 classes:

  1. How can we structure our timetable to ensure that we have enough stand-alone literacy, maths and then transdisciplinary unit time?
  2. Of those transdisciplinary subject areas, how best do we need to develop the knowledge and skills in that areas?-in the “large group” (both classes combined) or in “split groups” (separated grade 1 classes) or through a carousel of activities.
  3. How do individual voices get heard in all the “noise”? What tools and strategies do we need to employ to make sure that there is a diversity of ideas being shared, especially our English Language Learners?
  4. How can we use our space to design areas, not just for literacy and maths, but for genuine collaboration, creativity, and quiet?
  5. What gets the kids not just “doing stuff” but actually thinking and reflecting?
  6. And how do we develop strong relationships with our students, knowing about who they are and how they learn best? What feedback systems can we create to help them go from learning passively to actively engaging and ultimately being empowered?

Although I know that we have already begun a rough “prototype” with how we tackle these challenge areas, I recognize that we need more time to understand our learners, our constraints and what the research says about developing more collaborative learning environments, which some have dubbed as Modern Learning Environments (MLE). 

desing evolved
From the wonderful website: http://corbercreative.com/the-ux-process/

So as I layer the designer mindset to frame our challenges, I recognize that we will need to actually get more data. If I am to rewind and start again, then our discovery phase requires a deeper analysis into the complexities of our learners and the needs of our community. Other than our co-planning meetings and daily reflections, I have 2 other ideas for mining some data:

  1. Student survey: we need to find other ways to include their student ideas so they are co-designers of our learning community. In the book, The Space: A Guide for Educators  , the authors encourage including student voice to create a purpose for the learning spaces and cultivate behaviors that support their emotional and mental growth. I am thinking of using the formative assessment app Plickers for a general climate survey and then work on interviewing students either individually or in small groups to get their feedback and input on how we can improve the learning.
  2. Fly on the Wall-I would like to ask some staff members, including administrators, to just pop in and make objective observations. I am thinking about making a questionnaire as a framework for their drop-ins, but I’m also really curious about them just capturing some conversations that they hear–what is the “talk” in the classroom?

As I begin to dive into our data, I will be sure to share some of the results. Truthfully, I’ve always thought about design thinking as something that you introduce when doing project-based learning and never thought to use it in this context, so I’m exploring new territory.  I am really keen to hear other people’s stories and ideas about how I can go deeper. What am I missing? What suggestions do you have?

The 14 Gifts of Design Thinking

The 14 Gifts of Design Thinking

Last month I finished up the MITX Design Thinking for Leading and Learning course, and I’m still assimilating the profundity of these ideas and the impact they can have in classrooms. It’s actually really hard for me to articulate since I’m in the midst of a paradigm shift as ideas are colliding between developing empathy, creativity, and critical thinking in students. It’s been a “perfect storm” in my mind and I’m still trying to erase my former notions about design as a cycle instead of it as a creative process–which was probably my key take away. When I learned about how schools of poverty and underachievement are transformed by using it, I was impressed, to say mildly.  And I have been chewing on how this is possible when it occurred to me that it wasn’t all the great knowledge that was gained, it was the mindset that was cultivated. In particular, it made me think about the work of Brene Brown and her research on shame and vulnerability.

The REVOLUTION will not be televised. It will be in your classroom! You are working on the hardest edges of love.

Do not ever question the power you have with the people you teach!

Learning is inherently vulnerable and it’s like you got a classroom full of turtles without shells.  The minute they put their shells back on, they are protected–from their peers, from their teachers, from whoever–no learning can come in…so we really have to develop ‘shame resilent’ classrooms.

-Brene Brown, author of Daring Greatly

I agree with Brene Brown about developing “shame resilience” and have found the usual tug of war between with teaching and mistake making diminishes when we introduce students to a mindset in which they appreciate the importance of recognizing our errors and strive for constant improvement. When I think about design thinking, I believe it could beinnovation a powerful way for students to experience their vulnerability and develop perspective taking, all the while creating real cool stuff–whether it is a piece of writing, a t-shirt, a rollercoaster, an app or, in my Early Year’s classroom, a garden. They learn how to fail forward and create another prototype. This design sprint is not a destructive but constructive element because, although they spent a lot of time developing their idea, the focus shifts from the product itself to the user–who will reap the benefits of this redesign. It gets the kids to detach from what they are making to who they are making it for. This nuance has a relatively big impact on the process of improvement.

So, it’s been in the midst of implementing it at a deeper level, that I had a moment of clarity in which I connected Brown’s ideas to that of design-thinking. Design-based learning creates a space in your classroom in which different “gifts” from the students’ learning can emerge:

  1. Love Of Ideas
  2. Belonging (in their collaborative groups)
  3. The Joy of creating something and learning new ideas.
  4. Courage to try new things
  5. Problem-finding by thinking future forward and considering what the possible issues might be with their design.
  6. Innovation by using different strategies and materials to solve a challenge.
  7. Ethical decision making by considering the different perspectives and considering if their solutions will be harmful to the environment or hurtful to others.
  8. Trust in each other and themselves
  9. Empathy for the users.
  10. Accountability to finish the job
  11. Flexibility with our time table and dealing with challenges.
  12. Creativity in designing.
  13. Listening to Feedback from others
  14. Hard conversations with each other

As my class is still in the midst of this design-based unit, I continue to be fascinated by their growth as the process reveals another level of their thinking and feeling about issues and ideas related to our current unit. I’m enjoying observing this process and love how it fits so well with the inquiry-based learning model of the Primary Years Programme (PYP). I definitely look forward to implementing this approach in future.

I’m wondering if others who have more experience with design thinking would agree with the “gifts” and/or add different ones to the list. Please share. I’m genuinely interested in your perspective.

3 Things Teachers Have to Know About Using Design Thinking In The Classroom

3 Things Teachers Have to Know About Using Design Thinking In The Classroom

Design in all around us. From our coffee mugs to our shoes to tissue paper, those things were all once thoughts inside someone’s head whose ideas escaped the confines of their brains and were put into form. Most importantly, those ideas were meant to solve a problem, either a physical problem or a problem related to a system, like as in transportation. For example,  in this Ted Talk with Elon Musk, he surprises you with his antidote to car congestion for commuters in Los Angeles. I thought it was going to be flying cars (Musk is the owner of Tesla, an electric car manufacturer) but it was creating tunnels that essentially launch you to your destination.

This is merely one of many examples of how someone can approach everyday challenges with a creative solution to them. This, in essence, is what design is and I believe it should be an integral part of how we approach our curriculum.The power of design thinking is the perspective in which we seek these creative solutions. It is a way of unlocking our imagination in an effort to produce viable options to things that trouble individuals.

So what makes up the components of design? What is design thinking in a nutshell?

  1. It is a process

I’ve seen all sorts of versions of design cycles, and I think teachers and schools have to think about how they are gong to use it in the learning, while not getting caught up with the language. The point is that it is a process that students can walk through easily when looking at examining an issue or challenge.

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For example, in my current Sharing the Planet unit (Central idea: We grow and use plants in many ways), students are going to design gardens that address the needs of a user–butterflies/bees or humans –so I am not going to use the MYP Design Cycle with them. They are 3-5 years olds after all!

2. It is a way of learning.

It is a way of inquiring and researching a topic that connects so many subject areas. As an PYP educator, it definitely is transdisciplanary, because one never knows when one discipline ends and the next begins, with Math, Science, Language, Art all happening simultaneously. But I what I love most about design-based learning is that it helps students to redefine what is failure so that they can appreciate that failing often leads to sooner success–taking the lessons of those failures and applying them is the learning!

3. It focuses on a user in mind.

They say art is creating something that satisfies the need of the artist, while design is creating something to satisfy the needs of others. Big challenges and their simple solutions often go through cycles of iteration as they look through the eyes of the user. This requires empathy and it is a skill that is really critical today as we start to consider the perspective and needs of others.

chairs
Image from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

I think this is the biggest distinction between project-based learning (PBL), and the hallmark of creating something that matters to someone. You really have to dig deep into understanding the nuances of each user, which is obvious in the examples above, right? In my current unit, I outlined the process in this design thinking post and I’ve had to shift from looking at creating a “product”–a garden–and have the kids consider what is important to the “user”, which in this case are the butterflies and humans. When we went to the farm, we had to discuss how and why the farmers created raised beds, which was got the children thinking about this subtlety and how it might be applied to the garden they want to create.

As I work through design-based learning approach in my own classroom, I can tell you that the depth of thinking definitely changes when you combine the experience of gaining knowledge + skills + perspective.

Now that you know more about design-thinking, perhaps you might give it a shot in your class–how could you flip your “project” into a design challenge?

 

 

 

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Why Design Thinking is the Secret Ingredient to Student Agency

Why Design Thinking is the Secret Ingredient to Student Agency

Not that long ago, the International Baccalaureate (IB) issued a reflective “cheat sheet” of how schools can examine learner agency in the Primary Years Programme (PYP). Some of the key indicators include exploring the frequency and depth that learners are…

  • Actively engaged in various stages of learning, including thinking about, planning, modifying and creating 
  • Actively involved in discussion, questioning and by being self-directed in their creating (as opposed to passive receiving)
  • Apply their understanding of concepts through the construction of their projects/play
  • Make connections to the real world by taking past experiences into their play worlds
  • Have an active voice and stake in the classroom/community
  • Face challenges and are given the freedom to independently overcome these or fail through trial and error or experimentation
  • Are risk-takers
  • Express their theories of the world and these are honored in the environment
  • Reflect on their actions and self-regulate.

When I superimposed this framework over my classroom, I scrutinized my own practices and the culture in my classroom. Who was doing the leading in the classroom? Was I giving them freedom to learn and the space to lead?

These were the questions that played in the “background music” of my mind as I went into the planning of our last unit for the year. I know that this time of year can be a convenient time to take things easy and maintain the status quo of the established routines of the classroom, but I decided that I wanted to squeeze more out of the year by introducing design thinking into our classroom. I felt that this would be the secret ingredient to learner agency as design thinking organically gives them choice and voice, provided that I do not micromanage their learning.

My current unit is from the theme, Sharing the Planet whose central idea is: We grow and use plants in many ways. The central idea is accessible and easy for the 3-5 years old grasp and the lines of inquiry are straightforward: Growth of a plant (change); ways that plant parts are used in human life (connection); care of plants (responsibility). I’m still mid-unit, but I can share the process so far.

From there, I introduced the design thinking process, which I’ve obviously had to simplify for the Early Years. I stole ideas from American STEM schools like the  Benjamin Banneker School as a model for my class. To begin with, I wanted the students to choose what they wanted to grow. When we began the unit, I asked parents to go out shopping or bring in plant seeds that the students personally chose. (If I had chosen the seeds, I would normally have picked beans or radishes–something that is very easy to grow and would sprout quickly.) Of course, that’s not what the kids picked. They brought in a variety of flowers and vegetables such as broccoli and bak choy. In this small change to my “normal”, I had already shifted the dynamic significantly to cultivate greater agency, enthusiasm, and depth of the inquiry–it all started with the seeds.

design and scienceThe design-thinking process language I am using is:

  1. Understand
  2. Focus
  3. Imagine
  4. Prototype
  5. Try

Understand: What do we need to know about plants? And who are the “users” of plants? (the “we” in our central idea)

FullSizeRender 86

These were the first series of questions that the students wondered about and began our jumping off point for our project: To design a garden for an end user.  In the beginning, the students weren’t really thinking about a “user”, but through daily questioning prompts in our morning meetings and investigating what lived inside the homes provided by plants, sIMG_4623tudents began to grasp the concept of the relationship between plants and animals. I decided to also create some compost with the students so that they may appreciate the symbiosis of plants with one another and how humans can support the growth of plants by turning our rubbish into food. We used food scraps from the school kitchen like egg shells and banana peels and blended it into our dirt. We then used this enriched soil to plant our seeds in recycled toilet paper tubes, which would later transplant into the gardens we created.

 

 

 

Focus: How is the care of our specific plant different from each other and what considerations will we need when building our gardens? 

At this point,  2 groups had emerged: the vegetables and the flowers, and the students decided that the end users would be different. 1 group was going to focus on people (vegetables) and the other group wanted to focus on butterflies (flowers). If we were successful, then the end users would appreciate our gardens by eating the vegetables and getting nectar from the flowers.

IMG_4804

Before we could build the gardens, we had to consider the needs of those plants–no plants meant no happy end users! So the students had to research the basic requirements of their particular plant and this was definitely guided as we Googled and perused through books. Not a great deal of independence here, but the understandings of this greatly influenced the ideas of their garden design’s first renderings.

Imagine: Where might we put this garden and what would the structure of this garden look like?

So now we began to examine different types of gardens. We visited the wetlands park to and will go to a working farm. The students have made their first sketches of their gardens. What really surprised me was the thoughtful considerations the students made. They absolutely thought about the level of sunshine that the plants would need, and they put those details into those drawings. For example,  the “pink flower” group wants to make a heart-shaped garden near a tree, but not under a tree. While the “purple flower” group wants to be near the vegetables because that garden needs to be in a sunny area.

FullSizeRender 87 We will have a morning meeting to think about their designs and come up with questions for the farmers. (Going back to the “understand and focus” part of the process) After the farm visit this week, the students will review their designs to see if they feel they are on the right track.

Next week, they will create models of their designs out of cardboard and have the students put these prototypes in the area of our school where they think the plants will grow best. That will be the “try” part of the process before they actually go and build the real model and officially plant the plants. I will have to update their progress on this project later, as I reckon they will make changes in their designs

But I can say that so much of this unit’s inquiry has been given over to the students, as design thinking has allowed this project to be more personalized and focused on what they think is important. It’s sort of an odd feeling, especially as an early childhood teacher, to move out of their way and just be the “helper” in fulfilling their imaginings. I look forward to posting the end results later in a future blog post.

To be continued….

And I am curious how other teachers or schools have used design thinking to shift into a more student-centered culture and approach to the learner. What am I missing? What ideas might you have to extend my approach?

 

 

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