Fostering a Human-Centered Design Culture

Where have we been, where are we now, where are we going?

Recently, I found myself totally geeking out about the simple recommendation to find a visual metaphor to help make a design prototype we are working on more comprehensible, for myself — and possibly for others around me. The science nerd in me led to the choice of a ‘tesseract,’ also referred to as a ‘hypercube.’ Personally, I like hypercube more because anything with the word ‘hyper’ in it makes it seemingly super-cool!

A Hypercube — the cube inside is the same size as the outside one — woah, mind blown!

The reason I chose this object was that it might be considered a bridge of sorts, a space-time bridge between past, present, and future. Have you seen the movie “Interstellar”? *Spoiler* This is what our hero Matthew McConaughey found himself in when he entered the black hole.

Where am I? More like, when am I?

Anyways, for me it made me think about bridges and how important they are when they get you from point A to point B, when we create them to promote communication and forge meaningful relationships with others, and when we use them to honor where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going.

ReDesign Aurora & #APSdesigns

I believe it is important in Aurora Public Schools for all stakeholders to have access to the journey we have embarked on in building a culture of human-centered design. It is a story that began for many of us a couple years ago, but until now, may not have really been documented in the digital space for others to see and learn from. I think one purpose of the ReDesign Aurora blog is for our design team to share, reflect, and provide learning opportunities for our readers. It is a great way for us to document the evolution and application of our human-centered design thinking comprehension, skills, and connections. It is like a multimedia diary that we’re cool with everyone looking at.

Sure, go right on ahead and peruse as much as you’d like — we want you to see this stuff!

For me, I participated in my first design thinking professional development a couple years ago, but it wasn’t until recently that I began to document it. Alongside writing for this blog, I have chosen to capture anything design thinking using Twitter and the hashtag #APSdesigns.

This convo came about as we looked for some resources to help our comprehension of what design thinking looks like and how we may apply this process to transforming teaching and learning.

Since that fateful day Joe shared a resource with me, I have attempted to use Twitter to capture APS design thinking in action. I believe that if our stakeholders are able to have access to how and what we are designing for, it will increase momentum around embracing this approach, and most importantly, for listening to our users (especially students!), ideating based on their input, creating prototypes, and getting feedback from them. It will foster a norm of continual improvement in all that we do and always thinking, “How can we do this better?”

Participate!

Below you will find some highlights from #APSdesigns, and I encourage you to share this hashtag with others and use it to document your engagement in the design process. Also share this blog and please feel free to add comments to keep the conversation going. All of us can be participants in documenting where we have been, where we are now, and where we are going!

Laurie Marcellin and Hi Howard led our lead design team in fun, creative, ideation around how we foster a design culture. It is important to us to do this because we know that if we use the design process, it will ensure that we listen to users and create many opportunities to transform teaching and learning. Plus, we are building our own design thinking skills along the way!

Early on, the Ed Tech department has looked for design thinking entry points with teachers and district staff. Here, we are facilitating a conversation to help teachers begin to think of our students as users and how their role may shift when planning learning experiences for them. Are teachers asking their users for feedback?

Laredo Elementary staff are using the design process to find ways to engage the chronically absent at their school. They shared out where they were, where they are now, and invited stakeholders to participate in where they are going during a leadership meeting and a Division of Equity and Learning meeting.

Joe Dillon & the Ed Tech department in collaboration with Remi Holden of University of Colorado Denver hosted a design day for Park Lane elementary and Columbia middle schools leaders and teachers to engage in the design process centered on the merging of our equity and educational technology work-which we’re referring to as #techquity.

Finally, as you can see below, we would love for you to bring your voice to the conversation and show the world how Aurora Public Schools is embracing a culture of design in order to support all of our students in shaping a successful future!

ReDesign Aurora

ReDesign Aurora is a place for educators, designers and future thinkers to learn more about our work as a department to transform student learning. As a Teaching and Learning team, we have committed to transform student learning and build leadership capacity by working in an authentic 21st Century space that features the guiding principles of design thinking. This will be a weekly collaborative communication for our team members and for educators who are committed to doing something different in service to our students. This space will feature a regular design opportunity for ideas…brainstorms…possibilities. We hope you’ll join the conversation!