Short Summary of Work
This week my team and I worked on the Evolution Phase of our Design Thinking project. We communicated through text, phone calls, and emails as usual. We also had a google hang out, though I got really sick that day and I wasn't able to be online! My team was wonderful though and took great notes so I was able to easily get on the same page. We reviewed the feedback we received in the experimentation phase and made some changes. We also shared our project with several outside people such as tech leaders, parents, and administrators. Our Guide to 1:1 device implementation was well-received and appears to meet a genuine need in education. The feedback we received was insightful and will help fine tune the product. We reflected on the design thinking process as a team as well as individually. My reflection can be found below and links to our group reflection and my teammates individual reflections can be found within the Google Doc Week 5 Checklist.
Reflecting on the processes
I found the Design Thinking process to be a truly collaborative process and it was exciting to watch our product evolve over time. As I stated in our group reflection, the Design Thinking process is one which could be read about or explained via a video, yet the best way to understand how to use this process effectively is to actually go through it. As a future leader, I see the benefit of training future staff members in the process as Design Thinking can be used is many ways in education. We could use it as a staff to solve campus or district problems. Teachers could use it with their students as a more in depth and dynamic problem based learning approach. We could use this with other educational leaders to find ways to improve our education system, even! The Design Thinking process demands full participation of each team member and by doing so the team is able to pool its strengths and create something new and unexpected.
Initial Impressions Compared to Final Impression of the Process
I was initially interested in how this process was going to play out in a completely virtual setting. All the examples I had seen of Design Thinking before had been face-to-face groups working through this process. I couldn’t be more pleased to have experienced the success of this process in our online class. Because we have so many options for ways to collaborate working together online was not a challenge.
I also initially wondered how we were going to manage all the work in the time provided. When I looked at the high level of work required for the Design Thinking process, even though it was a lot, it this seemed reasonable to complete each phase in a week. When I saw all the other course work as well, I quit frankly had a melt down. My team (and my dear family) really helped me through this process through their encouragement, dedication to the process, and guidance. I am so glad I powered through and it really was the Design Thinking project that was the highlight for me. I wanted to see it through to the end and see what our end product became.
I really love the whole process of Design Thinking. I think it has taken too long making it’s way into the education field and it is a breath of fresh air. The rigor of this type of process and the high levels of critical thinking and creativity, collaboration and communication are incomparable to any other process I have seen that can both be used in and out of the classroom. This is a process I believe children of all ages could go through to develop their 21st century learning skills and learn content specific skills at the same time.
Achievement and How It Occurred
My group achieved success because we communicated with each other effectively. We were all comfortable using a variety of Web 2.0 tool and learning how to use new ones. We listened without judgement. We offered timely feedback and support to each other. We split up the tasks and made the volume of research necessary for this project manageable. We made time to collaborate and reflect together. It was a challenge though, to find times where we could all be online at the same time. Part of the reason we all chose to pursue our MA in this online program was that it provided the flexibility of working on our own schedules. I’ve shared this before, but I believe it would be worth taking group member’s schedules into consideration in future courses when making groups and I will take this into consideration when I use this process with my students or staff as well. My group was so wonderful and we made it work even though there were times when we were in multiple time zones. What this showed, however, is that this process is one that can be done globally with people participating all over the world. And this is an exciting thought!
This week my team and I worked on the Evolution Phase of our Design Thinking project. We communicated through text, phone calls, and emails as usual. We also had a google hang out, though I got really sick that day and I wasn't able to be online! My team was wonderful though and took great notes so I was able to easily get on the same page. We reviewed the feedback we received in the experimentation phase and made some changes. We also shared our project with several outside people such as tech leaders, parents, and administrators. Our Guide to 1:1 device implementation was well-received and appears to meet a genuine need in education. The feedback we received was insightful and will help fine tune the product. We reflected on the design thinking process as a team as well as individually. My reflection can be found below and links to our group reflection and my teammates individual reflections can be found within the Google Doc Week 5 Checklist.
Reflecting on the processes
I found the Design Thinking process to be a truly collaborative process and it was exciting to watch our product evolve over time. As I stated in our group reflection, the Design Thinking process is one which could be read about or explained via a video, yet the best way to understand how to use this process effectively is to actually go through it. As a future leader, I see the benefit of training future staff members in the process as Design Thinking can be used is many ways in education. We could use it as a staff to solve campus or district problems. Teachers could use it with their students as a more in depth and dynamic problem based learning approach. We could use this with other educational leaders to find ways to improve our education system, even! The Design Thinking process demands full participation of each team member and by doing so the team is able to pool its strengths and create something new and unexpected.
Initial Impressions Compared to Final Impression of the Process
I was initially interested in how this process was going to play out in a completely virtual setting. All the examples I had seen of Design Thinking before had been face-to-face groups working through this process. I couldn’t be more pleased to have experienced the success of this process in our online class. Because we have so many options for ways to collaborate working together online was not a challenge.
I also initially wondered how we were going to manage all the work in the time provided. When I looked at the high level of work required for the Design Thinking process, even though it was a lot, it this seemed reasonable to complete each phase in a week. When I saw all the other course work as well, I quit frankly had a melt down. My team (and my dear family) really helped me through this process through their encouragement, dedication to the process, and guidance. I am so glad I powered through and it really was the Design Thinking project that was the highlight for me. I wanted to see it through to the end and see what our end product became.
I really love the whole process of Design Thinking. I think it has taken too long making it’s way into the education field and it is a breath of fresh air. The rigor of this type of process and the high levels of critical thinking and creativity, collaboration and communication are incomparable to any other process I have seen that can both be used in and out of the classroom. This is a process I believe children of all ages could go through to develop their 21st century learning skills and learn content specific skills at the same time.
Achievement and How It Occurred
My group achieved success because we communicated with each other effectively. We were all comfortable using a variety of Web 2.0 tool and learning how to use new ones. We listened without judgement. We offered timely feedback and support to each other. We split up the tasks and made the volume of research necessary for this project manageable. We made time to collaborate and reflect together. It was a challenge though, to find times where we could all be online at the same time. Part of the reason we all chose to pursue our MA in this online program was that it provided the flexibility of working on our own schedules. I’ve shared this before, but I believe it would be worth taking group member’s schedules into consideration in future courses when making groups and I will take this into consideration when I use this process with my students or staff as well. My group was so wonderful and we made it work even though there were times when we were in multiple time zones. What this showed, however, is that this process is one that can be done globally with people participating all over the world. And this is an exciting thought!