After the Mini Conference, Before the Start of School...

One of the "beta version 1.0" decisions that we made during the mini-conference was in regards to the general plan of how we might roll out the information about design thinking to our peers across all three school divisions (and beyond). We all felt very strongly that the forward movement with design thinking should be invitational - in other words, we would not be putting any firm requirements on faculty for the coming school year about how and when to implement design thinking in their practice. Instead, the teachers who attended the mini-conference committed to trying out the design thinking process and serving as a resource for their peers. The efforts around design thinking would loosely fall under the purview of the Assistant Head of School, and as folks indicated interest in participating, resources and support would be provided. As momentum built on its own, additional support and more formalized structures for making future decisions would then be put into place as needed.

In essence, the plan was that we were going to try very hard to honor the design thinking process as we implemented design thinking at Parker. At its inception, the plan looked like this:

Given design thinking was new, and the pre-work had been a bit scattered and leaderless, the group felt that the new Assistant Head of School (aka me, myself and I) would take on the formal introduction of design thinking to all faculty groups at Parker. This would be done during the teacher pre-service week as part of my introduction to all faculty groups. During this presentation, three things would be shared with faculty: the what, the why, and the how behind design thinking. The "what" comprised the back history of design thinking and explaining its development and how it became conceptualized for schools. The rationale or the "why" for design thinking would also be communicated, sharing research from what employers and leading schools are saying and doing. Finally, the "how" would be shared. This would be information about our "Version 1.0 model," our graphic representation, and the next steps for the 2014-2015 academic year. The intent was to bring all faculty to a baseline of understanding regarding the what, the why, and the how so that the invitation could then be extended to join the journey this coming school year.

As a result, the week of August 25th found the me making two presentations to two different groups of faculty.

I generally do not like giving a "stand and deliver" style presentation, but I also knew that faculty would prefer that we keep the time as short and as informative as possible, so I strove to respect their time and focus. Each presentation was approximately an hour, with about 15 minutes devoted to introductions and 45 minutes spent informing everyone about the what, why and how of design thinking.  If you would like a copy of the slide deck that I used to drive the talk, I am happy to share. Feel free to email me!

At the conclusion of the presentation, the faculty groups did a "clear and unclear windows" protocol with everyone who was in the room. This was so that we could collect real-time feedback that would help us understand the mindset of the faculty following the presentation as well as to inform our next steps in moving forward with design thinking.  I asked the faculty to fold a sheet of paper so that four squares resulted. Each square was titled: 1. Unclear, 2. Clear, 3. Wonder, 4. Wow. In each box, faculty shared information about what they had just heard and/or their general thoughts on design thinking.

Many faculty took a moment to talk with me personally after the presentations, and happily, the overwhelming majority of comments were very positive and there were several excellent questions. In the following days, follow-up emails from many faculty indicated a strong interest to dig into implementing parts of design thinking in their upcoming classes.