Upper School Design Thinking

In November and December, many Upper School students received some exposure to design thinking through three different activities.

Community Service: How Might We Re-Envision Community Service at Parker?

Parker has a well established community service program within its Upper School, wherein all students have a requirement to attain hours each year in service to the community. As part of our work on the strategic plan, the call was made to do some reflecting and possibly re-look at components of how our community service program is set up at the school. I partnered with our Upper School principal, ASB advisor, and our Director for community service to involve our students in this process.

In November and December, we facilitated a design thinking process with our community service board and our ASB student leadership group. The design challenge was: How might we design a four year community service program that provides a meaningful experience for all Parker students?

The students dove into the work wholeheartedly, and they produced some very creative and inspired thinking about how the program might be re-envisioned. While some suggestions are outside the bounds of feasibility, there were many kernels of ideas that might form part of a newly envisioned program for students. Students creatively built four-year programs with sequential and logical components, and even looked at how to expand the program to attain more interest from students.

For this particular process, we limited the "notice" component to having the students analyze what was work and what was not working with the current program - this way they had a foundation from which to work when they engaged in the brainstorming component. In all, these sessions were very productive and students were highly engaged in the conversations. When students found out that their input would be used in our larger process, they were keen to continue their involvement as we moved down the path of re-examining community service.

The most broad exposure came via a two-part design thinking exercise that was undertaken in the newly formed "House" groups. Our Upper School students are divided into smaller groups with a faculty advisor (or advisors). There are also two students in each House who serve as House Leaders. We have our Asst Head of Upper School and one of our Deans guide the House program, and they came to me earlier in the year to ask if we might consider using a couple of House sessions to introduce the concept of design thinking to students. Their thinking was that the House Leaders and advisors would meet with me, and we would walk through the steps of the process. After that, the house leaders and advisors would then deliver the same experience to their respective groups.

To keep things within our limited time and scope, we engaged in an activity that was perhaps less realistic but which would engender greater interest from the students. The design challenge: How might we create the ultimate student center at Parker?

While engagement from the House Leaders was high during both of the initial sessions, feedback and observations from the broader implementation demonstrated that the challenge was perhaps a bit too "out there" in terms of feasibility, which led to reduced buy in from the greater student body. While it was great to have the venue to at least gain some traction with the process with our students, some re-thinking about how to expose students to this manner of thinking will need to happen. From conversations with students, it appears that they would prefer a smaller team setting and a more realistic opportunity to apply the process. Since the design thinking seminars with our ASB and community service board groups went very well, it looks like these more targeted or focused opportunities present a better mechanism to help students learn at the Upper School.

If you are interested in more details about the processes and/or feedback, feel free to contact me. I don't know of an organization that ever hits 100% success when implementing new things - and so we are continuing to learn how to implement as we go. If our learning can help your process move better, we're happy to be of help.

Consultation Sessions with Parker Thomas for Faculty Members

We brought Parker Thomas back on site for two days in early December. The purpose of his time on our two campuses was two-fold. One, for him to have the opportunity to review some of the early efforts of our faculty to implement design thinking and provide some feedback. Two, and more important, he was to meet up with teaching teams to talk about potential lessons or ideas on how to integrate design thinking into their classes.

At the Lower School, the faculty eagerly signed up for sessions with Parker - in fact, we had to add time to ensure that everyone had an opportunity to meet with him. Feedback following the visit demonstrated that he was extremely helpful to all of the teams. Teams brought in lesson ideas and collaboratively worked through the process of how design thinking might be applied in the lesson. Following each session, teaching teams walked away with concrete possibilities and a pathway by which to implement the lessons. Given that this year is a "learning together" year for faculty, it was commendable that the Lower School faculty so eagerly pushed to move forward with implementation. In talking with teams after Parker's visit, they are eager to have him back and talk about other lessons that might involve design thinking.

A few Middle and Upper School faculty also met with Parker during his visit. The individuals with whom he consulted reported back that their time with him was immensely helpful and also opened their ideas to potential with design thinking in their area, while teaching teams felt the time was a bit difficult as they did not focus on a particular unit or lesson in the conversation. We will be bringing Parker back to meet with our Lower School teams again as we got a universal request from that division for more consultative time. We will open up time with Parker for those who wish to "opt in" from the other divisions if they wish to do so. Feedback from all divisions will be solicited during an upcoming steering committee session so that we are sure to meet the learning needs of all divisions as we move into the spring months.

Sink The Ship!

It is always challenging to maintain student interest and engagement when a holiday break is just around the corner. Fortunately, for one of our math classes, a creative teacher provided some meaningful instruction and a whole lot of fun for their students while integrating elements of design thinking.

The lesson? Learning coordinates and plotting them accurately on a graph. But rather than dry lecture, student learned this concept by laying out a real-life battleship type coordinate field on either side of a barrier, and then put down home-made cardboard ships onto the coordinate fields. In order to win, students had to figure out the location of the opponents' Flag Ship, record the coordinates properly in graph format on the board, and do so prior to their opponents sinking THEIR flag ship.

Students had to do all of the work in terms of figuring out how to plan their coordinate field, coordinate their attack plans, and successfully track their thinking on the board and on their grid. The teacher acted as consultant - and in that role, he responded to questions mostly with questions back to the students. The teams were encouraged to partner up and work together to problem solve.

A very fun day of learning. The best part? After talking about playing in 2 dimensions, students were then tasked to create a new variant of the game that would operate in 3 dimensions - this will be their work in the coming weeks. Once they hash out the details, the game will be played outdoors on a large scale grid.

I wish I had learned about planes and coordinates this way! The students were highly engaged, having fun, and best of all, it was clear that there was learning permanence resulting from learning by doing.

Students re-set the grid after the first round of play.

Students collaboratively problem-solve how to best protect their ships while attacking their opponent by using their new knowledge about coordinates and planes.

Lower School Moves Full STEAM Ahead with Design Thinking

Our Lower School continues its work to integrate design thinking into every grade level. Here are a few wonderful examples of how this has been looking around the Mission Hills campus:

Junior Kindergarten (Pre-School)
Students were given PVC tubes and connector pieces and challenged to make a free-standing tower. Aside from the stated challenge, it was 100% up to the students to collaboratively figure out how to make the tower work and stand on its own. It took a few tries, but students ultimately figured out how to make the towers stand by creating a wider base to support the structure. The engagement of kids on this task and their collaborative spirit were truly wonderful to see!

Second grade
Meanwhile, our 2nd grade art students engaged in a design challenge wherein they were tasked to use a specific artist's style to craft an "adopt-a-pet" poster to be displayed at a local animal shelter. The students took the task to heart, and the result were some fun posters. Even better? Our local shelter is currently displaying several of our students' finished products.

First grade

Our first graders read the first part of a story about Queen Victoria's Bathing Machine wherein they were introduced to the problem: Queen Victoria wanted to go swimming, but to do so privately. They collectively brainstormed their own solutions to the question before reading on to find out what really happened. 

Fifth grade

Our fifth graders had a "survival challenge" that took many discrete learning elements that ranged from chemistry to physics to environmental science and integrated them into one over-arching project. Students were tasked with creating shelters that could meet several criteria, including fitting a certain number of individuals, withstanding natural forces, and using only a set amount and type of resources. Students took flight with some active brainstorming, designing and creating. Their final habitats/shelters were then tested with "real life" scenarios. The photo below shows a shelter being tested for its durability in wind, which was simulated with a leaf blower. 

MS Science: Environmental Impact Study Using Design Thinking

Sergina Bach's middle school science students recently applied design thinking to their work in creating environmental impact statements for a hypothetical building project to be completed on our Linda Vista campus site. 

The teacher provided a very open ended project design that allowed students to create their own learning process and outcomes. It also encouraged a lot of creative thinking on both sides of the issue, e.g., it made the students take the side of being in favor of construction AND take the side of not being in favor of construction.

The resulting  environmental impact studies came back and the teacher was happy to see a high level of detail and an even higher level of thinking that went on with the work from the students. They had taken the project and run with it... and they came back with some highly creative ideas that would both meet the construction needs for the campus while also strongly considering the environmental sustainability of the area involved. 

Here is one of the projects that came back: 

Environmental impact study for  Pool and Parking lot

By A S,  A V , and A I

          We believe that Francis Parker needs more parking and a swimming pool. A parking lot is extremely necessary for big events such as homecoming, arts night, and back to school night when so many people are there and the majority have to park far away or we have to use the parking of other buildings. The parking lot would help solve this problem and also help bring more students to this school since they have the relief of knowing that they won't be late due to parking.

The pool would provide a variety of sports including a swim team (which we do have but the pool being there would be so much more convenient for them), a water polo team, and many other things. It would also be nice to have a pool, so you can go there for recreational uses, educational uses and maybe even the occasional party. We could also charge the public money to use our pool. Extending our parking lot and building a pool on campus would be great for our school.

Alternatives

One option for building a new parking lot would be expanding our faculty parking lot into the chaparral. This would be beneficial because that way the students could use the faculty lot and the staff still have places to park. We decided that the parking lot would be best if put here because we can use our space, and still leave most of the chaparral untouched. With this new addition to the parking lot we could fit more cars so more people could have places to park.

Another option is to put the parking lot in the back near the path to the chaparral and connect it to the road where the buses are. This would be beneficial because it would be out of the way and it would be big enough to fit a large amount of people.

A third alternative is that we could build more parking on top of the existing student lot. It should be two stories so it can fit more people. This way we could make more parking without effecting the chaparral. However, this option would be very expensive.

We also thought that we should put the pool in the space behind the library. Currently, this space is open, and is a perfect spot for the pool and a small building next to it for equipment and changing. It would be close to other structures, and because of this, wouldn’t affect the chaparral as much as it would if we built our pool deeper into the chaparral. The minimum harm to the chaparral would come if we built our pool here. Also, if we put it here it would be close to the upper school and middle school which would be ideal.

A second option is that we put the pool next the the field house and cafeteria area. This wouldn't affect the chaparral at all. However, it would be far from the upper school making it difficult to get there when the need to, and will be right in the middle of our school, making it inconvenient.

A final alternative would be to build the pool off of the path that leads us to the chaparral. Here, it will also be out of the way  and easily accessible to the middle and upper school.

Location and Design

We think that the best option of where to build our pool would probably be behind the library. This is helpful to the environment because it is close to other buildings and is at the beginning of the chaparral. Here, the least number of organisms will be harmed, and it is also convenient for us. Having the pool behind the library will keep it out of the way of all our school buildings, but will also be close by to both the middle and the high school. We were thinking to build a small building next to the pool to keep pool equipment and to change, as the only inconvenience would be that the gym is a not very close to the pool. We want to be innovative with our pool design, something that no other school has seen before - a two story indoor pool.

The first floor of our pool will be big, and will have a deep end and a shallow end. Our second floor, however will only have a 4 ft deep pool. This will be useful for people who want to practice tricks like handstands and flip turns and need to use a shallow end. This pool will be smaller, and more to play around in. The first floor pool will be for swim team practice, and lap swimming and diving.

On the second floor, there will also be a hole in the ground (with a small fence around it) for people to jump into the deep end of the first pool. These two pools are above each other in a glass poorhouse building. A glass building (except for the first floor ceiling)  will let in light, so we wouldn't have to pay too much for electricity. The second floor's ceiling will be glass. Again, this would let in light, and would be great if we could arrange an activity to go swimming at night (we could look up at the stars while swimming).

On the roof, we would have a small jacuzzi. Next to the pool house we plan to include a ramp to an equipment building. The only problem about this location is that it isn't close to the gym and the locker rooms. To solve this problem, we have decided to include a equipment building which will be used as a place to change and as a place to store all of the equipment (pool noodles, floats, etc).

We could also charge the public money to come use our pool. This would be great, because it would make up for the amount of money it took to build the pool, and we could use some of the money to plant more trees and bushes to make up for the ones we had to cut down and clear. Our pool will be easily accessible to the public, because it will be out of the way of the rest of our school buildings. The latitude of the pool is approximately 32.76999137, and the longitude is -117.17730984.

Our parking lot will be built right next to the already existing parking lot. Building it here would be great because it's close to other buildings and won't affect organisms and the chaparral very much. This could be used as a teachers and staff parking lot, and now both the students who drive themselves to school and the teachers would have places to park. As an advisory activity, each advisory could spray paint a part of the new parking lot to make it colorful and unique. Maybe we could spray paint the center of it with our school name and logo. The latitude of the parking lot is approximately 32.77052083, and the longitude is -117.17864022.

Below is a link to a video summarizing our pool design:

https://tellagami.com/gami/23XNF8/

Below is a video summarizing our parking lot design:

https://tellagami.com/gami/HVH6B5/

The four figures below show four different views showing the location of the pool and parking lot. The actual design of the pool and parking lot were described in the “Location and Design” section above.

Affected Environment and Environmental Consequences

           There are lots of biotic factors that will be affected by the project. Some of the animals in the proposed building areas are california towhees, spotted towhees, western scrub jays, California Thrasher, wrentit(all omnivores), bats, bobcats, coyotes(scavengers). There are even Virginia opossums(scavengers), gray foxes, gopher snakes, bushtits, mountain lions(carnivores), and big eared wood rats(herbivore). Brush rabbits, bezoar goats, red tailed hawk, black tailed jack rabbit, and cactus wren(consumers). The plants in the proposed areas are big berry manzanita, scrub oak, chamise, ceanothus, and mountain mahogany. There are so many more organisms that live in the proposed area.

Picture 1: An  energy pyramid  showing some of the animals in our chaparral  and showing the energy decrease between each level of the pyramid.

Picture 2: A food chain showing some of the animals in our chaparrel.

A food web showing some of the organisms living in the Francis Parker chaparral

Building a parking lot or pool on our chaparral would definitely affect the organisms living there. Looking at the food chain above, you will see that each organism is dependent on another (except for the producer and the sun). If, for example, the big eared wood rats get wiped out from that area, the gray fox won't have anything to eat. The gray foxes of the area may migrate, start eating things other than their natural diet, which might become unhealthy, or die out because of lack of food. The hawks would face the same situation as the the foxes. They would find no foxes to eat, and even if they do, the hawks might get sick or have trouble reproducing because the foxes ate something that is not part of their natural diet. Removing such a small, seemingly unimportant woodrat wouldn't seem like a big deal to other organisms. But really, removing them would cause a big ripple effect, and in the end, wipe out other much bigger organisms like hawks and foxes. In the same way, even removing a small part of the organisms in the chaparral would create a big effect to the rest of the organisms.

But, on the other hand, the situation described above would only happen if one type of organisms' population drastically decreased or if the organism got wiped out. We are going to build our pool and parking lot in a small part of the vast chaparral. This wouldn't just decrease the population of one organism, it would decrease the population of most of the organisms in the area. Let us give you an example: If 100 rabbits, 50 snakes, 2000 plants and bushes lived in the chaparral, and 30 hawks circled overhead, they would be scattered throughout the chaparral. If we were to build on a small part of it, maybe 10% of the chaparral would go. In this case, the population of each type of organism would approximately decrease by 10%. Now there would be 90 rabbits, 45 snakes, 1800 plants and bushes, and 27 hawks. There wouldn't be a change in the food chain or the energy pyramid, because no organism suffered very much more than the rest. Now there are less organisms, but they will still grow at the same rate they did before. Of course, the chaparral will be affected by the building, but in the end, the food chains, growth patterns, and energy flow wouldn't be changed very drastically.

If we build these parking lots and pool in the chaparral area then the animals would have to leave the area. If there aren't any animals or healthy animals then the other animals wouldn’t get the food they need. If the animals don't get food then they don't get energy and they would all have to move out. Without the animals to eat the chaparral it would keep on growing and would eventually have to get cut back as to not interfere with the parking lot and pool.

But, as stated above, this would only happen if one species was wiped out from our chaparrel or it's population was dramatically decreased. But if we only cut away a little part of the chaparral, the same percent of population decrease would happen to all the other organisms. This way, the energy transfer and flow between organisms wouldn't be changed very much, and neither would all the food webs, and the overall growth of the ecosystem.

This is why we decided to build the parking lot and pool in areas where the animals would still be able to live a peaceful life in their chaparral habitat. If we were to build the parking lot and pool in the chaparral area then the animals would move or die out.

The affected environment would be behind the library which would affect any existing or social settings but venture a little bit into the environment. The main thing that would be affected is the plants and possibly small animals. We would try to avoid this by checking the area first and making sure this is a safe area to place a pool.

But it is not just the biotic factors of the chaparrel that will be affected. Abiotic factors will also be affected because of this project. When we clear the area of trees and bushes, water will have no place to absorb. Because of this, it will keep flowing, and it will take the soil with it. This will cause soil erosion. As stated below, one of the ways we could mitigate this is to plant more shrubs and trees that are native to the chaparral, especially on the slope. This will help prevent water run offs, which in turn will reduce the soil erosion in our chaparrel.

Another abiotic factor is the water. San Diego is in a big drought. Building a pool might take away the water we could have been giving to our chaparrel. Our solution for this problem is to use the water from cleaning the pool to water the chaparrel. Instead of having a chlorine pool that  would hurt the environment, we plan to have a saltwater pool. Doing this will also mitigate the impacts our project will have on the environment.

An impact of building a pool and a parking lot in the proposed area is that it will hurt the chaparrel. There are many animals and plants that live here (explained in more detail above). But we have tried to find a solution so that it doesn't harm the chaparrel as much. First of all, both the parking lot and pool will be built close to other structures, and not deep into the chaparrel. This is the area that is least inhabited by animals. We will also try to use the money we get from the pool (from charging the public to use it) to plant more trees and bushes. Hopefully, animals that we harmed will start living here. In this way, we will be making up all of the harm we did to the chaparrel. With the plants planted we could attract more animals to repopulate, and construct our pool and parking lot without destroying the ecosystem.

We could also mitigate the impact our project has on the chaparral is to help it grow better. We could do this by introducing microorganisms to our chaparrel. These include bacteria and fungi. This will help the chaparral grow better, by making it easier for the chaparrel to adapt to sudden abiotic changes.

A picture of an abiotic factor in the chaparral - fog

Another picture of an abiotic factor in the chaparral - drought

Should we build?

Deciding whether to build or not to build on our chaparral was a hard decision for us to make. On one hand, our chaparral is an important part of our wildlife and ecosystems and we shouldn't build on it and harm all of the organisms, but on the other hand parking lot and a pool would be a great and useful addition to our school. We have expressed our opinions in two paragraphs below. In the last paragraph, we have decided on one option - to build a pool, but not a parking lot.

Not Build

After collecting all the information, we believe that building a parking lot and swimming pool might not be a good idea. We have proof that there are living organisms in the chaparral at our school. We have seen the plants and some have actually seen a small creature such as a fox. I agree that there is lots of space but if we get rid of one area, however small, it will still harm a living thing. There are a variety of species in this chapparal that we haven't really observed yet and this could affect them whether it is where they live or perhaps a hotspot for their prey. There should always be a balance, whether it be with economics and the environment and something like this. There should be times when we do something such as build something new and a time when we should protect this environment. I understand that but we also need to first take note on what we are actually building on. There have been sightings in that chapparal of holes which could be home to small rodents, a snake, or even a burrowing owl. This land has been theirs for a long time and to build over it would be a bad idea.

Build

On the other hand, our evidence also proves that we have a lot of chaparral that is owned by Francis Parker. We could use a small part of it to build a pool for our school. We think that maybe a parking lot is not necessary, because though parking is an issue in our school property, there is a parking lot across the street. People could park there. Although some people say that this takes too long and the kids will be late for class, this issue has nothing to do with the parking. If the people know they have to park across the street, they should know to come a little earlier. A pool would be fun, but also helpful to our school. One reason is that it will be a lot more convenient for our swim team, it would save them time and money for them to use a pool that is on campus. Another good reason to build a pool is that, though our pool design may be a little expensive, but it is unique and we could get money from the public to come use it. With this money, we could plant more trees and bushes to make up for the ones we had to clear. This way, we will have a good balance between our school's development needs and the environmental needs of the chaparral.  

Final Decision

Looking at both options here, we think that it would be useful to build a pool in our chaparral area. As stated above, yes some harm will come to our wonderful chaparral, but we believe we have found a balance between the environmental needs of our chaparral and our school’s development needs. As written above, we have come up with many ways to mitigate the impact our pool will have on the chaparrel. This way, we will be doing the best we can to make up for the chaparral wildlife we had to clear. We believe building a pool on our chaparrel is the best option.

Upper School "House Groups" Experience Design Thinking!

Our Upper School unveiled a new "House System" this year, which would provide time for students to meet in small groups with advisors on a regular basis. The Houses have allowed for students to engage in important conversations and discussions, discuss school business, and also experience new concepts... like design thinking.

In early November, student house leaders were given an overview of design thinking and then they engaged in a "learning by doing" exercise where they were facilitated through the exact process that they would lead their peers through. In essence, house leaders would help their peers tackle a specific design challenge using the design thinking process.

The Challenge? Create the ultimate student life center. Due to time constraints, we broke the experience into two segments. In November, students would work on noticing, focusing, and brainstorming, while they would move into designing, creating, and testing in December.

House leaders think about the ultimate student life center

The house leaders readily stepped up to the challenge. During their instruction session, the leaders were engaged and willing participants. During the lesson day itself, I walked around and found that while many house groups may have adapted the flow of the steps, all students were engaging in creative brainstorming about what they have noticed about popular "hangout" locations at Parker, what they felt a student life center should have in it, and what they liked about other hangout locations at home or out in the community. The brainstorming was incredibly invigorating to witness and some of the ideas were really, really fun.

Students post up their big ideas from their brainstorming

December will bring the houses into the designing and creating phase - I can hardly wait to see what they come up with!

Windows of sticky notes result from the brainstorming

Middle School Science - Mr. Vandegrift's Class

Meanwhile, in our middle school science classes, students have annually engaged in a fun challenge wherein they test theories learned about basic physics and engineering. Mr. Vandegrift had previously used this lesson, but had kept it more focused in prior years. This time around he decided to once again use this project, but he converted it to be more design thinking oriented by casting an open ended pathway for students and incorporating some of the design thinking ground rules so that the spirit and process of design thinking was realistically applied.

The design challenge was: how might we build a structure out of 150 toothpicks that weighs less than 10g at completion but will support a significant amount of weight on top of it when it's built?

Students were allowed to build any shape of structure and explore various geometries in their construction to meet the challenge.

I was able to observe the students during the brainstorming phases of their project. There were a lot of great ideas being discussed, and it was great to hear students "plussing" ideas - in other words, rather than everyone tossing out tons of ideas, students methodically listened to their peers completely explain an idea and then the teammates contributed that idea before the group moved to hear another idea. The words "no" or "that's impossible" wasn't heard once!

Also, the "blue sky" thinking during the brainstorming sessions was truly inspiring and fun to watch. Some amazing and new ideas presented themselves, and students dove into deeply exploring and considering these ideas. Out of all the groups I saw, maybe one had what I'd consider to be a "traditional solution" of a basic tower with support beams. Very interesting!

In any event, I noticed that each team ended up with 3 to 4 well articulated brainstorming theories to consider for designing and creating. Something else that made this more fun for students was that Mr. Vandegrift let them roam free during brainstorming, including having them brainstorm on the windows of the classroom. This gave each group some space and also provided a neat visual capturing the process. Here are some photos of the students hard at work brainstorming:

Students post their initial ideas and begin sketching out their thinking on the glass. 

 

Mr. Vandegrift asks some prompting questions about the students' work as they brainstorm. The group on the right was already dabbling in design - looking at the physical possibilities with toothpicks.

This group had some incredibly creative ideas and it was a joy to overhear their collaborative discourse on the different ideas they were considering. 

Design Thinking: Mr. Walcott's Middle School 3D Animation Class

Our Middle School faculty have been making great strides towards more integration of design thinking principles in their classrooms. I wanted to share a couple of outstanding examples with you!

Our 7th grade 3D animation classes have been using the design thinking process in their work. They have been developing space themed animations ranging from basic to moving complex animations. Here's an incredible movie that the class made showing the process and finished product, starring our G block animators. You can see where they did their research and understanding (noticing), focused their work on particular elements (focusing), thought up creative ideas (brainstorming), and the designed and created their products. This film is their test and share. It was a natural connection for this class. Kudos to DJ Walcott and his students! All animations were 100% created by kids.

CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE LINK

Whiteboard Tables

This is just a brief update about the use of our new "collaboration zone" which is located in the Library of our Middle and Upper School campus. As you may recall from a prior post, we re-purposed the lower floor of the Library to be more of a collaborative environment for students (that post is HERE).

Part of the re-purposing involved a great deal of new furnishings coming into the space. One of the major changes was the installation of white board tables. These tables have seen a large amount of academic use by our students. Here's a photo showing a group of our students hard at work:

Design Thinking Professional Learning Experience for Faculty and Staff

On Friday, October 10th, we held a school-wide faculty professional learning event focused on design thinking at Parker. All 150+ faculty and classroom assistants were invited to participate in the session.  Faculty arrived on campus, ready to learn. We had a busy morning planned - all of our faculty would engage in a hands-on design thinking experience, followed by a collaborative exercise in which they would apply design thinking to a lesson which they could implement in their classroom in the coming weeks.

The stage was set for all faculty by a dedicated group of facilitators, all of whom arrived early to help us get the tables set up and have the room ready!

First things being first, the facilitator group felt that it would be important for our faculty to experience the design thinking process first hand. As we had some time constraints combined with working with a very large group, we settled on having a design thinking experience wherein the faculty themselves would be the client or user - as such, they would do the empathy work (notice) collectively for themselves.

The challenge we gave them was: How might we design and create the ultimate faculty lounge?

Faculty dived in to the challenge, and we methodically worked through the Parker Design Thinking steps, pausing to provide instruction at each phase. Facilitators roamed the full room, providing follow up instructions and suggestions as they moved around. At the close, groups shared out with one another, after which we had a few groups share out their ultimate lounge with the full group. Pictures really tell the story better than words, and so here are some photos from that first part of the morning:

 

Groups practice "noticing" and collecting thoughts about how they have experienced teacher lounges in the past.

 

This group is brainstorming ideas to make an awesome lounge and they are gathering the brainstorming into themes to focus their work. 

 

During the create and design phases, the room was a hive of noisy activity!

 

All hands on deck to complete the task in a short timeframe!

 

This group takes their brainstorming to create and design an ultimate lounge. 

 

An "ultimate teacher's lounge" takes shape. 

 

A finished prototype of an ultimate lounge!

Following the hands-on design thinking session, we had faculty reassemble into practical work groupings (grade level teams for Lower School, and department teams for our Middle and Upper Schools). Faculty then engaged in an exercise wherein they applied design thinking to a lesson they already had in play. We asked faculty to collaborate and improve the lesson by incorporating some or all of the design thinking steps. We overheard some truly outstanding conversations among collaborative teams about improving lessons and how they could/would incorporate design thinking into their classes. Our English department came up with a wonderful capstone project concept which they then shared out with our full group when we debriefed the session.


 Collaborative teams work receive instruction from our consultant, Parker Thomas, before diving into work on their lessons.

All in all, it was a very busy, very full, and also very productive day of learning. We solicited faculty feedback following the session, and it was overwhelmingly positive. We also got some suggestions that should help us for future design thinking learning events. If you'd like to know more, please feel free to contact us.

Planning a Design Thinking Session for 150 Faculty

October 10, 2014 - Faculty arrived on campus, ready to learn. We had a busy morning planned - all of our faculty would engage in a hands-on design thinking experience, followed by a collaborative exercise

Wait a second...

Let's stop right there - at least, let's pause for a moment.

Before we can talk about October 10th, we really need to rewind a few weeks.

A passionate and dedicated group of faculty, the same group who attended our mini-conference back in August, began meeting in the early part of September to talk about how we would best move forward in our work with design thinking and our full faculty. Feedback from our initial presentation revealed that there was a sincere desire on the part of the majority of our faculty to learn more about design thinking, and that many of them wanted the chance to experience design thinking for themselves. They also requested some guidance to create and implement design thinking lessons in their classrooms. The planning group definitely had their work cut out for them!

And so, over the course of a month, this dedicated group of people came together and talked about our next steps, specifically, how we would bring design thinking to our first Professional Learning Day of the year. In tandem with our consultant, Parker Thomas (me@parkerthomas.com), we debated and discussed merits and demerits of various activities, learnings, and projects that we could undertake during the day. Ultimately, we landed on a two-part session that would take approximately four hours.

The first part of the day would be set up to give all faculty a hands-on experience with the design thinking process. After reviewing our Parker Design Thinking Process V 1.0 with everyone, we would dive into a design challenge that was relevant for faculty and which would involve all of the steps. Following that exercise, we would then reorganize faculty into collaborative teams so that they could settle in and work on specific lessons that would be able to work in their classrooms following the professional learning day.

The planning group set up the agenda in general terms, and provided some great "think abouts" to ponder as we got set for October 10th. Parker and I then spent several hours via Skype to hammer out the agenda in a high degree of detail as well as ensure we had a bead on the needs for our planning group, who would be serving as our facilitators for the day. This was going to be something very new for all of us - hosting 150+ people in a design thinking experience all at one time.

I then set to work organizing the myriad supplies and ensuring we had a slide deck set up for the morning so that we had all of the materials on hand, ready to go on the morning of October 10th. The days leading up to October 10th were chock-full with last minute details, supply organization, and consulting with Parker to ensure we had everything we needed for the day to be a success.

Supplies at-the-ready!

Have Post-Its, Will Learn!

Parker arrived the day before, and we held a meeting with our planning group so that they knew their specific roles and tasks as facilitators for October 10th. We also finalized our presentation slide deck, and rehearsed the steps of the process with the planning group. Finally, we ensured that all materials and copies were in place. We were ready for a day of design thinking learning!

If you are thinking about setting up something similar for your faculty group, please don't hesitate to contact us with questions or wonders about how to get it done. We're happy to help!

First Steps - Dabbling in Design Thinking at our Lower School

The opening weeks of the school year found several faculty engaging in "dabbling" with Design Thinking... in other words, we had many folks take small and large jumps into using our newly created process as well as trying out some lesson strategies that incorporated some or all of the steps. I wanted to highlight some fun examples from our Lower School faculty. As we move further into the year, I will be sure to continue sharing some of the great work that is happening around design thinking in our classrooms! Our wonderful Lower School librarian is spearheading a project that will showcase many other areas in which design thinking is happening, and we'll be sharing those very soon.

We had several early steps in our Lower School during the first few weeks of school. Our drama teacher, Letty Robinson, had some fun early success incorporating design thinking strategies into her specials classroom time with students in both Pre-K and 4th grade. Here's a quick synopsis of what she did:

Pre-K (4 year olds)

• The setup: These are our youngest learners, and as such, the initial experience with design thinking needed to feel natural and fun. Letty also wanted to elicit some natural acting behaviors from the students in the process. Letty partnered with each class' assistant teacher (the asst teacher is the person who brings the students in to the room each day) for this activity.  A quick note about the room - the teacher desk is situated so that the teacher's back is to the entry door, which helped with this particular activity. The assistant teacher talked with the students and encouraged them to "sneak into the room" without alerting the teacher to their presence. As the students entered the room, they did so as quietly as possible... tip toe-ing, hunching over, and not talking. Of course, being four years old, they were not silent, but a little cooperation from Letty in terms of acting surprised helped make the initial activity fun for the students. 
• The design thinking element(s) involved: Once the students were assembled in the classroom, Letty engaged the students in a discussion about how she might set up a trap to catch sneaky students entering her classroom. "How might we" and "Why" and "Tell me more" were phrases used by Letty in the conversation (noticing and focusing), and she actively modeled "plussing" or the idea of building on ideas generated by peers in the room (brainstorming). She also actively modeled "thinking big" in terms of allowing students to come up with wild and crazy ideas without putting any constraints around their thinking (brainstorming). 

4th grade
Letty challenged her fourth grade class to engineer a strategy that would allow them to traverse the large expanse of the drama room. The catch? They had to have their entire team make it across without anyone having any body part touch the floor, and all they had in terms of tools was some large foam elements. Take a look at the video to see how it went down:

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO LINK! 

Faculty Design Thinking Work (whisper phones)
We also had a very pragmatic application of Design Thinking in our Lower School that was about as organic and natural as possible. Our primary grade teachers use a device known as a "whisper phone" in their work with our youngest learners as they work on phonemic and phonological awareness (oral/aural skills). One of our faculty was talking about putting in an order for whisper phones through a national organization one day, and another faculty member, Mike Crone, overheard the comment. After taking a look at what precisely a whisper phone entailed, Mike decided that we could build our own whisper phones for a fraction of the cost. Here's how this experience mirrored our design thinking process:

• Notice - Mike talked with our faculty member at length to understand the essential components of the whisper phone and how it was used by our students
• Focus - Mike settled on addressing the question "How might we build our own whisper phones for our students?" 
• Brainstorm - Mike spent time investigating materials and machining options to create the device
• Design/Create - He then spent time building out prototypes. The first came back a bit too big for our youngest learners, which sent him back in search of better material cut, size, width, and length. After another iteration or two, he came up with a final product.
• Test and Share - Mike presented the final product to the teacher, who was delighted! The students are using the devices as we speak. The fun part is that the whisper phones can be customized by the kids with some simple decorations. Since they are so inexpensive to build, each student can have their very own whisper phone that they get to keep. 

Here are the whisper phones - one from production, one that is decorated and customized!

Here is Mike sharing his design thinking process with our full Lower School faculty:

First Steps - Dabbling in Design Thinking in our Middle School

While our Lower School is actively trying on design thinking in a variety of ways, our Middle School is also starting to work with design thinking in several classrooms.

6th Grade: Digital Foundations Class
Most notably, a new course was rolled out this year in our Middle School wherein all 6th graders will obtain exposure to the design thinking process with specific instruction on the process itself as well as the opportunity to engage with the process with a major project. We will share the details about this when we get closer to the time when the classes are engaged in design thinking in a more intensive manner.

8th Grade: ROV Project
Some of our 8th graders are in a class that has an intriguing first project: they are going to build a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) that will operate in the water upon completion. This project presents a nice window into design thinking for our middle school students as it is both "tight" (defined parameters) and "loose" (student choice and decision making are essential).

The ROVs come in a boxed kit that have tons of parts and interesting tidbits, but zero instructions. The students work in teams to figure out the purpose of the various components and to also determine the best way to build out the ROV given the supplies they have. This emphasizes the brainstorming component of design thinking - students tossed out all manner of ideas about where the project would end up. The students also had to mentally engage in designing the outcome mentally before they began building things out. They did some diagramming and a lot of thinking and discussing about options for their ROVs. After that, the students began creating the ROV, building it out with their team. In a few days, the students will move to the test phase where they will put the ROV through its paces and determine if their design works. If it does, they will move on to share the ROV with a larger audience - if their design does not work, the students will return to brainstorming, designing, and creating phases until they land upon a successful modification to their original designs.

When I observed the class, the students were highly and deeply engaged in the ROV process. They were easily able to articulate what they were doing, the purpose behind it, and how they came up with their ideas. Here are a couple of photos:

7th Grade: LEGO Project
Some of our 7th graders are involved in a course wherein the students are building basic robots that will automate a particular task or function for the student. This is a two-pronged project that involves the students physically building out the machine and also programming the robot's activities.

The teacher, Ryan Griggs, wanted to ensure that the project was not "closed ended", or in other words, he wanted to ensure students had to think through the options and come up with their own function and outcomes. As such, he removed the pre-determined kit functions and handed over large boxes of parts and pieces to students, and gave them the option to create all manner of movements. Each group ended up focusing on different possible outcomes, ranging from having a robot pick up a can of soda and bringing it to you to being able to turn pages in a book.

Students obviously engaged in brainstorming as they considered the parts and pieces in their kits, as well as determining the work of the robot. They then had to mentally map out the design with their teammates before they began the process of creating the final product (programming and building). In the coming days they will begin testing their designs, at which point they may return to the earlier steps of the process or move on to share their successful design.

The students were again highly engaged and very active when I observed them in class! Here they are in the design phase, trying to figure out how they would build out the physical aspect of the robot:

The Parker Design Thinking Process: Version 1.0

During our mini-conference in mid-August, the biggest part of our work was to define the design thinking process for sharing out to our larger faculty and community groups. After a great deal of thoughtful discussion, the attendees created the "Version 1.0" of the design thinking process that Parker will use in its work with faculty, students and the broader community. We ultimately followed Stanford's d.school process. The d.school at Stanford has been the thought leader in design thinking in the academic arena. The d.school process is a formalized version of the design thinking process that originated at the IDEO design firm in the mid-nineties.

However, we felt that by using more "student friendly" language and terms, we would achieve greater understanding across our community more quickly. We also felt that by further defining each step with student "I can" statements, clarity about the meaning of each step would be achieved. Finally, a short paragraph that provides still more detail helps round out our Version 1.0 design thinking process. Here are our Version 1.0 steps, statements, and definitions:

Parker’s Design Thinking Process

Our design thinking process incorporates seven distinct steps and it mirrors the original design thinking process as outlined by IDEO and the d.school at Stanford.

We believe that this version is more “student friendly” by using words and terminology that are familiar to students in their learning process here at Parker.

Notice (d.school: empathy)

I notice the world around me.

I realize things can be better.

I choose to get involved.

Noticing allows you to start to see problems, and the myriad of facets that may be pertinent to a particular problem, giving rise to an excellent and elegant solution later in the process. Noticing is deliberate, dynamic, and empathic. Noticing at its best involves deliberate and careful observation with consideration towards bias and why bias occurs. Furthermore, a deep level of noticing promotes a sense of comprehension and connectivity to the surrounding environment.

Focus (d.school: define the problem)

I consider different viewpoints and perspectives.

I define the problem.

Focusing is the process of fully defining a problem, and recognizing the many layers that the problem may possess. A good solution can only come from a well-identified problem.

Brainstorm (d.school: ideate)

I imagine all of the possibilities.

I say yes rather than no.

I improve every idea.

Brainstorming is when you consider all of the possible solutions to their defined problem. It is a process that pushes you to go beyond boundaries and see things from new perspectives. It is an act the promotes creativity and innovation. When brainstorming, there are no limits - the goal is to “think big” and cast a wide net to capture multiple ideas. A great brainstorming prompt is “yes, and…?”

Design (d.school: prototype)

I make a plan.

I mind-map the process.  

Designing is making a plan. It involves thinking your way through an idea from start to finish.  It is the crucial moment when an initial path to a solution or product is selected and refined, though it may not be the ultimate path to the final ending result.

Create (d.school: prototype)

I take action.

I generate a draft or prototype.

Creating is the physical execution of the design. It results in a tangible output. The product or output is unrefined but it is “ready enough” to be shared with others for feedback. The work of creating should be mindful of a final outcome, but also mindful of the caveat that “perfection is the enemy of done.” Perfection is not the goal of creating. Instead, the goal is having a useful draft or prototype that demonstrates the selected design or solution.

Test (d.school: test)

I have an end in mind.

I try out my ideas with others.

I reflect on what did and did not work.

I learn from my results.

Testing is how you found out if your creation has addressed your problem. It is the point at which one determines the worth of the creation and frequently spurs an iterative process. An important component is having a rubric or a measure by which you are testing the success of your draft or prototype. Discovering mistakes through testing is the best possible outcome - it will make the next iteration of your idea better. Testing should send you back to some or all of the previous steps of the design thinking process as you further refine your process and/or your design.  

Share  

I share my solution with the world.

I know how to respond to suggestions and praise.

I know there are no failures - there is only new learning to be gained.

Sharing is communicating your process and your outcome to many different audiences, with a special focus given to those with whom the problem connects to the most. It is a collaborative process and an individual goal all in one. It is conversation in all its forms, written and verbal. Listening is as important as conversing. The discovery of mistakes might happen during sharing. That discovery is a “win” because it will further your understanding and learning, and it will result in a better version of the solution. Another important part of sharing is appropriately managing the feedback that is given and taken.  

Again, none of our steps are earth-shattering or even truly original. The group who met during our mini-conference mirrored the steps of Parker's process to the design thinking process outlined by the d.school at Stanford University, but put things into student-friendly language. A significant shift for us was calling out the different phases of prototyping - we chose to separate the mental thinking design phase from the physical creating phase so as to highlight the importance of thinking through scenarios and designs mentally before getting into physical prototyping.

We also thought that a visual representation of our process would be helpful in terms of communicating our work. When we brainstormed ideas for a visual representation of the process that we could use to communicate our process, the prototype looked like this:

There is a lot of symbolism and rationale that went into this particular graphic. Most important, we wanted to represent both the higher level ordering of all steps for the majority of our students while also providing a contact point for our youngest students. We were also very intent on having the graphic be circular so as to imply that there is not a defined end to the steps or process, nor is there really a clear beginning or end. Depending on where one is in their process, or how complicated their solution is, or how their testing goes, one might jump around steps in all manner of different ordering. Furthermore, some solutions only require some of the steps, while others would require multiple iterations of the process so as to discern a viable solution.

Following the mini conference, I met up with our communications graphic designer, who ultimately produced our finished product. Stunning!

FYI: The d.school model and explanation for their design thinking process and steps are outlined in the excellent book Creative Confidence, written by Tom and David Kelley, the founders of the d.school and IDEO. The d.school model is also found on several websites hosted both by the d.school and other organizations.

So, you might be asking yourself a few questions about our design thinking model. Here's a quick Q&A:

Where did the Parker team get the idea to change the names for the steps?
We were discussing the idea of making meaning of a word, and how it often takes intentional explanation for a group to understand a term in the same way. By using more school-friendly language, we hoped that the path to shared meaning would be straighter and easier for all members of our community.

Why did the Parker team change the names for the steps of the process?
This might best be answered by providing a specific example. In schools, we use the term "brainstorming" all of the time, whereas "ideate" is not such a familiar term. By specifically terming that step "brainstorming" both our students and faculty already have a base of understanding from which to work. As for the "prototype" phase, we elected to break this phase into two discrete elements, design and create, so as to ensure that students pause to mentally consider drafts and prototypes before they move into the physical act of creating them. If we just used "prototype" the concern was two-fold. One, students would not incorporate the mental consideration aspect of prototyping before beginning to produce output. Two, the word "prototype" sounds very science-heavy, and doesn't feel as relevant to arts, humanities, and younger students. We wanted to ensure that we were mindful of these important parts of our school and curriculum and forge a process that would be inclusive of all of those areas.

What does outlining the steps using a graphic accomplish?
A visual representation is a great cue for remembering or teaching. It's also a wonderful tool that communicates our process succinctly. In our research phase, we looked at other schools and how they approached communicating out their work - the more successful example schools all had a very clear and easy-to-understand graphic that captured their process and thinking. We decided to follow suit with our work.

Why did the team decide to incorporate the "I can" statements for each step?
The participants at the mini-conference agreed that by putting some prompting statements along with each step's name, we would help students and faculty gain better clarity about the intent of each step. In designing student learning outcomes or learning targets, pedagogical best practice calls for "I can" or "I will" statements. We decided to fold in that best practice into our work with design thinking.

What is the relationship between "Dream / Do / Try" and the full process?
For our very youngest learners, seven steps is a lot to remember. By distilling the steps to their essence, even our youngest learners will be able to gain purchase into our process.

Are you interested in creating your vision version 1.0 for your community? Do you have other questions about our process, graphic, or explanations of our design thinking approach? Feel free to contact us with questions!