Atlanta K12 Design Challenge (@AK12DC) Summit 2015 is underway for day 2.  Started early on a Saturday morning with eleven design teams and 60+ educators ready to build on Day 1.  The schedule:

We started the day reflecting on the work from day 1.  A number of teams shared their learnings from day 1.

• The day provided productive time to work on their prototype.
  
  
• They enjoyed the design thinking refresher on “designing the ideal chair,” especially thinking about it from the perspective of different users (Simpson characters)
  
  
• What they learned is that different types of chairs were designed depending upon the user they were assigned.
  
  
• They felt positive about the storytelling exercise and thinking about their design challenge as a story that has unfolded.
  
  

We then went into a session on defining what it means to build a design thinking mindset.  What are the elements (see image below) that go into a team or an individual building a mindset that promotes a culture of design thinking?

• Focus on Humans
  
  
• Be Obnoxiously Curious
  
  
• Be Mindful of Process
  
  
• Embrace Experimentation
  
  
• Iterate Everything
  
  
• Words Matter
  
  
• Show Don’t Tell 
  
  
• Inspire and be inspired
  
  
• First and Teach to Fish

The teams were asked to apply their understanding of the mindset elements to a series of hypothetical activities.

The teams ran through a series of three activities.  After each activity, we processed what was learned in the conversation.  Scott Sanchez (@jscottsanchez), our design facilitator, engaged all teams in the sharing time.  One team member from Westminster Schools, Peyten Williams, indicated that the nine elements for a design thinking mindset are an instructive tool to think about how to be a good teacher.  

The large group conversation on developing a design thinking mindset was a lively and instructive time for everyone.  (see Storify summary of this part of day 2 summit).

Design teams were given time to work on developing their stories for the afternoon session on “storytelling.”  Each team will have 5 minutes to construct a story, sharing with the audience their journey.  What have been the milestones along the way, what are their learnings, and where are they along the path will be components of their story.  The story arc is the template they are using (see below):

After working on constructing their stories, design teams were paired up to test their story on another team and receive feedback.  Using the feedback they prepared for their final presentation of their story after lunch.  There was a good deal of energy in the room, as well as some nervousness about getting all the data together into a five minute story.  Quite a task!

The following link to a Storify synopsis of Twitter links during the storytelling time (click here) will give you some sense of what was accomplished.  We videotaped the whole day and captured all eleven stories, which will be posted on the website in the coming weeks.

On Friday, 60 educators and a group of mentors and our leadership team convened at Georgia Tech's Student Success Center to spend two days strengthening our design thinking skills, going deeper into our individual school challenge work, learning how to better share and tell our stories (successes and failures!), creating next stage action plans, and presenting our results to date.  Scott Sanchez opened the summit with a reminder of how hard innovation is, how important it is, and why design thinking helps us innovate. Friday's agenda was dedicated to a new design thinking exercise ("Design a Chair for one of the Simpson characters"), 5-10 minute team shares of "where are we," heavily facilitated/mentored team time, and storytelling training. 

In the design thinking exercise, each team was assigned one of the Simpson characters and given a brief summary of that character's general personality, interests, and behaviors. The challenge was to rapidly design a chair for this character, beginning first with the challenge to sketch the chair. The exercise built through multiple iterations, each time with a new material/form: sketch, cardboard, pipe cleaners, toothpicks, and modeling clay. After each iteration, we would share some team examples. It was fascinating to observe the challenge of the various material constraints, and in particular how teams differed in their material preferences--some loved the modeling clay, most hated the toothpicks, others were really successful with the pipe cleaners. As we reflected on this exercise, we uncovered (and Scott empathized ) that as more constraints are added the more creativity emerges. It forces you to think differently. However, you can't start with too many constraints.  It's a process of "flaring" (less constraints) then "narrowing" (more constraints). So why did we build the chairs with different materials as we iterated? The work is harder as you simplify the materials, and it is intentionally designed to help us focus on what matters most. 

Following the refresher, each o f the 11 teams was given 5 minutes to share out their prepared narrative on their work since the fall and their goals for the two-day summit.  Every school is in a different place: Some aligned with a specific strategic initiative/need and are using the design thinking process to advance those initiatives quickly but with great insights and prototypes. Others are just beginning and gaining important cultural insights that are informing their approaches. The range of projects is wide, but each is clearly going to impact the student experience and the learning communities at each school. The tweets below are a bit of a "teaser" of the work that will continue Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. 

Before breaking for lunch and an afternoon of time for teams to work together and to get feedback from other teams, Scott took us all through a Story Tell training session. The goal here is to plant seeds for tomorrow's culminating presentation and to give teams some tools that will be applicable back in their schools: in classrooms, the board room, and parent night. Teams did three rounds of collaborative storytelling, and Scott provided a robust d.global overview of the important steps to a compelling story.

The afternoon was completely dedicated to coveted time for teams to work on their challenges, get feedback from another team, and then finish out the day in preparation for Saturday's work and final presentations. It was a great first day. Tons of energy, lots of learning, and enthusiasm for the work ahead!

The two day spring 2015 Design Summit starts tomorrow! As we look back over our work, let's take a look at where we were last Spring. Posted below are the 2014 Spring Summit closing presentations that reflect the challenges and the emerging prototypes. As you'll see in the days to come, things have changed rather markedly for many schools in the past 12 months. Empathy, Prototyping, Ideation, and Prototyping continue!