S.M.I.L.E Blog -- See what we are thinking and learning
If you do any reading in the educational sphere, you know that there are a number of schools of thought out there -- a lot of “studies have shown...” thrown around. And, if you do such reading, you’ll often see that there are struggles when one program or approach is taken from one setting to another. So, what can we do when we know that something works, and works well in one location. How do we scale that practice or transfer that approach, successfully, especially when we know that schools are not cookiecutter entities. Real, human beings attend them. Real, human beings work at them. How can we look at innovation from the perspective of those humans? How do we truly innovate, without completely reinventing the wheel (because I think that it is entirely appropriate to steal ideas in education, don’t you!)? Enter design thinking. You may have heard of this. It’s fairly trendy, if jargony. But it’s an approach that we haven’t always seen in education in the U.S. The premise is not that a particular approach or practice can be plucked up from one school and easily inserted in another. Rather, the idea is that one needs to approach design with the end user in mind. In education, our end users are our students. Those gifts from God that enter our rooms each day come with God-given talents, curiosities, and passions, and it’s the role of schools and educators to help students cultivate and realize these. This is essentially the goal of S.M.I.L.E., and we’ve brought design thinking into the process as we’ve worked together to imagine blended learning in various settings. Below, find some reflections on design thinking, and some links to resources our group has found valuable. In future posts, we’ll share case studies of schools involved in S.M.I.L.E. It helps to have a framework. There are several places to turn for information on Design Thinking, but, being in the business of education, we looked at Design Thinking for Educators. The five-step process, as outlined, can be used for individual classroom challenges, grade or department challenges, or full-scale challenges, as well as innovation! At its core, design thinking hinges on identifying a challenge. It doesn’t always have to be a negative, per say, but an area of potential growth or innovation. For the schools involved with S.M.I.L.E., this challenge revolved around the need to acknowledge the prevalence of technology and intentionally blend the use of technology with the inperson instruction. As you can imagine, variations on that challenge exist for schools, and so too did the remaining steps in the process. When focusing on the end user, this is to be expected! It’s a cycle. As with all design, the process doesn’t end with implementation. We know, as with any worthy effort, that there will be stops and starts, along the way, and failures that lead, hopefully, to larger gains in the long run. The design framework discussed above is not meant to end with implementation, but rather to allow for movement, as needed, throughout the different steps. Feedback and reflection are critical. At each stage of the design process a vital element is ongoing feedback and reflection, as well as the development of mechanisms for each. Our regular face-to-face meetings within the S.M.I.L.E. community, as well as regular check-ins with national or local support, has helped to make this happen. Locally, each site also develops and operates its practices around feedback and reflection. So, tell us. What do you think of design thinking as a framework for planning educational innovation? How have or might you use the framework? Jessica Raba
0 Comments
|
AuthorVarious authors contribute to this blog. ArchivesCategories |