Inspiration
MEthods:
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INSPIRATION
Class work: Play Empathy is one of the Mindsets defined in the Field Guide to Human Centered Design. I believe it is one of the traits that excellent teachers possess as well. It makes sense to me that a large part of our time is being spent developing relationships, and ideally empathy. We have a short timeframe to form bonds that will facilitate collaboration that supports the successful completion of a task. Being teachers, I would say with certainty that we understand the value of building positive relationships with peers. And we get to be invited to play, which is an aspect of teaching I think that many of us forget to do with our students, peers and parents. Through activities such as ‘front-to-back’, Who are You? and Zip, Zap and using the Wheel as a ‘speed dating’ question and answer format, we are getting to know our cohort more intimately. The activities seem to be serving two purposes - the first is the relational building aspect. The second is a classroom management type aspect. The commencement of the activities open class, and gets us all focused on one activity. There is structure for us all to follow, no exceptions. We are invited to contribute and play with our peers. We aren’t playing Simon Says or 7-Up. We are being silly. The adjectives are silly. The sounds are silly. The questions are serious and thoughtful. They encourage us to be honest and trust each other. These activities rely on participants to trust the process. This trust is a result of a carefully nurtured development of culture. By engaging each person and inviting them to play, there are no leaders, and no followers. These activities that require us to be physically and vocally engaged are uncomfortable for me (becoming less so as I collaborate with others in more settings, though), and yet I do appreciate that they help build bonds with a large number of peers in short periods of time. I find small talk challenging, so the guiding questions facilitate engaging with others in a more authentic way for me. By connecting with others in structured activities, the initial introductions and get-to-know-you dialogue that I find challenging are replaced by predetermined conversation starters that are meaningful and purposeful. On a larger scale, inviting play activities flatten a group, and encourage the development of community in a way that engages every person, without allowing the community to dominated by more outgoing personalities. During the round table Marvelous/Fabulous/Outstanding discussions, one of my group members noted that his favourite part of the day had been getting to know the other group members outside the classroom because he developed an understanding of what motivated and inspired them. We can easily miss the opportunity to develop empathy in our students and peers if we don’t set aside time to develop relationships and activities. Because we use a cohort based model on campus, I was taking mental notes to apply this to my classroom. It is common for the preservice teachers to retreat into their experiences, and connect with a small group of peers during their practicum, so using these communication structures to re-engage them with their cohort on campus will be valuable as they share and learn from each other. The most valuable activity I experienced today was “Who are you?”. By inviting someone to define themselves with progressively in depth answers, we are building connections that develop empathy and relatability, which in turn fosters sharing and openness. When we get to know other people, we can consider their experiences, needs and perspectives, which in turn makes us more effective at supporting them in their endeavors. One of the first activities we have our new cohorts do is articulate their assumptions of education. We return to those assumptions regularly and ask them ‘What do I know now, that I did not know then?’ They also have to share these with peers. This helps them develop trust, speak honestly and challenge their thinking. “Who are you?” would help us achieve another depth to the relationships of the preservice teachers. Would answers be different as the PSTs progress through their practicum? Would they be able to articulate their qualities more? I would assume so, and it would be interesting to see who finds the activity challenging. Would we find a correlation between those who have challenges engaging in this dyad dialogue and those who have challenges with feedback? It will be interesting to implement and monitor. The HCD project:
How can we encourage youth initiated community experiences?" A question that has come up frequently is how do we know when to stop providing ideas, reframing the topic, asking questions? I have also heard ‘trust the process’ numerous times, and I do agree. My thinking 2 days in is that we will know when an adjustment must be made. A problem will make itself clear, a solution (or solutions) will make sense. We have to trust that we choose ends up moving us along, and if it doesn’t, we still have a process that we trust to help us proceed. By not seeing the process as a linear one that will either succeed or fail, we can be more committed to going through the Inspiration-Iteration-Implementation cycle and making adjustments as they are required. We identified the Mainstreams and Extremes that would provide insight into our design problem. I learned more about the skatepark from two of the extremes we interviewed than I did the mainstreams. In science we tend to eliminate anomalies and outliers, so I was very intrigued by the fact that our outliers were in fact our most informative participants. One was a skateboarding dad who uses the park with his young children, and the other was the lone female out of about 60 users. Without their perspectives, we are left with a narrow perspective of the norm. We wouldn't be driven to look outside the box to see what contributions to the design problems we possible should explore if we discarded the extremes. I have always worked with students who are literally outside the mainstream. My students have benefitted from alternative classroom settings, outcomes and pathways to get them on aa track to confidence and success. I have always found these students to be the most interesting and provide the most insight into learning. They challenge us to be creative, abandon our assumptions and accept alternative solutions. These kids were in mind a lot today as we interviewed youth and placed them either in the mainstream or the extreme, especially when we found the extreme to be where we gleaned the most useful information. How do we keep our progress ambiguous? A decision that helped keep our question ambiguous was to separate into groups and access as many participants as possible. By accessing four different settings, 4 experts who work with the age group (3 of whom work with extreme populations) and broadening our participation target range, we were able to continue to ideate. If we had stopped interviewing after the first day, we would have been left with a narrow set of data and assumptions, and few Themes. By continuing to trust the process of Inspiration and Ideation, we collectively selected next steps and tried to leave our assumptions outside the process. We were able to see divergence and convergence in action with our journey to our topic, which was excellent practice. Instead of being frustrated at what could be perceived as a lack of momentum, we were able to ideate, bank, expand, challenge and then zero in on some ‘a-ha’ focal points. While the process isn't always smooth, it seems to be very effective at moving us forward together.
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Participant Interview
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Expert Interview
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I would rather you have magnificent failures than work through mundane problems to a correct answer- Ian prinsloo |