Throwing Ideas Out There: Design Thinking and Professional Development

As part of my Professional Growth Plan , I am going to be doing the periodic blog post on how I am trying to integrate Design Thinking into my teaching and learning environment. To learn more about the process of introducing and implementing the PGP at YIS, check out Kim’s blog. 

Blogging to Ideate.

I am usually pretty open to trying things and not being sure where they are going to take me. That attitude is the one that has served me well. So after a semester or so of reading and learning about Design Thinking. it’s time to start sharing some of my ideas for where I’m going to be implementing. And in the process, I hope to synthesize all the ideas that I’ve been thinking about.

My curriculum.  

This is perhaps the most natural for me. I really wish I was still teaching the Sustainability Inquiry unit in Grade 10, as this would be the perfect place to implement the Design Thinking in the curriculum. But with my current teaching responsibilities, I’m thinking my Grade 7 unit on the Industrial Revolution would be the best place. I think the focus on empathy inherent in Design Thinking could really strengthen how I teach the unit, as I want my kids to understand what life was like in the historical Industrial Revolution and to make connections with the modern-day work conditions. Last year, I did loads of Visible Thinking Routines in this unit and I think the two could easily complement each other. I’ve kind of let my project on modern day child labor melt away, but Design Thinking could be a way to reinvigorate it. The other place would be the end of Grade 8, when students have to create a sustainable community in Minecraft.

My classroom: 

I love my walls in my classroom. They are covered with post-its, I don’t have to decorate them, and they show the process my students are going through in their learning. In some ways, I’ve modeled my walls on the d.School dynamic walls.  I love my walls so much, that they deserve their own post.

Sharing with other staff

I’ve already shared a lot of ideas with the other teachers in the Humanities Department. And I think there are other places in school we could use Design Thinking, especially Extended Essay and the Personal Project. This video suggests to me that our Service Learning program could also be informed by Design Thinking.

While I’m not coordinating either of these, one of the wonderful things about YIS is that everyone is open to other people’s ideas and won’t be offended when I send forward some ideas I’ve learned from Design Thinking.

Student Council

This is perhaps the one I’m most excited about. I’ve been a student council advisor for most of my teaching career. I really love it, as you usually get great kids and you can set them loose. But I’m stagnating a little. We really are a machine in planning our assemblies, our dances, and volunteer work.

So, what I would like to do is for my Student Council members to engage in a Design Challenge to find a way to make YIS a better community. Perhaps they would work with Elementary or High School student council. Perhaps they would work with administration. Or perhaps they would interview their classmates. This is the one I’m going to be really sitting down and working on in the coming weeks.  I think my student council can empathize, ideate, sympathize, prototype (repeat as necessary) and come up with some awesome stuff.

Connections

Perhaps because Design Thinking is still a bit of niche in education, I find the more I talk about my desire to learn more, the more people people reach out and share. I’m not quite sure what connections I am going to make talking about Design Thinking. But I do think there are some great possibilities to work with other teachers and academics thinking about how design can help our students.

Next step: Prototype