Looking beyond the hexagons: What does it mean to become an education designer?
Authored by: Maureen Carroll and Laura McBain
“For me, and, I am sure, for most of you, to be human is to be always in the process of becoming, to be in quest of openings, of possibilities. Always.” ~Maxine Green
We wrote this article a few months ago, yet it feels especially important in this moment.
While we situate reflections based on in-person design experience, we believe, personally and professionally, that we are constantly in a state of becoming as we react, regroup and respond to the challenges facing education around the globe. If this moment has taught us anything, it is that we must continue to evolve, stay dynamic and adapt to the changing conditions around us.
A bit of Context: The d.school is a forward-thinking community of innovators whose lifeblood is constant experimentation. K12 schools operate with a sense of deep thoughtfulness before they approach any change. Laura, the co-director of the K12 lab at the d.school, and Maureen, a lecturer at the d.school and a design, creativity and innovation K12 consultant, were curious about what might happen when these worlds collide. They decided to explore this intersection through the lens of 8 design abilities, which help students develop their own creative confidence and also inspire others, take risks, and persevere through tough projects throughout their lives. The Campbell School of Innovation, a public school whose mission is to unleash students’ potential through design thinking, was a partner in this education experiment.
As educators, our first day in the classroom probably looks radically different than our 5th day, 5th month or 15th year. We change, and we evolve, and we are always in a state of becoming. Becoming implies a sense of movement, growth and constant learning which is an essential part of being a designer and an educator. Many educators have discovered and embraced the “hexagon” process of design thinking. They have successfully launched design challenges, built schools around design thinking, and are experts in the process of crafting and delivering design challenges in their community. But these same educators are asking “What’s next?” and “How do I get better at being a designer in a K12 context?” At the d.school, the design abilities are our attempt to think about what’s next. And teachers are always becoming and continually refining their craft, whether in the day-to-day delivery of lessons or through ongoing professional development in their careers. This iterative growth process is at the heart of becoming. We decided to approach the teaching of the eight design abilities, not in a static way, but through the lens of becoming. As we embrace and endure the design challenges embedded in our current moment, it seems important for us to delve even more deeply into what becoming really means in an educational context, and what it means to develop our abilities as designers.
According to our colleague Carissa Carter, design abilities are a set of mindsets and behaviors that emphasize what students are learning and recognize the habits they are developing. The eight design abilities are: Navigate Ambiguity, Learn from Others (People & Context), Synthesize Information, Rapidly Experiment, Move Between Concrete and Abstract, Build and Craft Intentionally, Communicate Deliberately, and Design Your Design Work. Through hands-on projects at the d.school in our experiential learning-style courses, our students gain practice in these abilities via a wide range of tools, methods, projects, mindsets, behaviors and artifacts.
To discover the needs of our K12 learning community and to expand our thinking of what it means to become a designer, we went on a journey of discovery with the teachers at the Campbell School of Innovation. Together, we wanted to understand how the design abilities connected to the ever evolving process of becoming.
We initiated our project by creating a series of three professional development sessions with the Campbell teachers. We explored translating the design abilities into K12 classroom, crafted new ways to teach the abilities in the classroom, and codified a lesson planning process that focused on abilities over product and reflection over assessment. In this three-part blog series, we explore what we did, what we learned and what questions remain. Our hope is that our journey in helping educators become designers will inform your journey of becoming.
Workshop # 1 Translating Design Abilities
In our first workshop, in June, 2019, we wanted to see how design abilities were used in the K-12 classroom, and if so, what did they look like? We asked the teachers to reflect on a design experience, create a journey map, and reflect on where and how the design abilities were showing up in their own work in the classroom. They assembled in grade level teams and were given a design ability card and asked to change the language to reflect what the words might mean both to them and to their students.
After the workshop we reviewed the teachers’ work. We began with the design ability -Learn from Others (People & Contexts). This ability includes the skills of empathizing with different people, testing new ideas with them and observing and noticing in different places and contexts. Recognizing the opportunity, and then learning from others is something that happens throughout a design project, both with end users as well as other stakeholders. There is an acute sensitivity to others that characterizes this ability.
Translating the design ability of learning from others into words of their own highlighted the power of context. For some, learning from others meant “being curious about others” and “listening without judgment.” For others, it meant both telling and retelling your story. The teachers’ comments revealed that who their students interviewed was just as important as where their interview subjects were from. And equally important was the perspective and experiences the students brought to the design challenge.
What We Learned
1. The Power of Naming
Teachers design classrooms, experiences, and assessments to serve the needs of their students. As they translated the design abilities into language that made sense to them and to their students, this became very clear. The power of naming provided a shared language to notice both strengths and growth opportunities. What we discovered echoed educational researcher Paolo Freire’s (1970) words, …”naming the world transforms reality from ‘things’ in the present moment to activities in response to situations, processes, to becoming…” We hoped that naming would provide that sense of ownership and agency that would transform the design abilities from “our” d.school design abilities into “their” design abilities.
2. Historical Context & Constructs
Often people mistake empathy as simply doing interviews. Yet, the design ability of learning from others is much bigger than this. It requires us to acknowledge historical context and constructs. Learning from people and context is not a transactional experience. It is mutuality. In K12 classrooms it means learning “with” people and “through” context. Constructivist teaching is based on the belief that learning occurs as learners are actively involved in a process of meaning and knowledge construction rather than passively receiving information. Learners are the makers of meaning and knowledge. This requires reflection, and as Dewey’s work reminds us, “We learn not from experience, but from reflecting on experience.” We saw the importance of this in how the teachers translated this design ability.
3. Learning from people and contexts is a process and the process.
Learning from people and contexts is not simply a step that we reference in the design process, instead, it permeates the work of a designer. Learning with and from people helps designers set aside their own assumptions about the world in order to gain insight into their users and their needs. It requires deliberate practice, as we must intentionally seek opportunities to deeply connect with people in meaningful ways. Learning with and from people is the ability we must embody each and every day as we strive to improve, reflect and create with our students- as we are becoming. Its’ importance is something we relearned in this experiment. We realized that the words we chose to describe the design abilities were not necessarily how they were interpreted by teachers.
Remixing, ownership and iteration, and striving to really see things through another’s eyes is the centerpiece of becoming a designer and this is what mattered most to us in this learning journey.
Interested to learn more?
Join a conversation: We are hosting a webinar on June 26, 2020 at 10:30 PST to explore how the design abilities can enhance K12 education. RSVP here
Read the next article: Be on the look out for part two of this journey next week.
