Week 6
Discovery and exploratory research synthesis
This week, we did our stage-2 presentation of discovery and exploratory research synthesis as a conclusion to the current stage research results in class with Prospect Studio guests. The presentation covers our primary research, including surveys and interviews we conducted with students, parents, and educators; and the secondary research consists of resourceful online research, literature reviews, as well as case studies. Among these, the interviews present to us some real situations of K12 education while enabling us to see the conflict of demands between different stakeholders, though they are supposed to work together toward preparing students ready for the real world, and the reality of the future. There seems to be a lack of systematic connections between these groups, where design opportunities may arise.
As our guests suggested, it would be interesting to identify the links between students, teachers, the school board, and the district, for example, promoting mutual understanding between the groups, helping parents understand the whole-children education… We also hope to recognize what are the weights that are holding people back in making changes and what are the forces pushing forward during the pivot. It seems we still need to further combine primary research and secondary research to drive insights and inform the next steps.
In this week’s design research method class, we practiced the Rose, Bud, Thorn activity to re-interpret our research data from the interviews. Followed by the affinity map exercise, this activity helped us set complex information down to smaller groups, allowing further conversations and deeper understanding. Arranging the information into a physical expansion due to their similarity and interconnection in the affinity map assists the “theme finding”.
In the second round of the Rose, bud, thorn exercise, we combined voting to make sure the team is on the same page deciphering these key reflections. Then we categorized them by themes to narrow down and prioritize the interesting areas for the next step design opportunities.
