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Reflection 5: Milton High School

4/29/2014

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Tell us the story of your school and what makes it unique. If you were to describe it in a few sentences, what would you say?

Milton High School is a place where there is a lot of success both in and out of the classroom. 


What was your original HMW (How Might We) question coming out of the January 14th Design Workshop?

How might we create a community-based experience where all students feel valued?

Tell us about your team's experience with the Empathy phase and the biggest surprises and unexpected insights you found.

We created posters and placed them around the school with the question: When have you felt valued at school? The students were very willing to talk about experiences and share some great stories. Some of the bigger "surprises" were that students felt valued when the teachers made sure that they were learning, and while grades are still very important, they valued learning over a good grade. More importantly, we started hearing teachers asking why they weren't a part of the empathy interviews and students saying that we should be asking the teachers this question. So while we started this with the student as our user, it became clear that we needed to look at the teachers and gain empathy from them.

Tell us about your team's experience with the Design Summit. What stands out most? What will you take with you?



We enjoyed the opportunity to spend some dedicated time to dive into the empathy gained and getting comfortable with the idea that we were going to be changing our user. The chance to build on the ideas of the group and prototype was very powerful. Even more empowering was the groups ability to truly listen to feedback during the testing sessions and make slight variations between users. Overall, the group was able to effectively utilize that time and come back to Milton and really engage the teachers in what has been done and the possibilities moving forward.

What POV (Point of View) statement did you settle on at the Design Summit (at least for now)?

We heard that teachers felt devalued because they were not included in the empathy interviews.

We were amazed to realize that teachers at Milton find value in recognition/inclusion/connections.

It would be game changing if we created an experience at Milton where every teacher feels valued in the way they need it.

Tell us about the prototype you built at the Design Summit. What was it? How did it address your POV? In the testing you did with users, what did you learn?

Our prototype was built around the idea of a "Trading Spaces" opportunity for the teachers. Essentially we would have departments work with each other to redesign each others workrooms during the added teacher days at the end of this school year. At the summit, we presented a developed a skit where the user would be a teacher at Milton and be a part of the redesign of another departments workroom. The user testing was powerful for the group because we really had to get comfortable with listening to feedback and not tell the user what they were supposed to experience.

Tell us about what you're going to do next to continue iterating. What's your action plan? What are you doing on Empathy? What are you doing on Define/POV? What are you planning to do on your prototype?

We have come back to Milton and really started to have the conversations with the teachers and gain empathy from them. In early April we had three days where we held our Design Challenge Chats with the teachers to explain what the team had been doing, where we were in the process, and begin to gain the empathy. We asked teachers to write about when they felt valued (or not) and we also had them brainstorm ideas about things that can bring value to them. We have identified an area in the building that will be our Design Thinking space and continue to build on the things that teachers have shared and continue to iterate. We are in the process of unpacking a lot of what was shared during our lunch chats and will solidify our action plan over the next week.

What other reflections on the process to date and the collaboration with other schools would you like to share?
The opportunity to be involved with this has been powerful and very timely. I believe that Milton can benefit greatly from the work generated during the summit. I know that some of the others schools identified teachers as their users also, so I will be interested to see what they ultimately prototype and test and see the similarities and/or differences to what we ultimately do at Milton.
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Reflection 4: The Lovett School

4/29/2014

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Tell us the story of your school and what makes it unique. If you were to describe it in a few sentences, what would you say?
Lovett is a K-12 school committed to educating the whole child. Our mission statement accurately defines us as a community that seeks to develop young men and women of honor, faith, and wisdom with the character and intellect to thrive in college and in life. At Lovett we value offering students a variety of experiences academically, athletically, and in the fine arts. Our Vision for Learning defines the types of experiences our students will encounter as they move through Lovett and states the following: Lovett offers experiences that inspire our students to love learning. We encourage them to think critically, communicate effectively, engage creatively, and collaborate purposefully. We provide the opportunities and resources that help our students develop independence and self-direction and extend their learning beyond the walls of the classroom as they grow intellectually, emotionally, physically, aesthetically, morally, and spiritually.

What was your original HMW (How Might We) question coming out of the January 14th Design Workshop?

How might we cultivate student curiosity K-12?

Tell us about your team's experience with the Empathy phase and the biggest surprises and unexpected insights you found.
As a team we conducted many empathy interviews with all types of Lovett community members (students, teachers, and parents) in addition to different types of people outside of the Lovett community. We wanted to find out what made them curious and how they behaved when they were curious. We even took a field trip to Atlanta Tech Village and spent a morning with a start-up company. We really enjoyed our empathy interviews and discovered how important active listening is. While we started our interviews with a couple of common questions, we quickly realized the importance of listening to people's stories and letting them unfold in an organic way.

When we started to unpack our empathy interviews, we found three common themes. First, we found that our students from youngest to oldest value curriculum that is relevant to their lives. We were surprised that this even came out of our interviews with our youngest students. Second, we found that as a community, we really have a fear of failure. Our students and parents in particular fear failure and fear that even the smallest of student failures will somehow define their future in life. Third, we found that many of our parents tend to use grades as their sole predictor of success for their children since grades have great influence on college attendance. We have high performing students, and our students, their parents, and their teachers are all invested in student success. However, because Lovett values different types of educational experiences that build skills in critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity, grades alone are not always seen as the "be all end all" by the majority of our teachers. Instead, teachers often embrace small setbacks and use them as teachable moments, but we found that this doesn't always align with how parents interpret small setbacks. We feel that our community as a whole will benefit from more conversation around this topic. 


Tell us about your team's experience with the Design Summit. What stands out most? What will you take with you?

Our team had an amazing experience at the Design Summit. We had a great time working together to focus our POV and develop our prototype, and our team dynamics alone helped make the experience a memorable one! Nonetheless, I think the Define stage was the hardest for us, but I also think it was also some of the most important work for us. We had to make sure our language really defined our user and the need we wanted to address. As we move forward, the ability to understand our user and to understand how to iterate a POV statement will be key. We are not sure that our current user will be our end user, but having the skills to define our user and need will make it easier for us to adapt.

The energy in the room at the Design Summit was palpable. We have all been to conferences and other professional development activities, but this experience was so different because of the excitement and commitment brought by each team. When you put all of us in one room, the results were inspirational. I think I can speak for each of my team members by saying that not only do we feel incredibly fortunate to have been part of this experience but also to work at a school that would value and support this type of experience. 

What POV (Point of View) statement did you settle on at the Design Summit (at least for now)?

We met a caring, loving parent who is invested in her child's future.

We were amazed to realize that this parent's interpretation of grades was the sole predictor of success in life.

It would be game changing if we could invite new discourse with our parents around embracing failure (risk-taking) as an integral part of Lovett's Vision for Learning. 

Tell us about the prototype you built at the Design Summit. What was it? How did it address your POV? In the testing you did with users, what did you learn?

Our goal is to invite our parents into new dialogue around risk-taking in the classroom and how classroom experiences relate to those described in our Vision for Learning. Therefore, for our prototype, we designed a special parent night. During this hour long event, our parents would participate in some improv and mini-challenges that would push them from their comfort zone and into a place where they had to take risks to be successful. Our prototype also offered time for reflection in discussion groups and also in the hallways during transition time through graffiti walls, confessional booths, and conversation. Ultimately we would use the feedback we gathered that evening to decide if and how we would move forward with more discussion.

During our testing we learned that time and context were very important. We had to get our parents in and out in a reasonable amount of time since it was an after-hours event, and we had to provide enough context for them so they understood the importance and the goals of the evening. We took the feedback from our test users and incorporated it into our final prototype presented at the Design Summit. 

Tell us about what you're going to do next to continue iterating. What's your action plan? What are you doing on Empathy? What are you doing on Define/POV? What are you planning to do on your prototype?



What other reflections on the process to date and the collaboration with other schools would you like to share?
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Reflection 3: Woodward Academy (North Campus)

4/29/2014

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Tell us the story of your school and what makes it unique. If you were to describe it in a few sentences, what would you say?

We are a small satellite school of a larger academy. There is a very strong sense of community among the faculty and families. 

What was your original HMW (How Might We) question coming out of the January 14th Design Workshop?
How might we design student-driven learning experiences to capitalize on students' curiosity.


Tell us about your team's experience with the Empathy phase and the biggest surprises and unexpected insights you found.

We found the Empathy phase quite insightful. We were surprised at the parents' satisfaction with the educational experience their children are having. They like the well-rounded experience Woodward North provides.

Tell us about your team's experience with the Design Summit. What stands out most? What will you take with you?

We were amazed how emotionally and mentally exhausted we were. It was surprising to us that we failed BIG with our prototype when we thought we were going in with the answer to our HMW statement. 

What POV (Point of View) statement did you settle on at the Design Summit (at least for now)?

We met caring teachers.
We were amazed to realize many teachers want to facilitate an innovative learning environment, they just don't know how.
It would be game changing if we could provide WN teachers a way to learn and apply innovative teaching strategies to meet the evolving needs of our students.

Tell us about the prototype you built at the Design Summit. What was it? How did it address your POV? In the testing you did with users, what did you learn?

Initially, we prototyped an Innovation Coach who would be responsible for assisting teachers to implement innovative teaching strategies. We thought this person would be the resource answer to our POV statements. We realized that one person is not the answer but that it will be a community of learners with the desire for change that will make the difference.

Tell us about what you're going to do next to continue iterating. What's your action plan? What are you doing on Empathy? What are you doing on Define/POV? What are you planning to do on your prototype?

We are in the process of developing a prototype for a Professional Learning Community to be led by an Innovative Leader and team. Our plan is to share a storyboard of the opportunities that this will make available and get feedback from our faculty.
At this point, our prototype is not complete to share.

What other reflections on the process to date and the collaboration with other schools would you like to share?
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Reflection 2: Westminster Schools

4/28/2014

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Tell us s the story of your school and what makes it unique. If you were to describe it in a few sentences, what would you say?


Our vision statement is:
Westminster belongs to a changing world, and we contribute to these changes. We yearn for learning to
be relevant to our lives, and we are guided by these essential questions:
How is the world changing?
How does this shape our learning?
How do people learn best?
We begin knowing we must model and promote lifelong learning in a global community. We commit
to use technology and research to help us learn these essential skills. To this end, our learners—adults and children—will:
Communicate and collaborate
Problem find and problem solve
Create and innovate
Reflect and revise
Serve and lead
We also have a longtime reputation as a school of excellence where students perform well on AP exams and SAT's, and matriculate to ivy league colleges.
What was your original HMW (How Might We) question coming out of the January 14th Design Workshop?

How might we create a hub of innovation in the Middle School in order to nurture creative confidence (empowering teachers and students to take risks, to learn from failure, to feel empowered, and to know that their voice can have an impact)?

(We continued to edit and streamline our original statement as we went along so this is not it's absolute original form.)

Tell us about your team's experience with the Empathy phase and the biggest surprises and unexpected insights you found.


We were surprised to see and hear how much tension there is between our school’s vision statement and the need to cover the content that has traditionally prepared our students to score well on AP’s and SAT’s in high school.

We were surprised to discover that our MS teachers yearn for a pedagogical sense of community, and that some of our newer teachers feel frustrated by roadblocks to innovative teaching.

We were surprised to hear students describe the grind of “real” learning and their inability to imagine that it could be changed. We were surprised to hear them say the “side” learning is what they “reminisce” or “remember”, and look forward to; but the “real” learning is what is important.

Tell us about your team's experience with the Design Summit. What stands out most? What will you take with you?
We were impressed by Scott's passion, energy and commitment to nurturing innovators.

Everyone on my team said they were using Design Thinking in other areas of their teaching responsibilities.

We were struck by how hard this kind of work is and that solutions are often forged out of challenging dialogue.

The empathy phase was very powerful and taught us to really take the time to stop and listen.

What POV (Point of View) statement did you settle on at the Design Summit (at least for now)?

Today we met: a frustrated MS teacher who is motivated to take risks and innovate his/her teaching.

We were amazed to realize: that despite our vision statement this teacher doesn’t feel supported in actualizing innovative teaching strategies.

It would be game changing if: we could develop a support system to empower and support a community of teacher innovators.

Tell us about the prototype you built at the Design Summit. What was it? How did it address your POV? In the testing you did with users, what did you learn?

We debated whether an innovation lab or using our hallways as spaces to make learning visible would best support, affirm and promote innovative teachers. We decided to build our prototype around "making learning visible" in our hallways. We got mixed response to our original prototype. The positive response was based on the conversations that occurred around looking at the documentation of student learning. We decided based on the feedback that we needed to add a "connector" or innovation coach to support teachers in this effort to MLV.

Tell us about what you're going to do next to continue iterating. What's your action plan? What are you doing on Empathy? What are you doing on Define/POV? What are you planning to do on your prototype?
We continued to refine our POV and give it a slightly more positive slant. We returned to our ongoing dialogue and decided to prototype and test three aspects of a possible approach to empowering an innovative teaching community.We prepared a three part prototype:

1. innovation coach job description
2. using MS main atrium as a space to MLV
3. innovation lab with a focus on being a space for collaboration, professional development and the initial focus on green screen technology where all disciplines could harness storytelling as a tool for learning ( this storytelling focus came from our empathy interviews with students)

We are interviewing an apple innovator coach to find out some of the obstacles to success he has experienced in his work with schools. 

Our action plan:
Build 3 part prototype (3/31/14)
Test it with MS principal for feed back (4/1/14)
Refine prototype 4/8/14
Present to Admin. Team in April
Test prototype with MS teachers in early May
Two of our team members needed to drop out b/c of time commitment/we plan to add one more MS faculty member to our team
Send 2 MS faculty members to Design Thinking at Mt. Vernon summer institute this summer

What other reflections on the process to date and the collaboration with other schools would you like to share?


I think my whole team loved the storytelling exercise. You learn a lot as you edit your story down to its essential elements.

It was an incredible experience to work across schools in a collaborative, rather than a competitive way.
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Reflection 1: Mountain Park Elementary

4/21/2014

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Tell us the story of your school and what makes it unique. If you were to describe it in a few sentences, what would you say?


Mountain Park is a high achieving school with tremendous community support and an incredibly devoted staff. Most of our students have numerous advantages with varied, rich, life experiences. Therefore, they come to school eager to learn. Our high achievement earned us the 2013 National Blue Ribbon Award. Our motto is simply stated: "Learn to Think, Think to Learn."

What was your original HMW (How Might We) question coming out of the January 14th Design Workshop?

HOW MIGHT WE…Utilize our time to create more opportunities for students to engage in real world problem solving?

Tell us about your team's experience with the Empathy phase and the biggest surprises and unexpected insights you found.

The empathy interviews started out with fairly predictable and similar responses from both students and teachers. However, as we dug deeper, we realized that the focus needed to be on the teachers to reveal more insight - and thus gain more empathy. What started out as a project to design a complex schedule, evolved into navigating "change management" through designing a plan to reduce staff angst and build confidence about pending instructional change. 

Tell us about your team's experience with the Design Summit. What stands out most? What will you take with you?


The evolution of my design team is what stands out most...it was incredibly hard work to synthesize the empathy data AND achieve consensus. What I will take with me is that the deep understanding achieved through empathy interviews needs to be a guiding practice, particularly when facing change.

What POV (Point of View) statement did you settle on at the Design Summit (at least for now)?

We met…several hardworking Mountain Park teachers who hold themselves to extremely high standards.

We were amazed to realize…how much they feel like their day-to-day schedules and tasks prevent them from making the most of the time they have with their students and colleagues.

It would be game changing if ...
staffers had clarity, confidence, and ownership to implement school-wide enrichment to help students become real-world problem solvers.

Tell us about the prototype you built at the Design Summit. What was it? How did it address your POV? In the testing you did with users, what did you learn?

We prototyped an intimate lunch meeting during which the concerns about change shared by staff were addressed through a master schedule, benefits for staff statements, and an FAQ sheet about EB (enrichment block). In testing with users we learned that the intimate setting and tangible take-aways were highly valued.

Tell us about what you're going to do next to continue iterating. What's your action plan? What are you doing on Empathy? What are you doing on Define/POV? What are you planning to do on your prototype?

We have begun rolling out the prototype. We have invited grade level teams to lunch and learns where the tangible items have been shared, explained, and questions have been answered. We are continuing the empathy conversations as we work on refining our EB roll-out while meeting the needs of out staff. We are collaborating with one of the schools we connected with through the Design Challenge to observe and learn about their implementation of project based instruction to help inform some of our decision-making as we move forward with our challenge.

What other reflections on the process to date and the collaboration with other schools would you like to share?


The collaboration was amazing. Gaining feedback from potential users and learning from the challenges and insights of others has proven to be very helpful to my team as we refine and reflect about our project.
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And So We Begin: School Team Updates

4/21/2014

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We are very excited to begin sharing updates and reflections from our school teams. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, we will feature posts from each school team as they reflect on where they have been and where they are going. The set of survey questions/prompts is posted below. 

Between now and the first of June, teams are working hard to finish out this school year building more empathy, iterating their POVs, and hitting a "pause button" that will allow them to either continue work over the summer or leave the work ready to pick back up when they return in August. 

April 1: Reflections on the work through the March Summit

Tell us the story of your school and what makes it unique. If you were to describe it in a few sentences, what would you say?


What was your original HMW (How Might We) question coming out of the January 14th Design Workshop?



Tell us about your team's experience with the Empathy phase and the biggest surprises and unexpected insights you found.



Tell us about your team's experience with the Design Summit. What stands out most? What will you take with you?



What POV (Point of View) statement did you settle on at the Design Summit (at least for now)?



Tell us about the prototype you built at the Design Summit. What was it? How did it address your POV? In the testing you did with users, what did you learn?



Tell us about what you're going to do next to continue iterating. What's your action plan? What are you doing on Empathy? What are you doing on Define/POV? What are you planning to do on your prototype?



What other reflections on the process to date and the collaboration with other schools would you like to share?
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    This blog captures the spirit of the Atlanta K12 Design Challenge: a community of voices joined together to create something new. We welcome the broader community to engage with us here as we reflect on our journey together. 

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