Laura K Spencer, Ed.D.

Tag: Design Thinking

  • Empathy is Always Worth the Time

    There are days when we all probably ask ourselves, “Is anyone actually listening?!?” Then I read tweets from teachers like this, and I realize the ripple effects from a pebble can travel much farther than seen from shore.

    A Tweet from Meg Money about using empathy mapping with her students

    Meg is one of those teachers I get excited to know and work with because she is willing to reflect on her practices as she continuously looks for connections that make a difference for students. After the above tweet, I asked her to blog this experience for others. Since she doesn’t have her own blog, I am giving her the space here to share. So this is Meg’s story in her own words…

    There’s a little saying that goes, “a stitch in time saves nine.”  
    Is Empathy Mapping worth the time?
    By: Meg Money, Sycamore Ridge 4th Grade teacher

    “As teachers, how do you want to invest your time?” Ron Ritchhart, Harvard’s Project Zero, asked a cohort of DMUSD teachers recently. This question has replayed in my mind time after time since.  Last week I was at a crossroads; time or making a difference? You see, our 4th grade class was in the thick of a Design Thinking challenge. All groups were collaborating ferociously and productively…all but one. But hey, it was my fault. I designed that group knowing that it had a 50-50 chance of working. This group of three included  kids who were bright and capable in their own right but different as day and night. Unfortunately I didn’t play my cards right, and now I had a group on my hands that had potential but was so far behind because productivity and collaboration were nonexistent.

    Now comes in the saying, “Timing is everything.” Fast forward two weeks to another training led by our very own DMUSD Design Team.  Paula (@CDMDreamers) and Sarah (@SarahZRaskin) led us through a Empathy Mapping exercise, and a light bulb went on. This is what my lagging group lacked… Empathy! However, this would take time; time a group was running out of.

    “How should I invest my time?” replayed one more time in my head. Yes, this is exactly what this trio of budding engineers deserved. They deserved to feel safe in a group and showcase their talents. Their assigned grouping shouldn’t be the barrier holding them back.

    I wasted no time and asked the group how they were feeling halfway through the research/prototyping phase. As you can imagine, they were frustrated and asked if they could just work alone. It was then I suggested that we come together and build empathy through the mapping exercise.

    What happened from there surpassed every expectation I’d anticipated. The kids were open, honest, polite and so insightful. They really didn’t need much prompting; they got it! They created NEED statements that immediately inspired them to hurry back to their learning. I watched in AWE as this group of young scholars immediately started approaching a difficult task with empathy and producing with the maturity of adults. I’m not going to lie, I had tears, goosebumps, and a swollen heart.

    So, was this worth the TIME? Oh, you have no idea. Just ask the group members.

    “Ms. Money, thank you for taking the time to do the mapping with us,” said one student.

    “This was the best day of the year,” another added with a hug.

    “Ms. Money, hurry, come see our idea!” shouted one from across the room.

    I will forever be reminded of this experience that truly confirmed that helping students find their potential and giving them a chance at success is absolutely worth the time. Empathy Mapping is now the frontrunner of my long list of “Must Explore and Practice” list. It is worth every second of TIME!

    Connect with Meg on Twitter at @mmoneydmusd

  • Pickle Hives and Design Thinking

    “Babe, I was eating a pickle and it made my feet break out in hives!”

    Not quite the greeting I was looking for after an exhausting 14 hour day of work, evening teaching, and traffic, but that’s what welcomed me at home. And sure enough there were giant welts all over his feet.

    “Pickles did not give you hives. That’s crazy. You sure you didn’t get bit by an army of baby spiders or something?”

    And so it began… the back and forth over the cause, and solution, for the sudden hives.

    But I’ll get back to that story in a minute. Because this post is actually about problems. And HMW (How Might We) questions. And goals.

    Our leadership team has been digging into culture, and the purpose of school, for a couple years now. Last year was the official first year of our five year plan to transform from a 20th century model of knowledge delivery and compliance to an extraordinary school experience that values the student and his/her inner genius. It was a year filled with first attempts, discoveries, and questions. All of those brought learnings and wonders and even more questions. And through those experiences, we developed a common vision and understanding of the WHY of our five year plan.

    While setting the stage for this school year with the superintendent and assistant superintendent, we realized that, in order for the leadership team to dig deeper into the WHAT and the HOW of the plan, the 20th century model of setting goals and yearlong action plans in August wasn’t going to work. That model is based on the premise that the person setting the goals knows the path that needs to be taken, has an understanding of how to reach the destination, and can do so by an arbitrary deadline. Instead, our goal setting process needed to support our learning journey.

    After reflecting on the vision of our plan, the purpose of setting goals, and the monumental work that lay ahead of us, we realized this year’s goals needed to center around identifying, understanding, and addressing a problem that was impeding the district vision.

    So together, our leadership team identified problems. Some were instructional in nature, while others identified outdated or cumbersome systems and structures that stifled innovative actions.

    Once everyone articulated a problem connected to their site and/or department, time was spent developing a HMW statement to begin understanding the problem more deeply. We shared our articulations with each other for feedback, pushback, and refinement.

    And then some of us started identifying a problem with our problems.

    Turns out, our HMWs had personal hunches embedded within them which was inadvertently skewing them into solution questions instead of problem probing questions. Here’s an example*:

    Problem: Lack of student engagement during writing instruction.

    HMW: How might teachers provide students with personalized topic choices so as to increase student engagement during writing instruction?

    See the hunch?  How do we know personalization is the key to increase the engagement of these identified students? We don’t. It’s a hunch. And that hunch can take us down a road of creating solutions to the wrong problem. Because in reality, personalized topic choices are a potential solution. They could show up on a post-it while ideating. But they shouldn’t have a home in our question.

    Once we realized our preconceived solutions sneaking into the problem statement, we pushed more on the problem and the HMW and a second version emerged:

    Problem: The Principal has observed a lack of student engagement during writing instruction for a group of 4th grade students.

    HMW:How might 4th grade teachers create engaging learning opportunities within the teaching of writing so as to increase students’ active involvement in the writing process?

    Now we’re getting somewhere. This question requires empathy-building with the end-user, aka 4th grade students, so as to figure out what may be causing their disengagement. Boredom? Too hard? Too easy? Language barriers? Personal issues? Something else? This version is not based on a hunch, but on a desire to understand and respond accordingly.

    This goal-setting approach models a learning-centered culture. One not built on hunches. But on a design thinking mindset, which is pretty darn exciting!

    mindset

    As for John, we learned, after doing some good ol’ Google research, there actually IS such a thing as pickle hives, although it’s technically an allergy to a preservative used in some pickling methods. So maybe his hunch was correct after all. And maybe I should have stayed in the problem space with him a bit instead of jumping to my own conclusion.

    (Although I have to say, I think an army of baby spiders is a much cooler end to his story than 2 Benadryls and some calamine lotion…)

    *Not a real problem shared during our collaboration, but used here to illustrate what I was trying to say.

    You know what’d make me happy? If you shared the link to this post with two friends. I’d be super happy if one of those two subscribed to my posts. Learning together is way more fun than learning on my own.

  • Students’ Design Thinking Skills Sets Them Up for a Successful Future

    Yesterday I received this email from three 6th grade students:

    Dear Dr. Spencer,

                    As sixth grade students, we have been given the design challenge to enhance our school experience. There are problems ranging from balls left in the field to bathroom catastrophes. We thought that you would be a great person to interview because you are the Executive Director of Innovation and Design. 

    So today I happily set aside my desk work and traveled over to the school to talk to the students. I can honestly say, I’m not sure who learned more from our experience: them or me.

    As they had shared in the email, the students have been given the challenge of enhancing the school experience. In Del Mar, a K-6 district, our vision states that we are in “unrelenting pursuit of the extraordinary school experience” and now, so our these 6th grade students. Their teacher, who has been trained at both Nueva School’s Design Thinking Institute and Stanford’s d.school, is using her Quest elective class to provide the students with the skills and strategies necessary to utilize the design thinking process. Her focus is spot on. Jim Hackett, CEO of Ford, explains. “The old way was about disciplines,” Hackett told Fortune Magazine in September. “The new way will be about projects and understanding what people want.”

    During my conversation with the students, we discussed the school, and the needs I saw as rising to the top. But then the conversation shifted, and the students became intrigued more with my job, and the goal of our district to bring design thinking experiences to all students, and not just those lucky enough to have their teacher. One student then remarked, “What happens to us in middle school? They don’t do these things there, do they?” Although I wish I had a better answer for them, all I could say was “not yet…” They continued pressing me. “How will we handle the homework load in middle school? We have a reduced homework load now.”

    And so we started to analyze the skills that the students are receiving, and how those skills would translate to middle school (and life!) success. Homework load? No problem! Within these design thinking challenges, their teacher has taught them:

    • Backwards Planning: Just like homework, design thinking challenges have deadlines that must be met. But unlike assigned homework, backwards planning ensures students know how to prioritize their work load based on estimated work time, complexity of task, and due date.
    • Questioning: Design thinking requires students to define the problem that needs to be addressed. The questions they are formulating are complex, and get to the root of a problem so that they can better ideate and prototype solutions. This means they’ll have a better understanding of what information they need to complete their work. Furthermore, they’ll have the confidence to ask clarifying questions of their teachers.
    • Prioritization: When prototyping possible design thinking solutions, a lot of elements must come together. It can be easy to get distracted by wanting to make a prototype pretty, or add “just one more thing.” Learning how to prioritize actions based on a needs statement will also help them figure out if they should start their math homework due tomorrow before or after writing their English essay due next week.
    • Iteration: One of the most important concepts students learn in the design thinking process is that the iteration process is not a one time thing. Iterate, prototype, seek feedback, and do it again…and again… and maybe even again. Failure is not a cause for meltdown, but just an opportunity to iterate again. If you doubt me, just watch Audri and his Rube Goldberg machine process!

     

    Carole Bilson, President of the Design Management Institute, states, “There’s a lot of observation, listening and research as you are developing products and solutions.” Evelyn Huang, Director of Design Thinking and Strategy at Capital One Labs, explains that Design Thinking, a “human-centered methodology, coupled with a ‘fail fast’ attitude, allows us to quickly identify, build, and test our way to success. We spend less time planning, more time doing, and, above all else, challenge ourselves to see the world through the eyes of our customers every step of the way.”

    With skills like this being developed in our 6th graders , I don’t think the students will have any problems tackling the challenges they face in middle school next year. In fact, I venture to guess that these students will be redesigning the middle school experience in no time! And then high school. And soon, they’ll be solving problems we can’t yet fathom. Homework? Psh! No problem at all.

    Backwards mapping mini-deadlines to ensure the project is completed in time.
    Defining the Design Thinking challenge and its components

     

  • Career Pathways at All Grades

    Career Pathways at All Grades

    On Wednesday, I had the privilege of attending the OC Career Pathways Showcase at the Marconi Automotive Museum. Who can turn down an opportunity to see vintage vehicles, talk to brilliant students, and listen to top executives from SpaceX and Virgin Orbit? Not me!

    I have to admit – the programs these students had access to, both in high school and community college (and a couple junior highs) was amazing. I kept thinking, “What would my adult life had looked like if I had been exposed to these hands-on STEM programs when I was 14 years old?” Students displayed projects completed in the areas of engineering; computer science; biotechnology; fabrication; robotics; and more. One student told me he had almost completed his private pilot’s license. Another discussed designing a robotic, prosthetic arm for a peer. Community College partners displayed their pathways to degrees and technical certificates within those fields, and their internship opportunities for the students present.

    During this showcase, Gwynne Shotwell, COO and President of SpaceX, along with Tim Buzza, Vice President of Launch for Virgin Orbit, discussed their career pathways. Gwynne stressed the importance of project-based learning so that students “apply what they learn” and Tim shared the moment he switched from being concerned more about his grades in college to focusing on mastering the content being taught. When a student asked them both about how they deal with failure, Gwynne pointed out that people tend to learn more from failure than success, because it requires adaptation and another attempt. Tim expanded on that, reminding students that “failure means you put yourself out there more than most people would” and should not be a sign of defeat.

    In this entire conversation, however, I realized that one voice was missing, and that was the voice of the elementary student. If we are to truly prepare students for the opportunities these students are accessing, we need to start from day one in kindergarten. Here’s why:

    Linda Gottfredson (2002) describes how career choice in young people develops through a process of circumscription and compromise. During circumscription, which begins at ages 3-5, students rule out unacceptable options based on their perceived fit with the child’s self-concept. Between ages 3-5, children understand that adults have roles in the world, and that they, too, will one day have a role. By age 8, children start to assign job roles to particular sexes. If a job doesn’t align with their gender, it becomes unacceptable. By age 13, children have seen more job types and start to categorize them by income, education level, lifestyle, etc. in addition to sex type. They may exclude jobs that require a lot of education because they don’t have college role models in their family, or they may portray a job as being too much manual labor. Starting at age 14, children begin the conscious process of choosing jobs that align with their interests and perceived abilities.

    After excluding so many options during the circumscription stage, children then being compromising, which involves “sacrificing roles they see as more compatible with their self-concept in favour of those that are perceived to be more easily accessible” (Winter, nd). Their lack of knowledge about the job, their abilities, and the future of the field begins to compromise their career choices.

    Crazy to think this huge life decision… picking a career … starts to flesh itself out before a child even enters school. And for most, the decision is molded with no active modeling or involvement by adults until high school, if the child is lucky enough to have a pathway option, or upon graduation, when facing the daunting prospect of self reliance.

    So what can we do to open those doors that students may be subconsciously closing at such an early age? How do we bring elementary education to the table with secondary and post-secondary education so that these amazing experiences aren’t limited to only some students? In our district, we’re bridging that divide through design thinking challenges that include industry experts; field trips that focus on the world of work community; and time for students to explore passion projects and Genius Hour. I’m hopeful that we’ll soon incorporate Gallop strengths-finder tools and local mentorships as well, both with community industry leaders and high school pathways programs. What are you doing?

    Article References:

    Circumscription and Compromise by The Careers Group

    Gottfredson, L.S. (2002). Gottfredson’s theory of circumscription, compromise, and self creation. In D. Brown (Ed.), Career Choice and
    Development (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 85–148.

  • Yes, and: The Power of an Idea

    Yes, and: The Power of an Idea

    Kobi Yamada wrote a fabulous book called What Do You Do With an Idea? In the book, the main character finds an idea. He takes it with him everywhere. When he first shares it with others, they scoff at it. Luckily, the boy does not listen to the naysayers and instead nurtures the idea.  In the end, the idea takes form and … well … read it and find out.

    I read this book yesterday to a 4th grade class. I had not met the students before, but they seemed pretty excited to have me there. At the end of the book read, we discussed the plot, and why people may not have supported the boy and his idea.

    After the discussion, I led them through an improv activity called “Yes, but.” In “Yes, but” one person of a pair shares an idea. In this case, the idea was what the student wanted to do over the weekend. The other person’s job is to react to the idea with a “yes, but” statement. For example:

    Student 1: I think it’d be cool to go to the zoo this weekend

    Student 2: Yes, but it’s so hilly that you will get tired.

    Student 1: Oh. Well, maybe I can go to the beach instead.

    Student 2: Yea, but it’s supposed to rain on Saturday.

    As you can see, it can be discouraging to have every idea turned down by others. (And honestly, who hasn’t encountered these people in our own lives?) After debriefing how disheartening that conversation was, we flipped the script. Now, the second person’s job was to add a “Yes, and” statement to the idea.

    Student 1: I think it’d be cool to go to the zoo this weekend.

    Student 2: Yes, and you can check out the new panda exhibit.

    Student 1: Ooh yea! And I can take a picture of the plants they eat to show our science teacher.

    Student 2: Yes, and you can probably buy a book on pandas to share with the class.

    Now the idea is growing and taking shape. The students shared how it made them feel to have their idea encouraged instead of stymied. I left them with the call to action to focus on being idea encouragers instead of naysayers.

    This activity is a great lead in to any design thinking project or empathy building activity. All ages, adults and children, deserve the opportunity to have their ideas heard. Who knows which of those ideas just might change the world!

    Article: Yes, And… 5 More Lessons in Improv-ing Collaboration and Creativity from Second City