Design Thinking Process
Discovery Phase
I HAVE A CHALLENGE. How do I approach it?
This week my team, 3ST, met via Google Hangout to work on our design thinking assignment. The team consists of Sara Chai, Michelle Snyder, Matthew Decking, and me. As a team, we decided to focus on stereotypes, which was an idea that got planted after watching the videos Dr. Ward emailed us. Our first virtual meeting lasted an hour. We brainstormed ideas on how to approach this assignment and what we could start doing until our next meeting.
Sara shared a Google document she created with the team, 3ST DT Wk1 EDL655. We all have added our ideas. So far, I have added questions and comments in part 1 and 2. For instance, I brought up the idea of the influence media portrays cultures and how this may affect an individual. Media plays an important part of how a culture or individual gets portray. Television shows and movies portray actors different due to their skin color and/or culture.
I created our Google+ Community called 3ST where we are sharing resources and posting questions or concerns we may have. On Sunday, I shared resources about stereotypes in the classroom; Culture in the Classroom, Ten ways to challenge gender stereotypes in the classroom, and Understanding Stereotypes | Free Lesson Plans | Teachers | Digital textbooks and standards-aligned educational resources.
We also communicate and collaborate as we come up with new ideas, and we communicate via text messaging as it is easier and faster to respond.
3ST is also meeting on Sunday to continue talk about our next steps and what roles we each need to undertake. We have talked about interviewing experts as well as our end users, which are students at this point. One concern that I have is the fact that stereotyping is a broad concept. Stereotypes can be a cultural, gender, race, sexual preference, etc. I wonder if we should focus on one area or if it would be better to cover all aspects of stereotype. This is something that I will bring it up in our next virtual meeting.
For next time, I will read the educator's toolkit provided by IDEO weeks before the class starts because it is a resource that helped me understand design thinking. Watching the videos provided by the instructor were helpful as well. Also, there are so many resources in the World Wide Web about designing thinking that it is hard to decide which would best suit my topic.
Currently, I am in the process of deciding how to present this topic to my colleagues and students. My team and I have mentioned the possibility of creating a survey and have colleagues and students take it. I have also forwarded videos to colleagues that deal with stereotypes. For instance, I forwarded the videos Dr. Ward shared with the class to teachers at my site. I also watched the video African Men, Hollywood Stereotypes with teachers. I am introducing this topic in my school slowly, one step at a time. We had a discussion afterwards that led to how we could start the school year with a lesson or activity for students to describe themselves irrespective of how the media describes them. One of the resources I shared on our teams’ Google+ Community is a lesson about introducing stereotypes in the classroom, Understanding Stereotypes | Free Lesson Plans | Teachers | Digital textbooks and standards-aligned educational resources. This resource is on Discovery Education, and I think it would be beneficial to use as part of our design thinking assignment.
References
"Culture in the Classroom | Teaching Tolerance." 2014. 12 Jul. 2015 <http://www.tolerance.org/culture-classroom>
"Ten ways to challenge gender stereotypes in the classroom ..." 2014. 12 Jul. 2015 <http://www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/ten-ways-to-challenge-gender-stereotypes-in-the-classroom/>
"Understanding Stereotypes | Free Lesson Plans | Teachers ..." 2010. 12 Jul. 2015 <http://www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/understanding-stereotypes.cfm>
Sara shared a Google document she created with the team, 3ST DT Wk1 EDL655. We all have added our ideas. So far, I have added questions and comments in part 1 and 2. For instance, I brought up the idea of the influence media portrays cultures and how this may affect an individual. Media plays an important part of how a culture or individual gets portray. Television shows and movies portray actors different due to their skin color and/or culture.
I created our Google+ Community called 3ST where we are sharing resources and posting questions or concerns we may have. On Sunday, I shared resources about stereotypes in the classroom; Culture in the Classroom, Ten ways to challenge gender stereotypes in the classroom, and Understanding Stereotypes | Free Lesson Plans | Teachers | Digital textbooks and standards-aligned educational resources.
We also communicate and collaborate as we come up with new ideas, and we communicate via text messaging as it is easier and faster to respond.
3ST is also meeting on Sunday to continue talk about our next steps and what roles we each need to undertake. We have talked about interviewing experts as well as our end users, which are students at this point. One concern that I have is the fact that stereotyping is a broad concept. Stereotypes can be a cultural, gender, race, sexual preference, etc. I wonder if we should focus on one area or if it would be better to cover all aspects of stereotype. This is something that I will bring it up in our next virtual meeting.
For next time, I will read the educator's toolkit provided by IDEO weeks before the class starts because it is a resource that helped me understand design thinking. Watching the videos provided by the instructor were helpful as well. Also, there are so many resources in the World Wide Web about designing thinking that it is hard to decide which would best suit my topic.
Currently, I am in the process of deciding how to present this topic to my colleagues and students. My team and I have mentioned the possibility of creating a survey and have colleagues and students take it. I have also forwarded videos to colleagues that deal with stereotypes. For instance, I forwarded the videos Dr. Ward shared with the class to teachers at my site. I also watched the video African Men, Hollywood Stereotypes with teachers. I am introducing this topic in my school slowly, one step at a time. We had a discussion afterwards that led to how we could start the school year with a lesson or activity for students to describe themselves irrespective of how the media describes them. One of the resources I shared on our teams’ Google+ Community is a lesson about introducing stereotypes in the classroom, Understanding Stereotypes | Free Lesson Plans | Teachers | Digital textbooks and standards-aligned educational resources. This resource is on Discovery Education, and I think it would be beneficial to use as part of our design thinking assignment.
References
"Culture in the Classroom | Teaching Tolerance." 2014. 12 Jul. 2015 <http://www.tolerance.org/culture-classroom>
"Ten ways to challenge gender stereotypes in the classroom ..." 2014. 12 Jul. 2015 <http://www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/ten-ways-to-challenge-gender-stereotypes-in-the-classroom/>
"Understanding Stereotypes | Free Lesson Plans | Teachers ..." 2010. 12 Jul. 2015 <http://www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/understanding-stereotypes.cfm>
Interpretation Phase
I LEARNED SOMETHING. How do I interpret it?
This week’s collaborative work, research, and readings completed were challenging, but rewarding. I learned quite a lot from my colleagues, the research we completed, the interview we did via Google Hangout with Dr. Lindsey, and of course the readings. I feel better prepared for my new role as the Director of Academics of my school.
Chapter 3 and 4 of this week’s reading gave me many new of ideas to implement in my school. I liked the idea of using podcasts to communicate with parents, students, and the general public about school events such as parent teacher conferences. Also, I was reminded of the different laws that protect student rights, FERPA and CIPA. Children’s Internet Protection Act is a law that requires all schools to be apart of the E-Rate program that offers discounts on technological services such as the Internet as long as they have an “Internet safety policy.” Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protects students’ privacy. Parents can have access to students’ records who are up to age eighteen. This law protects students’ records. However, an institution can publish these records with the public. This includes students’ name, address, telephone number, awards, attendance records, and birth date. However, the school must notified the parents prior to sharing this “directory” information.
The interview with Dr. Linsey was incredible. I had a cold, and I was loosing my voice, but this did not stop me from attending 3ST’s (name of our team) Google Hangout with her. During the interview, I thought of something that I experienced years ago. Dr. Linsey said that adults have a hard time accepting differences due to their values, but they become accepting once they experienced such “differences”. In my case, my mother was not accepting of gays. She grew up Catholic, and she thought that being gay was a sin. However, her perception towards the LGBT community changed when I told her I was gay. At first, she was shocked and did not know how to act around me (like any mother would, at first). Eventually, she realized that I was the same person she gave birth to, and that I was still myself.
On that note, I do not think I would do anything different to better this weeks’ process. I am happy for what I went through this week with my team. I learned great deal from them. We are staying on track of our assignments and trying to meet deadlines.
Dr. Lindsey shared a few ideas on how we can incorporate stereotype in our school with teachers and students. However, I am still thinking on how I want to approach this since my colleagues tend to be resistant towards certain topics that may be sensitive. I think that students tend to be more accepting of different cultures than teachers at times.
When it comes to the tenets, I think the following were relevant in this weeks’ process:
Chapter 3 and 4 of this week’s reading gave me many new of ideas to implement in my school. I liked the idea of using podcasts to communicate with parents, students, and the general public about school events such as parent teacher conferences. Also, I was reminded of the different laws that protect student rights, FERPA and CIPA. Children’s Internet Protection Act is a law that requires all schools to be apart of the E-Rate program that offers discounts on technological services such as the Internet as long as they have an “Internet safety policy.” Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protects students’ privacy. Parents can have access to students’ records who are up to age eighteen. This law protects students’ records. However, an institution can publish these records with the public. This includes students’ name, address, telephone number, awards, attendance records, and birth date. However, the school must notified the parents prior to sharing this “directory” information.
The interview with Dr. Linsey was incredible. I had a cold, and I was loosing my voice, but this did not stop me from attending 3ST’s (name of our team) Google Hangout with her. During the interview, I thought of something that I experienced years ago. Dr. Linsey said that adults have a hard time accepting differences due to their values, but they become accepting once they experienced such “differences”. In my case, my mother was not accepting of gays. She grew up Catholic, and she thought that being gay was a sin. However, her perception towards the LGBT community changed when I told her I was gay. At first, she was shocked and did not know how to act around me (like any mother would, at first). Eventually, she realized that I was the same person she gave birth to, and that I was still myself.
On that note, I do not think I would do anything different to better this weeks’ process. I am happy for what I went through this week with my team. I learned great deal from them. We are staying on track of our assignments and trying to meet deadlines.
Dr. Lindsey shared a few ideas on how we can incorporate stereotype in our school with teachers and students. However, I am still thinking on how I want to approach this since my colleagues tend to be resistant towards certain topics that may be sensitive. I think that students tend to be more accepting of different cultures than teachers at times.
When it comes to the tenets, I think the following were relevant in this weeks’ process:
- Discipline in Mind
- Setting a goal and not only achieving it, but staying focus on all tasks associated with it.
- Open Mindedness
- Being open to ideas that others may not agree on.
- Sharing points of view that are sensitive to others.
- Humility
- Being sensitive to others points of views, knowledge, and ideas.
- Putting your own pride and ego aside.
- Questioning
- Knowing when to ask and when to listen.
- Asking the right and wrong questions to get better results.
- Reflection
- Look back at what was collected
- Processing what was learned
- Shared what was gathered/interpreted
Ideation Phase
I SEE AN OPPORTUNITY. What do I create?
The Ideation phase has been my favorite thus far as it is about creativity. My team used “Mural.ly” to record our ideas. We created a “100 Ideas” board that includes four columns, one for each member. This was for part 1 of the phase. For part two, we categorized similar ideas into a grid that contains four topics; using media, collaboration, different demographics, and community involvement. For part three, we chose teachers as our end users. We realized adults stereotype more than we realized. Based on the data and research collected, we found that teachers tend to frequently stereotype students. Dr. Ward and Dr. Lindsey mentioned this in our interviews as well as in research the team completed online. We want to make teachers aware of the methods they currently use in their classroom, such as the mode they use to communicate with students.
We then addressed the constraints. We came up with three; time, cost, and opposing parties. The opposing parties are parents, administrators, and teachers. After brainstorming each possible constraint, we completed a second round of ideation to address each constraint. We came up with an idea of having the program be online and self-paced. It could be in the form of a podcast where community members participate such as professionals, including teachers. Teachers share their experiences, collaborate, complete tasks, and earn badges for successfully completing level tasks. To be funded, we thought of having sponsors. The program could be sponsored by individuals or businesses who may be interested in our program. To attract teachers to participate in this program, we thought of rewarding them for their time in the form of possibly earning district or graduate units.
Later, we came up with our idea for experimentation. We chose some radical solutions from our initial ideas that are found in the mural.ly. Then, we came up with the selected solution.
“Our team’s selected solution is a combination of several ideas we discussed during the second ideation phase. We came up with the solution of creating an online, self-paced program for teachers and administrators to effectively learn about stereotyping in their classroom and school. This self-paced program will be game-based, and offer “badges” for teachers and administrators as they “pass,” or successfully complete different levels of the program.”
Looking back, I think time has been a challenge. I work full-time in a year-round school, and taking a summer course that requires a lot of time has been a struggle because I have to manage my time wisely. However, as a team we always produce some amazing work. We work really well together and meet regularly to collaborate as each phase. For next time, I plan on making some modifications to my schedule so I have plenty of time set aside for the next phase.
This process can be beneficial to both teachers and students. We all have creative minds, but we rarely are given opportunities to practice this skill. Students can be given time to be creative in the classroom. Teachers can include creativity as part of their lessons.
As reflected in this phase, there’s traditional and non-traditional characteristics of creativity. This can be seen in our mural.ly. Traditional is when we brainstorm ideas. We each shared and collaborated on our ideas. We built a visual representation of our collaboration. I see nontraditional as leading us to the focus idea. We narrow our choices by editing/deleting some ideas.
We then addressed the constraints. We came up with three; time, cost, and opposing parties. The opposing parties are parents, administrators, and teachers. After brainstorming each possible constraint, we completed a second round of ideation to address each constraint. We came up with an idea of having the program be online and self-paced. It could be in the form of a podcast where community members participate such as professionals, including teachers. Teachers share their experiences, collaborate, complete tasks, and earn badges for successfully completing level tasks. To be funded, we thought of having sponsors. The program could be sponsored by individuals or businesses who may be interested in our program. To attract teachers to participate in this program, we thought of rewarding them for their time in the form of possibly earning district or graduate units.
Later, we came up with our idea for experimentation. We chose some radical solutions from our initial ideas that are found in the mural.ly. Then, we came up with the selected solution.
“Our team’s selected solution is a combination of several ideas we discussed during the second ideation phase. We came up with the solution of creating an online, self-paced program for teachers and administrators to effectively learn about stereotyping in their classroom and school. This self-paced program will be game-based, and offer “badges” for teachers and administrators as they “pass,” or successfully complete different levels of the program.”
Looking back, I think time has been a challenge. I work full-time in a year-round school, and taking a summer course that requires a lot of time has been a struggle because I have to manage my time wisely. However, as a team we always produce some amazing work. We work really well together and meet regularly to collaborate as each phase. For next time, I plan on making some modifications to my schedule so I have plenty of time set aside for the next phase.
This process can be beneficial to both teachers and students. We all have creative minds, but we rarely are given opportunities to practice this skill. Students can be given time to be creative in the classroom. Teachers can include creativity as part of their lessons.
As reflected in this phase, there’s traditional and non-traditional characteristics of creativity. This can be seen in our mural.ly. Traditional is when we brainstorm ideas. We each shared and collaborated on our ideas. We built a visual representation of our collaboration. I see nontraditional as leading us to the focus idea. We narrow our choices by editing/deleting some ideas.
Experimentation Phase
Collaboration is not the same as it was a decade ago. It has revolutionized the way we complete tasks within a group, and this week was an example of strong collaboration. 3ST continues to diligently collaborate often. We developed a video presentation of our prototype. The video was produced by Matthew. As a team, we came up with a script. This required a lot of our time, and we are all proud of and happy with the end product.
Peer feedback has given us ideas on what to include in our program. We received feedback about having a timeline for completion. There was a suggestion about creating a space for networking. I am thinking of possibly doing something similar to this program where members collaborate and complete assignments, but at the same time we are networking. There was another suggestion about having a final product that demonstrates the participants mastery of the program. All of these suggestions and recommendations are being taken into consideration.
Overall, 3ST received positive feedback. It seems that our peers really like our Design Thinking Program. 3ST is meeting again in the next day to review our next steps.
The name for our program was like “magic” to me. Our team’s name is 3ST, and I’ll share the meaning of that name. Our program’s name title is 3ST - Race, Culture, and Gender Stereotyping in Education. “Race, culture and gender” is where the three comes in for the title, and ST is for the words “stereo” and “typing” in stereotyping. This is why I say our team’s name and our program’s name is like magic. The program identifies our focus as a team, 3ST.
I have been meeting with friends of influence who could lead me to find sponsors who may be interested in supporting 3ST’s program. I would say that I am very energized, motivated by, and satisfied with the program we have developed. It is unique and is ready to be implemented in any organization, and it focuses on current issues.
The main challenge for this week was time. This was a very fast paced process that required regular collaboration and communication within teammates. The Design Thinking Process is an outstanding method, and I believe it would be beneficial for everyone to spend more time in each phase.
The process would had been different if we had implemented with end users. First, we would have needed additional time to develop it. Second, we would have gotten valuable feedback from the end users. Third, 3ST would have needed to decide what grade level and how many end users should be part of it. Fourth, we would have guided the end users, which would require additional time to prepare the launch of the program.
Collaboration is what Design Thinking consists of. This is a constant task that needs to occur throughout each phase. This method requires team members to communicate and collaborate regularly. If there is no collaboration, then the end product will reflect that. No one wants a poorly developed product, so it is necessary that every member actively participates in each phase.
Peer feedback has given us ideas on what to include in our program. We received feedback about having a timeline for completion. There was a suggestion about creating a space for networking. I am thinking of possibly doing something similar to this program where members collaborate and complete assignments, but at the same time we are networking. There was another suggestion about having a final product that demonstrates the participants mastery of the program. All of these suggestions and recommendations are being taken into consideration.
Overall, 3ST received positive feedback. It seems that our peers really like our Design Thinking Program. 3ST is meeting again in the next day to review our next steps.
The name for our program was like “magic” to me. Our team’s name is 3ST, and I’ll share the meaning of that name. Our program’s name title is 3ST - Race, Culture, and Gender Stereotyping in Education. “Race, culture and gender” is where the three comes in for the title, and ST is for the words “stereo” and “typing” in stereotyping. This is why I say our team’s name and our program’s name is like magic. The program identifies our focus as a team, 3ST.
I have been meeting with friends of influence who could lead me to find sponsors who may be interested in supporting 3ST’s program. I would say that I am very energized, motivated by, and satisfied with the program we have developed. It is unique and is ready to be implemented in any organization, and it focuses on current issues.
The main challenge for this week was time. This was a very fast paced process that required regular collaboration and communication within teammates. The Design Thinking Process is an outstanding method, and I believe it would be beneficial for everyone to spend more time in each phase.
The process would had been different if we had implemented with end users. First, we would have needed additional time to develop it. Second, we would have gotten valuable feedback from the end users. Third, 3ST would have needed to decide what grade level and how many end users should be part of it. Fourth, we would have guided the end users, which would require additional time to prepare the launch of the program.
Collaboration is what Design Thinking consists of. This is a constant task that needs to occur throughout each phase. This method requires team members to communicate and collaborate regularly. If there is no collaboration, then the end product will reflect that. No one wants a poorly developed product, so it is necessary that every member actively participates in each phase.