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?


Our mission is to promote student achievement through academic and individual goals in a safe learning environment. Abbotts Hill, in collaboration with the community, is a place that celebrates and fosters the development of responsible, self-confident and self-reliant students.

Abbotts Hill strives to make sure students are achieving at their highest level, and we have a staff dedicated to giving students their best in a nurturing, learning environment.

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

How might we design a way to maximize meaningful use of instruction and collaboration?

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

For our empathy interviews we focused on the areas of collaboration and instruction. We set out to interview as many staff members as possible including teachers across grade levels, departments, and support staff.

Once we had an opportunity to interview our own staff, we decided there was much to learn from the personnel of surrounding schools and counties. We listened to their experiences with collaboration and instruction in hopes of finding insight on what is working and what is not, within their own schools.

We, as a team, enjoyed the empathy interview process. We were surprised to find just how much empathy can be gained from brief interviews. People were so willing to talk to us--they want be heard and hope change will occur. Through empathy, we also saw how much we related to those that were talking to us. The insight we gained was the number of people who felt the same way about the time committed to our job, and also, how differently collaboration can look throughout our own school building. 

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

First of all, we were excited and impressed with the strength of our own team. We found we work well together and we are free to express our ideas openly. Throughout the two day process, we interchanged roles with each of us stepping forward to be a leader when needed. Using collaborative ideas built so many better ideas than individual times would produes.

For all of us we loved the concept of both thinking and acting fast so as not to get hung up or attached to one idea (especially if it was the wrong idea). A quote from our training that our team came back to often throughout the Summit was, “When in doubt, give yourself less time.” We appreciated that we had the power to constantly edit and recreate so that we didn’t have to worry about being “right or wrong”.

Each of us enjoyed creating the prototypes. During the test phase of our prototypes, we appreciated the feedback and input we obtained from other professionals.

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

We met a teacher pulled between work and family.

We were amazed to realize there are other methods available to provide teachers the feeling they can get their job done during the school day.

It would be game changing if we could provide the teacher with methods of collaboration to be efficient.

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 left the Summit with two different prototypes (one from Friday and one from Saturday). Our first prototype focused on a schedule that provided more time for teachers to accomplish the many tasks that occur throughout the day. We simulated a day in the life of our user currently as well as in the future with more time built into the schedule. Feedback was helpful in that it showed us that just adding time may not solve the problem, but maybe the focus should be on what is going on during that time.

So on Saturday we reiterated and began a new prototype focusing on collaboration. We decided maybe our user needs to employ a “team approach” to getting everything done during the day. As we proceeded, we learned maybe both our prototypes need to be combined so that time is provided for collaboration and efficiency to occur.

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?

Immediately after the Summit, we went right to a user in our school and presented both prototypes separately. We obtained feedback on both models. Again, the answer was not clear on one prototype over the other, but maybe a combination of time and collaboration together. We then used the opportunity to have a second empathy interview with our main user. We, as a team, spent time understanding a “day in the life” of our user.

Since then, we have revisited composite POV statements from all of our empathy interviews. We wanted to make sure that we are focusing on a prototype that will work for more than just one person. Going forward, we would like to present both of our prototypes to more users within our building for more feedback and maybe more direction on which concern is greater: time/schedule or models of collaboration. 

What other reflections on the process to date and the collaboration with other schools would you like to share?The entire Design Team process has provided us with a great network of people and resources. We are excited to learn the Design Thinking process and have already discussed ways design thinking can be used for different experiences with students in our school and in our own personal lives. 

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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. 

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?

The next leg on our 18 month journey of collaboration and innovation was this past weekend's Design Summit. Over the course of a Friday and Saturday, our 11 school teams came together for the second time to share their learnings, provide feedback to one another, refine their POVs, brainstorm, and test some initial protoypes. Of course, the best laid plans are the ones that are flexible: Many thanks to everyone and the masterful skills of Scott Sanchez as we adapted to our users (school teams) and their different paces and needs.

The two-day summit, led by Scott Sanchez and supported by his coaches, our global mentors (Laura, Bo, Shelley, and Anona) and my fearless co-director, Bob Ryshke, was an intense, exhausting yet exhilarating experience. We started off on Saturday with all 85+ of us sharing "how we were feeling" (we have some folks with extraordinary humor!) and what we as teams were "amazed to realize"--our big surprises--during the past 8 weeks. Often we heard that the power of the empathy phase to uncover unrealized needs and user groups. Who knew that a parent's "fear of failure" and a focus on specific outcomes (grades) was limiting student explorations and risk-taking thereby inhibiting curiosity?

We gave teams a large chunk of time, heavily supported by the mentors and coaches, to narrow to one user and refine their POV statements. Key questions: Who/what is most important to us? Where might there be a POV that is a good starting point? What is our team excited about?


Teams were then prepped on how to ideate (generate ideas that might solve the HMW question modified if needed by the POV),  and given a half hour to brainstorm. A critical part of this process is honoring each idea, (no matter how outlandish) and dismissing any thoughts about feasibility. As teams worked, it was fascinating to watch so many try to stay in the comfort zone of what they knew was possible (logical problem-solving) as opposed to stepping beyond (why wouldn't we consider teacher sabbaticals?). 

After a cross-team lunch break, and using a color-coded and scaled voting system (safe bet to long shot), individuals on each team voted on the ideas they most wanted to move forward. Within a short period of time, ideas were narrowed to 1 or 2. Scott provided an overview on prototyping, along with a few exercises, and teams were off to develop and then test their initial prototypes with the other teams for the rest of the afternoon. 

What the planning and mentoring team was amazed to realize at this end of Day 1 was how tired we all were and how tired the teams were. The pace of the day was intense, and people left really excited, but the teams were all in different places. Some teams were very clear on their POV and their initial prototype/feedback cycle gave them a lot to work with. Other teams were less clear on their POV, received some valuable feedback, and would need to iterate their POV and/or their prototype and to gain more feedback the next day. So, we adjusted...

Day 2 came with larger blocks of time for the teams to dig deep on their POVS and prototypes. Mid-morning we brought everyone back together (in cross school groups) to workshop storytelling in preparation for the afternoon presentations and demos. A highlight of the storytelling time together was "storytelling in the round"--a bit of improv and yes-and's as public and private school educators at each table built on the story feed from one another.

The presentations and demos (skits for the most part) were as unique as the individuals, schools, and the defined needs and solutions. We were amazed to see the variety, the palpable sense of accomplishment, and the rich sense of a great year ahead of us as we continue to collaborate and encourage one another. 

Each school team is being asked this week to respond to a series of questions about their experience to date, including what they are working on and where they are going next. We will share each of those responses, one by one, here on the blog. It is hoped that this will not only help our school teams help one another (they also have a private Google + community and some face to face visits in planning for the fall), but give the broader community an opportunity to ask questions, offer suggestions, cheer them on. 

Finally, we are deeply grateful to our sponsor and friend, Blake Williams at Proper Medium, for his team's presence at our summit. Forthcoming will be a PR piece, a slightly longer documentary, and a full archive of footage from the afternoon presentations. 

Again, we thank our sponsors and potential new funders who showed up to support all the schools: The R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Foundation, Westminster Schools, The Lovett School, and the Zeist Foundation. 

Over the past 8 weeks our 11 school teams have been pushing through the normal time constraints ( ever walk a day in the life of a dedicated educator?), two weeks of unimaginable dysfunction (snow+Atlanta, you get the picture), and the interruption of spring break and/or test prep on their way to developing empathy. 

What is empathy? 

The empathy phase of design thinking is what differentiates this process in so many ways from other iterative problem-solving cycles. It is the place of beginning, a place where we move outside of ourselves and honor first and foremost the human beings who might be impacted by any "solution" we could conjure up. Through interviews and observations of those whom we believe to be most closely connected to the issues we've identified, as well as explorations into the attitudes and behaviors of those in analogous contexts, we are able gather a great deal of data about the issues each school has identified.

What did this look like?

For every school team the process was as different as the HMW (How Might We) questions they were exploring. In most every case individual, pairs, or small groups interviewed faculty, parents, administrators, and/or students at their school. In some cases, schools visited one another ("What does innovation look like at your school?"), resources were shared ("Here's a short book on developing curiosity that may be helpful"), and field trips arranged ("What might entrepreneurs at Atlanta Tech Village know about learning and failure that might inform us?). Teams would meet as regularly as they could (face to face, using Google Hangout, group texts) to share their "aha's," tell stories ("I met Susan S., parent of a 7th grader who is not comfortable engaging her child's teachers because of her own lack of high school education"), and plan next steps. The data gathering was the largest part of the 8 weeks, but then what?

 Define: Identifying your User and Developing POV (Point of View) Statements

About a month into this process, Scott Sanchez pulled together all the facilitators (one team member from each school) and the mentors (Anona Walker from Fulton County's Superintendents Office, Shelley Paul from Woodward Academy, Bo Adams from Mount Vernon Presbyterian School, and me (Laura Deisley from The Lovett School) to build our capacity for coaching the teams through this next phase. Once all the data was collected, it becomes time to synthesize the data without losing track of potentially insightful individual points of view that were uncovered. There is really no way to do this without a whole team gathering face to face to unpack and sort what we were finding. Back in each school, and massive amounts of sticky notes (each with a single idea) later, teams began to clarify their issues and focus in on the particular needs and insights of various users. For each user, they created POV (Point of View) Statements. Something like this: 

The POV process was a challenging one for all schools, although not as challenging as the pressure to choose ONE POV to bring to the March 21-22 summit. As teams worked through the POVs, they began to uncover users that had a stake in the issue (teachers in the case of the school interviewing parents about parental involvement, and teachers again in another case of the school interviewing students about when they feel valued in their school). By going through the process of assimilating and reflecting on the various POVs, teams became challenged to both pick one (DEFINE) and to make sure the one they were picking would allow them to go through the rest of the process (IDEATE, PROTOTYPE) with something that everyone cared about and could generate a solution that could effect enough change.

Scott reminded us all then, and as you'll read he reminded us again at the Summit, that picking the right problem to solve isn't easy. Once you've got your user, have you written the POV to get the right altitude? And to solve the right problem? 

The challenge for the Summit was to come prepared with 1-3 POV statements, but prepared to narrow quickly on the beginning of Day One.

Many thanks to the mentors who went out and spent hours with the facilitators and teams to get all schools to "go mode." 

All our schools are off and running! Although the Atlanta snowstorm played a little havoc, all the school teams are out building empathy by interviewing various "users", making observations in a variety of setting looking for possible themes, and perhaps considering Points Of View (POVs) that are particularly intriguing. 

You'll find below a list of the challenges the teams are considering, each framed as a "How Might We" (HMW) statement. It's truly exciting to see the deeply important concerns our schools are addressing! Stay tuned...

·      HMW cultivate a culture of curiosity K-12? (Lovett)

·      HMW transform student-learning experiences through innovative collaboration between library/tech and classroom teachers? (Atlanta International School)

·      HMW design a way for master schedule to maximize meaningful instruction and collaboration for teachers and students? (Abbotts Hill Elementary)

·      HMW enhance our school environment to nurture innovators because the future demands it? (Mount Vernon Presbyterian School)

·      HMW utilize our time to create more opportunities for students to engage in real world problem solving? (Mountain Park Elementary)

·      HMW create a middle school hub of innovation that nurtures creative confidence? (Westminster Schools)

·      HMW design student-driven learning experiences to capitalize on students’ natural curiosity? (Woodward Academy)

·      HMW redesign SAT prep experiences to maximize parents, students and staff engagement of resources to drive college-career ready culture? (Westlake High School)

·      HMW capitalize on students’ personal interests to promote engagement in learning? (Paideia School)

·      HMW increase parental involvement? (Camp Creek Middle School)

·      HMW create a community-based experience where all students feel valued? (Milton High School)