Commitment To Design, Visual Thinking, And Now The Virtual Classroom

Source: ASIDE 2020

The reminder popped up today for our ninth anniversary since starting this blog. We had good intentions of entering the fall of last year, ready to contribute more to our passion and commit to haring our ideas, but life changes. We've had changes in job responsibilities, personal additions and losses to family, and of course, COVID19.

So today, on our anniversary, we begin anew. We never wavered from our initial mission; instead, we pivoted toward a range of other opportunities. While a good portion of what our students did was in the brick and mortar phase, it was the virtual classroom that advanced the realm of possibilities for learning. The last three months reminded us more of the 18th century nursery rhyme, "Jack be nimble / Jack be quick," with students jumping over "lickety split" to synchronous online sessions of remote learning. Metaphorically, it was a stressful breeze.

Source: Imagine Museum

We were fortunate. Our students, already provided with devices and trained in using them, made the transition far easier than in many other cases. They worked on a number of different projects this year that pushed the boundaries of their design skills, their creative thinking, and their independence. As learners, they developed a knack for tackling new applications across a range of platforms to bring the world of transliteracy front and center, especially as it applies to digital humanities.

In the coming posts, we hope to share the latest work by our learners.

Entrepreneurship And Schools

Source: Grasshopper

The recent discussion posted to the International Society For Technology In Education’s LinkedIn group via the Fishtree Blog asks the question, “Should entrepreneurship be taught at school?” Our answer is a resounding YES! It also reminds us of an excellent motion graphic called Entrepreneurs Can Change the World by the Grasshopper group. We’ve used it to kick off our interdisciplinary, fifth-grade entrepreneur project for the past three years with much success.

Ironically, the video starts off with “Remember when you were a kid…and you thought you could do anything.” If we want to tap the creative potential of our kids, we should provide more opportunities for them in school to develop an entrepreneurial spirit. We see no reason why it should wait. They are kids, and we want them to think they can do anything.

Source: Grasshopper

We’ve talked to our students about the many successful startups of products they know that began with kids in their teens, and some even earlier. Others such as the founders of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook were only in their early 20s when they developed their businesses.

The argument that you can’t teach someone to be an entrepreneur misses the point; opening opportunities to learn about the entrepreneurial process is the key. When we engage kids with the possibilities that their ideas could matter, or make a difference, we’ve already started planting the seeds to think differently and to discover. It’s not about success or failure, but using ingenuity to develop an idea. We should be tapping into this as educators.


If schools are looking to promote creativity and innovation, we need to encourage this from an early age.  Let's give kids more time to think things through with a critical eye and more flexibility to accomplish it. This can be achieved by incorporating entrepreneurship in age-appropriate ways to develop an understanding about real problem-solving. It also goes to the core of using design thinking and project-based learning in the classroom.

Source: Grasshopper

As educators, we want to open the minds of our youngest learners to the idea that they could change the world. We tell them you, too, can make a difference, and it’s rewarding to watch them try.

Planting The Seeds Of Empathy And Service

Source: ASIDE, 2012

As we approach the end of another year that seemed to go by in the blink of an eye, the heaviness of world events both near and far looms over us. We face the dire prediction of falling off a cliff because our legislators have failed to compromise much, if at all, over the last four years. For some reason, we are bombarded every day with the prospect that if automated tax hikes and spending cuts go into effect, doomsday is around the corner. Add in the end of the Mayan calendar just before we plunge off the cliff, and we have one heck of a December to deal with before we say "Happy" New Year.

Of course, these two predictions do not account for all the other ills going on in the world, such as American troops still fighting a war in Afghanistan, or the sudden change from building a democracy in Egypt to the new leader Mohammed Morsi instituting absolute authority with unrestricted powers. More locally, many communities ravaged by "Super Storm Sandy" are still without the basic necessities of water, heat, and shelter for over a month. We can't help but wonder, where are the common refrains "Peace on Earth" and "Joy to the World" so often printed on holiday cards?

Source: Richard Law

Well, for one, they are in our students. With so much swirling around them in their click-and-swipe world, we often overlook the necessity to help them make things that touch the hearts of others. They truly have a genuine interest in current events, and they want to understand the world that to adults seems so negative. This year, we're trying to give them occasions to do just that, and our efforts are paying off in seeing them willingly volunteer to help in their free time. We don't call it community service; we just want them to give willingly to whatever cause they wish to help. Surprisingly, we have no shortage and plenty of repeat participants. It's about planting the seeds of service. By giving them opportunities to contribute and feel empathy, we can build character and self-confidence in knowing that they can make a difference.

Source: Richard Law

This fall they finished our memorial that launched our Pencils for Peace initiative by hanging one pencil for every soldier who gave his or her life in the war in Afghanistan. It was truly inspirational to see so many young people wanting to take part in the project. For Veterans Day, the students worked to create a map of the United States the size of a softball field. They added a peace sign, "USA," and the words "Thank You" in huge letters. They then lined the field with flags to guide other students who helped plant 2000 flags to honor the veterans who served our country.

To our surprise, or perhaps by a stroke of luck, when they turned to face the school photographer, the image appeared to form a heart around the map. The power and emotion felt by teachers and students were beyond words. As with so much of what we write about, this picture is worth a 1000 of them.

Other resources:

• Design Thinking - The Invisible Hearts Project
• Visualizing the Effects of Peace
• When Worlds Collide for Peace

Design Thinking For Students: The Question Formulation Technique

Source: Edutopia

This summer we signed up for a free online module in design thinking. Organized jointly by Edutopia, IDEO, and Riverdale Country School, the "Design Thinking For Educators" workshop invited participants to model the real process of iterative creation. Design thinking has been gaining traction as a means to foster critical thinking and creativity among learners. Teachers, in fact, can download a toolkit in the methods of design adapted for education.

The spring 2012 issue of Independent School magazine featured a detailed article about the prospects for design thinking to revolutionize standard classroom practice. In "An Experience Of "Yes": Independent Schools Begin To Explore and Exploit The Power Of Design Thinking," Peter Gow describes this mindset as "the posing of a problem, perhaps elegantly framed but more likely ill-structured or open-ended -- and with some constraints." This collaborative exploration requires "critique, testing, retesting, and redesigning until a breakthrough is achieved." In a safe, trusted setting, a feedback model that embraces failure is the ideal paradigm for student discovery.

Source: Design Thinking For Educators

We've found that the design thinking process works well in project-based learning and in interpersonal student scenarios. For some real classroom examples, check out:

• Design Thinking - Invisible Hearts Project
• Young Entrepreneurs Step Up
• Design Is A Method Of Problem Solving

One easy but surprisingly effective way to incorporate the steps of student-centered design is through the Question Formulation Technique (QFT). Rather than a multi-week project, this cooperative investigation takes one class period (or less) and empowers students to create a blueprint for their own curiosity. They ultimately chart the direction of their entire learning "unit."

Source: The Right Question Institute

Although it was perhaps not initially intended to mimic the design thinking approach, the Question Formulation Technique springs from an initiative at The Right Question Institute that aims for students to "learn how to produce their own questions, improve them, and strategize on how to use them." This scaffold closely follows the "discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation, and evolution" procedure of designers. For a full description of the technique, we highly recommend this informative explanation from The Right Question Institute.

Source: The Right Question Institute, ASIDE

The QFT applies to all levels of schooling and can be employed "to introduce students to a new unit, to assess students’ knowledge to see what they need to understand better, and even to conclude a unit to see how students can, with new knowledge, set a fresh learning agenda for themselves." The QFT basically validates students' natural inquisitive sense when starting new research or beginning to write an essay. It formalizes in a helpful way what can sometimes become rushed or quotidian.

Source: The Right Question Institute, ASIDE

The essential QFT process is student-initiated, with the teachers as facilitators. The six QFT steps, as originated by The Right Question Institute, are as follows:

1. Teachers design a Question Focus (or QFocus) - With a prompt, a dilemma, or a guiding statement, the teacher frames the inquiry to point the children in a beneficial direction.
2. Students produce questions - Using a set of guidelines (listed above), the children generate questions based on their own curiosity and wonder.
3. Students improve their questions - The groups of students then refine and modify their lists based on an understanding of open- and closed-ended questions.
4. Students prioritize their questions - Through discussion and debate, the students choose specific questions they would genuinely like to probe further.
5. Students and teachers decide on next steps - As a group, the kids and adults together decide how to use these core questions to guide the coming days and weeks of classes.
6. Students reflect on what they have learned - By looking back over the process they have just pursued, students explore the value of self-initiated experimentation.

Source: The Right Question Institute, ASIDE

With our eighth-graders at the beginning of this school year, we used The Right Question Institute suggestions to remind the group about last year's study of the Civil War and to imagine what life must have been like in the Reconstruction-era South for the population of newly freed slaves. The questions the class generated ranged from personal to philosophical. In the end, the group chose three guiding questions (in blue) to form the foundation of our next three weeks. We have returned to these questions daily, to ponder after new readings and to flesh out with primary sources.

For additional reading about design in the classroom, check out "Design Thinking: Lessons For The Classroom," from Betty Ray at Edutopia.

Note: This post has been updated to reflect accurate sourcing (Sept. 28, 2012).

Century of the Child: Moving Forward

Source: MoMA

This summer, the Museum of Modern Art in New York opened the Century of the Child: Growing by Design 1900-2000 exhibition. The inspiration for this show was taken from Swedish designer and social theorist Ellen Key’s book, Century of the Child, published in 1900. Key saw the 20th century as a period of progressive thinking about the rights, development, and well-being of children as important to nurture in society.

Source: MoMA

As we get deeper into the 21st century, some of the same issues raised at the beginning of the last century are emerging today, particularly in the area of education. The exhibition examines “the material world of children from utopian dreams as citizens of the future to the dark realities of political conflict and exploitation.” Sound familiar? During the last century, modern architects and designers preoccupied themselves with childhood, including school architecture, clothing, playgrounds, toys, games, and a lot more. MoMA produced a wonderful interactive website to go along with this exhibit. The timeline walks the visitor through the objects on display by period, complete with detailed information and related works.

Source: Pat Kane, The Play Ethic

The exhibition starts at the turn of the last century when the kindergarten movement emerged. The "children's garden" was to be a place that valued a child’s enjoyment, creative process, and intuitive investigation of materials. This is not what many kindergartens look like today. Too often they are worksheet driven in preparation for testing. Ironically, the timeline ends with the quote by Pat Kane from his book The Play Ethic, featured here, on how play will be our dominant way of knowing, doing, and creating value. Perhaps we should send legislators and government officials on a field trip to this exhibition.

Historically, the notion of what’s best for children changed as events of the world and advancements in technology evolved. Similarly, the preoccupation with the best way to educate children is going through the same process today. Perhaps it’s because we’ve lost the focus on creativity and play in the classroom. For more than a decade, NCLB has pushed education into mediocrity, opting for a homogenized system to pass tests. We’ve taken the play out of learning, and as a result, children have disengaged in a flawed process to the tune of over a 35% dropout rate.

Source: ASIDE, 2012

Today, free play to learn how to socialize, invent, and imagine is rare; instead, child's play is organized. Add in diminished recess, limited physical education, and worksheet-driven classrooms and we have a recipe for unimaginative kids who lack a passion for learning. It is no wonder that we have trouble getting kids to think creatively. If they can’t play, they can’t learn and certainly not innovate.

This is Tony Wagner’s point in his most recent book, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World. Innovation is interdisciplinary. We need to promote play, passion and purpose for it and break free of fixed silos of learning. Creating innovators is not part of mainstream, conventional education that is too focused on measuring assessments through one-right answer tests. Likewise, the Common Core with all its good intentions still forces the same evaluation of student performance and now teachers, too.

Source: ASIDE, 2012

Like the modernist of the last century, we should see this as a push for progressive design thinking and advocate for the value of play, creativity, and design as intrinsic parts of student learning. The emergence of design thinking into the pedagogical milieu of educators toward long-range solutions is growing. If we combine this with a reformed and integrated approach to learning, doing, and making things, there’s no telling what could grow out of it.

Interestingly enough, the Century of the Child exhibition began with how “…the new pedagogy [kindergarten] prized authentic expression, the inspiration of the natural world, and the creative potential of every individual, every child.” Isn’t that what we want today? We think yes.

Visual Thinking: Where Learning Meets Design

September is the schoolest month. After a summer of distractions, we reenter the merry hubbub of kids and classes, parents and planning. This fall, we'll be armed with a fresh arsenal from our trusty PLN and our beach daydreams. Our ongoing emphasis will be the value of illustrative lessons and design-based investigations. Using one's visual imagination to approach educational problems (whether historical, literary, mathematical, or scientific) can yield tremendous dividends in student collaboration and engagement.

A captivating video, entitled "Visual Thinking: Writing With Pictures," lays out the value in honing one's optical acuity. At its base, this absorbing piece from the Sean Kelly Studio asks whether our teaching relies too heavily on words. It claims that "creativity is about finding connections and learning to see those connections." This form of inspirational, image-based instruction helps transform the "complex into the clear."


Visual Thinking: Writing With Pictures from Sean Kelly on Vimeo.

Kelly's crisp words and "eye" icons remind us that text and visual pairings can inspire keen connections in the learning process. A write-up from Katie Lepi at Edudemic about "3 Ways Mind Mapping Can Be Used To Enhance Learning" reinforces this partnership between visual and textual explorations. The article promotes the MindMaple software, but it evolves from a tutorial in webbing theory into a promotion of graphicacy awareness. Essentially, inventive approaches to note-taking can engender colorful and permanent connections. Visual maps can expose relationships, trace patterns, and foster relationships.

Source: Edudemic

The flip side to this gospel comes from Christine McLaren, at the BMW Guggenheim Lab, who asks, "Data Visualization: It's Pretty, But Is It Useful?" McLaren outlines how to avoid the eye-rolling at overly pretty graphics by focusing on the underlying data. She presents a point-counterpoint debate between nuanced, classic illustrations and simplistic, modern graphics. After all, underneath everything is information, and finding the visual discourse means finding the meaning.

Young Entrepreneurs Step Up

Source: ASIDE, 2012

We have written several posts about raising entrepreneurs and believe that when students are exposed to the idea of becoming an entrepreneur, they rise to the occasion. Our students did just that when they presented their work at the Entrepreneur Fair in May. These fifth graders worked at coming up with a product or service and taking it from its inception to completion.

To get to the point where they were ready to present their ideas to the school community required hard work and perseverance. They realized, too, that it's not that easy. They spent a good deal of time discussing the pros and cons of working as a sole proprietor or in a partnership, weighing the benefits and costs of each.

Source: ASIDE, 2012

Throughout the process, they struggled with the trials and tribulations of how to work together, or to make the decision to go it alone without a partner. This was tough sometimes, because they had to separate friendship from business, a life skill that could someday come in handy. They learned a lot about themselves, and it was not always easy to make decisions. Sometimes it made them uncomfortable to speak up about what they wanted and find their own voices.

Without a doubt the multiple layers of learning in the process of taking an idea to its fruition far exceeded our expectations as teachers. The decision-making process alone required them to continually revise their ideas, update their business plans, and think of ways to cut costs to increase profits. The other facet to the project included advertising and marketing their wares. One way they did this was to produce jingles to go along with their products.

Source: ASIDE, 2012

All in all, this was an amazing experience and no doubt one they will not forget. The concept of teaching entrepreneurship is one that we believe should not wait until they enter college classes. It is elementary and definitely promotes the idea of creating innovators.

Many of them never thought they could do something like this, and they were surprised by their successes. It was a win on all fronts, but most importantly for them. We want to raise entrepreneurs, develop confidence, and believe in our power as educators that we can create a new generation of innovators. When given the opportunity to make or design their own learning, they connect with the ideas we try to instill in them through the process.

Entrepreneurship is a forward-thinking approach to melding together a number of literacies. The ultimate goal is to get kids to think creatively, no matter how far-fetched. The act of making is the art of connecting. The more we aid in this process, the better the result.

Design Is A Method Of Problem Solving

Source: Wells Riley

One of the challenges we run into again and again in our teaching is the "forest for the trees" pitfall. In our middle school classes, we stress both core facts and larger themes. This seemingly dual focus can sometimes puzzle our students as they try to internalize one notion or the other. Ideally, we try to show how the details and the ideas are actually the same thing. Or to borrow the words of the furniture savant Charles Eames, "The details are not the details. They make the design."

Source: Visual.ly

One of the touchstones of the design world is the unity of form and function. This "big picture / small picture" harmony is an equally crucial lesson for learners of all ages. In essence, as Wells Riley reminds us, "design is a method of problem solving." Figuring out how best to fashion a product or invent a logo combines all of the top-tier thinking skills, such as creativity and ingenuity. In his detailed web feature, titled "Startups, This Is How Design Works," Riley offers a riveting tutorial in the fundamentals of design thinking.

As an interactive designer and founder of Bionic Hippo, Riley aims to acclimate entrepreneurs to the essential role of design in packaging and presentation. He also, however, assembles a masterful primer for school children in how to visualize information. Not only does he give young business leaders tips for marketing their ideas, but he also ends up offering advice to students in creating Prezis or PowerPoints. For example, he highlights German industrial designer Dieter Rams' "Ten Principles of 'Good Design,'" noting that the best design "...is unobtrusive" and "...is as little design as possible." This echoes our favorite maxim of "content first, pretty second."

Source: WSJ and Aaron Koblin

Another engaging write-up for teachers trying to tackle the two sides of understanding is "Balancing the Visual and Verbal Minds," by Sharon Ede at Cruxcatalyst. Rather than exploring how to present information, this post explores about how the brain receives it. Ede investigates how the mind processes ideas through the power of visual communication. Even The Wall Street Journal recently published a feature by Holly Finn spotlighting how "the most inspiring new art is visualized information."

Source: Smore

When we talk about visual thinking in the classroom, we make sure to differentiate it from visual learning. A recent piece on "Visual Thinking" from The Multidisciplinarian makes this distinction clear by tracing the evolution of perception from classical art to engineering schematics to modern business ideation. If anyone doubts the power and profit of pictures, Visual.ly rebuts with the infographic, "Visuals Are Valuable." Shared by Duarte Design (and Diagrammer), the infographic chronicles how images have changed history and have made fortunes for visually innovative companies and individuals.

One new online tool for making cool, custom graphics is Smore. Having just started private beta testing, Smore advertises the opportunity to "design beautiful online flyers and publish instantly." When they say "flyers," we think "infographics." After playing around for a while, we've found the resulting graphics to be easy to create and extremely professional looking. We recommend you give it a taste.

Source: Karl Gude

Other valuable resources for students and teachers:

• Organizing Thinking Through Visual Diagrams, by Hayriye Sakarya, Instructor at Gazikent Universitesi
  
• Bar, Pie, and Line Charts Explained, by Karl Gude, teacher, consultant, and former Director of Information Graphics for The Associated Press and Newsweek
  
• Chart and Image Gallery: 30 Free Tools for Data Visualization and Analysis, from Computerworld 

Design Thinking - Invisible Hearts Project

The Invisible Hearts Project

In this day and age it is routine to hear the daily news reports about cyberbullying and its effect on today’s youth at all ages. Perhaps, too, because it is so often in the news, the victims become another statistic in a world somewhat desensitized to hearing so much negativity. This, however, did not stop a group of Australian students from Ravenswood School for Girls and Knox Grammar to do something about it. They decided that they had had enough and collaborated to create the Invisible Hearts Project to bring awareness to this growing problem.

Without possibly realizing it, these students were engaged in the process of design thinking. They displayed empathy with the issue of cyberbullying by immersing themselves in the feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of those affected. According to Wikipedia, design thinking “is generally considered the ability to combine empathy for the context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights and solutions, and rationality to analyze and fit solutions to the context.”

Invisible Hearts Project-Our Story

These students identified with their cause, which enabled them to figure out design opportunities to work toward ending a real-life problem by setting up goals they wanted to achieve. They used design thinking to investigate the issue, analyze it, and come up with a creative solution to make the most impact. By soliciting others to take photos making a heart with their hands to show solidarity against cyberbullying and the chance to make a difference, they actively engaged the viewer to participate in their cause. These images are the background for the website which still actively solicits participation.

Source: weheartit

The Invisible Hearts Project used the power of technology, the root cause for the spread of cyberbullying, to bring awareness of the problem to its audience using photographs, comments and videos. In addition, the project used music, blogs, surveys and social networks such as Twitter (@hearts_projects) and the Invisible Hearts Project facebook page to further mobilize its efforts. The documentation of first-hand accounts by victims of cyberbullying are powerful and heart-wrenching. The same technology behind the problem was rerouted to promote the positive use of technology to encourage peace, equality and love, the primary message of its mission. By taking a human-centered problem, they were able to use design thinking to try to come up with a solution to gain support for its cause.

Letting students pursue an idea through the design process enabled them to create a powerful vehicle for bringing attention to an issue. Design thinking, like other ideas on innovative design in education, is centered on allowing students to take an active role in their own learning to uncover a problem or need and come up with a particular goal or solution. Whether it was intended in this particular case, the students behind the Invisible Hearts Project exercised their ability as design thinkers to create a compelling message to try to effect a change.