Redefining the Classroom: Framing School Planning as a Design Challenge

Published in

Designed Classroom

2 min readJul 2, 2016

tl;dr: In which a promise is made, 53 articles proposed, the purpose explained, and some conventions presented.

Guiding Question

What would it look like if I used the principles & frameworks that I espouse as I plan for and teach classes in the 2016–2017 school year?

Purpose

… of the whole, grand experiment is to publish, every Saturday from today, July 2nd, 2016, until Saturday, July 1st, 2017, what I do as I plan for and teach the upcoming school year.

Week 0

Welcome to the inaugural post. At this point, I am defining the scope and outcomes of this project. Teaching a school year is a complex, multi-phase project. Over the next fifty-three weeks I plan to use Design Thinking, Agile and Lean methodologies, the Flipped Classroom and Constructivism paradigms and Project-Based Learning as I design, iterate and execute what and how I teach classes during the 2016–2017 school year. I should acquire enough data and experience, that, at its end, I will be able reflect on whether I have “walked the walk” or, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, not done, only taught.

Conventions

tl;dr = “Too Long; Didn't Read”; I am implementing the Stack Exchange definition, “Here, in a nutshell, is what I mean to say”. Read more on Wikiwand (the Simple English version of Wikipedia)
Guiding Question = “the fundamental query that directs the search for understanding” - evergreen.edu. It is open-ended and succinct, with emotive force and intellectual bite, and requires high-level cognitive work to answer. In my case it stems from and results in a real-world project that is important and relevant to me. Read more in the Alfie Kohn article on the role of questions in education, because, well, it’s Alfie Kohn. ‘Nuff said.
Retrospective = one of what will be many nods to the Agile Development process. An opportunity for self-inspection and planning for improvement, it is a qualitative review of the activities completed and the group-members, relationships, process, and tools involved in getting to completion. More at the Scrum Guide and Retro-Mat.
Code = see below. More at Javascript Tutorial

/*  sometimes what I am trying to say makes more sense (at least to me) when written as a block of code as Code includes but does not always follow the conventions of prose. */function writeAsCode(gibberish){
      return gibberish + MAGIC;  // 'cuz code === MAGIC
}var blockOfText;
if (blockOfText !== clearSuccintAndMeaningful) {
    writeAsCode(blockOfText);
}
else
    console.log(blockOfText);

Retrospective

(Group-members, Relationships, Process, and Tools)

Keep
T: tl;dr because I think it is novel/geeky (I guess we will have to see if that bears out)

Drop
P: trying to write everything on Friday

Add/Change
P: more Diary/Journal
T: photos
G: writing that influences this project
T: backlog
T: user profiles for my courses

Commit
P: transcribe my notes each day this week

Next Step

The Discovery phase.