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!

Aurora Public Schools is committed to supporting all students in shaping a successful future. This simple sentence challenges everyone within the system to ask, “What does FUTURE mean to our students?” How can we design engaging learning for ALL students in such a way that every day is one step closer to the future they will face?

Our response has been that those of us entrusted with teaching and learning must become designers…we have to move away from the 20th century education model that found success (or failure) in the race to the top, which was based on one-room schoolhouse thinking from the days of yore.

NOW our design question is: How can we become a design team that transforms student learning (and their futures)? This is the journey the APS Teaching and Learning team is taking. And we invite you to join us as we begin this 1000-step journey one…step…at…a…time.

“It’s not ‘us versus them’ or even ‘us on behalf of them.’ For a design thinker it has to be ‘us with them’”

– Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO

STEP ONE: What is Design Thinking? What does it have to do with education?

In APS, we have created a vision that commits us to transform student learning. Without a new way of working together, this vision is just a string of words. To that end, we are becoming scholars and eager practitioners of Design Thinking.

Here’s what that means:

1. Instead of staying in the office or conference room, we create questions to ask our users in empathy interviews(and determining who the user is has become a POWERFUL discussion!) so that we can determine their needs.
2. We are building an integrated team of instructional designers who bring expertise and assets beyond job descriptions and cubicles. Design opportunities in service to our students are only as strong as the creativity and possibilities we stir together in a design session.
3. We develop prototypes and then ask users (students…teachers…principals…district level leaders…parents) if the idea meets their need. We are learning to be hungry for feedback…actually relishing the “NO!” as much as the “YES!”
4. We take our lead from start up companies who represent the future our students are entering by always asking, “How can we improve?” We don’t limit feedback to test scores, but we engage in robust work with sites and learning communities. This work leaves us challenged with ideas and inspired by the impact of learning experiences for students and adults.

Have we reached this level of practice yet? No…but we are developing from the ground up a team who will impact thousands of students’ futures because we are willing to think differently about education.

Want to understand the foundations of Design Thinking? Here’s a great interview with David Kelley, the founder of IDEO:

Join us in designing! Here’s a Design Opportunity we are playing with right now:

HOW CAN WE CREATE A WORK ATMOSPHERE THAT INSPIRES AND SUPPORTS DESIGN AS A WAY OF WORKING AND THINKING TOGETHER?

This space will be a weekly way to engage our team in a new way of learning…join us!