Anhalt University of Applied Sciences Design Department | MA Integrated Design Design Theory | Dipl. Des. Daniela Peukert Winter Semester 16/17
Applying User-centered design methodologies to learning experiences
Daniela ChavarrĂa Aguilar daniela.aguilar@student.design.hs-anhalt.de Matrikel-No. 4063704 13.02.2017
Table of contents 1. Introduction 2. Learners disengagement • Standardized and academic oriented education • Outdated and irrelevant education 3. Change agents • Catalysts - Project H Design, Emily Pilloton - Kiran Bir Sethi, Riverside school - Seema Bansal, Department of School Education in Haryana, India 4. Paths for innovation • User-centered Design methodologies applied - The Teachers guild - The School retool 5. Looking into the future 6. Conclusion 7. Bibliography 8. Confirmation of Authorship 2
Introduction Education has a problem, it has become outdated. It was planned for an Industrialized era with different needs and outcomes from the ones faced today. Learners are tired and disengaged from a system that doesn’t take them into account, it doesn’t make sense to them, and as a result, they are dropping out or going through it indifferently. Education wants to change, but it needs help creating reliable and effective innovations. It also needs help designing learning experiences for a new student-centered era. Some Educators have already been doing interesting and dramatic transformations in their methods and processes, and therefore achieving fascinating results in students engagement and motivation. Most of these “change agents” have taken inspiration in Design methods and models such as Design thinking. The aforementioned inspiration that Educators can draw from Design in order to improve learning experiences is the focus of this essay. Specifically, I will concentrate in the influence that user-centered Design methodologies can have in shaping Learners, curriculum, and innovation in Education. I will also explore a bit into the future of innovation for learning experiences. I’d like to root around what is externally from the education expertise visualized as needed from Learners, be them, adults, teenagers or children. 3
Learners disengagement Our world has been rapidly changing, and Learners rapidly react to it. I’d like to unveil some of the reasons that have been unfortunately acting against education to transform along with our world’s, and therefore not connecting with the Learners needs and interests. All these changes have led to a worldwide revolution. Sir Ken Robinson is one of the principal figures leading a “grassroots revolution” in schools, which is aimed to transform Education and therefore the students experiences. In his words, this revolution is based on “a belief in the value of the individual, the right to self-determination, our potential to evolve and live a fulfilled life, and the importance of civic responsibility and respect of others” (Robinson, 2015).1 Based on some of Robinson’s ideas and arguments, let’s explore two main reasons for Learners disengagement from educational systems. The first one that I’ll discuss is standardization and academic oriented education; followed by the second one that is about outdated and irrelevant education.
Standardized and academic oriented education In the last decades, educational systems around the world have increasingly been standardized. Formally speaking, that includes 3 elements: curriculum, teaching, and assessment. In general terms, this encloses that the strategy for schools, high schools and in higher education is to standardize the whole system as much as possible. Have a curriculum that is common for every school and every student, which is decided by the government. The disciplines are prioritized by discrete subjects “the essential ones”, and also the ones that emphasize on academic study, leaving the more practical disciplines out from many schools. In regards of standardized teaching, there’s a preference to focus on whole class instruction than group activities. Creative, personal, discovery and imaginative strategies aren’t preferred. Standardized assessment emphasizes in written and multiple-choice tests. It favors approaches that are easily quantifiable or codified and later processed. One can already observe a pattern, where standard and academic education can be identified as being stiff and inflexible. It is a Teacher-based education, it doesn’t allow the student to be a part of the process and it doesn’t take into account its own individuality, or takes to the minimum the possibility to express themselves, be creative or explore their talents because it complicates the system. 4
In addition to this problems, if students aren’t very interested in an academic education, there’s a stigma of having to select career paths seen as “secondary options” for less intelligent or skilled students. Which is obviously not true, but is part of the problems attributed to this educational style. It is critical for the design of learning experiences to have into account that the approaches should be flexible, adaptable and encouraging for its Learners. As Robinson mentions, there should be a rich and balanced curriculum, a better quality of teaching and a supportive assessment system. Hence, education should be based on entirely different principles and practices because “people do not come in standard sizes or shapes, nor do their abilities and personalities.”
Outdated and irrelevant education If we go back to the origins of our current learning system. We will discover that the education as we know it nowadays was planned for a different moment in history and with a different purpose in mind. It was planned for the industrial revolution (See Fig.1), and of course in that context a lot of things that today we give for granted made sense, but today we need to avoid doing and planning structures or routines just because “we’ve always done it this way”.
" Fig. 1. Current educational system was designed in the industrial revolution
Let’s consider several comparisons between the industrial revolution and our current education that Robinson shares as Industrial principles. The industrial revolution was in need of a lot of manual workers but didn’t need as much college graduates, so education was designed as a pyramid, this means that a lot of students entered it but not so many achieved the higher levels or even got graduated, which was the whole point. Economy and market demands define the needs of industrial production, and they adjust that production as necessary. Compared to education, universities also adjust the tests and score limits to get into one or another career.
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Mass production needs standardized processes with strict rules, if a product doesn’t comply with the quality then it is rejected or reprocessed. This is exactly the way that students are “measured” nowadays, they are tested and if they fail they need to go back to retake the necessary courses or even the entire year of studies. This kind of standardization was discussed in the previews section, and it judges students according to a single norm of abilities, condoning diversity and individuality. Industrial processes are linear, they are produced by batches and advancing through stages. Similarly, in schools students are organized by birth year groups and advance in this manner through the different levels. This approach doesn’t take into consideration the different competencies, dexterities or difficulties, that year-based capabilities enable. In summary, the purpose of education has now changed, and so the approaches should also change. Students need to be involved and considered when deciding what and how they learn. Their likes and dislikes should be considered. They should be able to “be selfmotivated, self-regulated, self-monitoring” as George Siemens talks about improving education on an interview done by Marguerite McNeal2. Especially now that traditional degrees aren’t a guarantee of a good job with a good salary, Learners want to improve their skills or complement their knowledge and are recurring to alternative options such as MOOCs, bootcamps and specialized programs. Some of those specialized options also involve resources that are becoming available nowadays with emerging technologies and social media, which allows us to have more adaptive and customized learning experiences (Torcivia & Kilgore, 2016)3. Although, technology can make learning more efficient and even increase social interactions if correctly used. We need to make sure that automation is not causing more problems than the ones that it is helping to solve. As Siemens says, we shouldn’t obviate “the need for Learners to memorize content and develop routine skills”, but instead we should focus to develop the students unique “human traits—the ones that will help them thrive” in work and life, for example, communication, self-awareness, and networking abilities.
Change agents After taking a look at the problem that educational is having, mostly in formal systems, I would like to direct our attention to who is involved in changing the status quo and what are they doing to bring the much-needed transformation. Catalysts We’ll take a look at some education Leaders and Teachers that are the catalysts of change. They have creative approaches to teaching and learning that can create high levels of achievement even in difficult and adverse environments. 6
Emily Pilloton, Project H Design This is one of the multiple examples that we can find about Teachers (in this case a designer) who saw challenges in a rural community and applied design to change learning. She is Emily Pilloton, and she gave a TED talk4 about her experience in the public high school of Bertie County, a poor county in the state of North Carolina, United States. She founded a non-profit design firm named Project H Design in 2008, that has a particular design process, which thrives in places that don’t have many resources in regards of design services or creative capital. They have the following 6 design principles: 1. Design through action 2. Design with, not for 3. Design systems, not stuff 4. Document, share, and measure 5. Start locally, and scale globally 6. Build They highlight the importance of the principle number 2, because they focus on design centered in users and as Emily says “letting appropriate solutions emerge from within�. So, in Bertie County, they founded a class named Studio H, which is an in-school design/ build class for 6th-12th grades students. They make the most of this program, so there could be an applicable reason for education. Their strategy is to teach students to design and build their future on their own and transform communities and improve the public education (See Fig.2 and Fig.34).
" Fig. 2. Studio H strategy
" Fig. 3. Detailed Studio H strategy framework
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According to the Studio H website, students are able to “develop the creative capital, critical thinking, and citizenship necessary for their own success and for the future of their communities”6. This is achieved by teaching design, applied arts and sciences and vocational building skills, in order to attain creative, technical and leadership tools5. Some of the results that Studio H has constructed are a 2000-square-foot farmers market pavilion, a school library, a pop-up park, laser-etched skateboards, sculptural concrete public furniture, roadside farmstands, tiny homes, etc6.
Kiran Bir Sethi, Riverside school In this case study, we will see the perspective of Founder and Director Kiran Bir Sethi, in the Riverside school in Ahmedabad, India. Their unique philosophy of ‘Doing Good AND Doing Well’ consists in the implementation of a user-centered curriculum that focuses on quality of learning and student well being7. They use a methodology with the acronym FIDS which stands for Feel, Imagine, Do and Share (See Fig.4.). This is the I CAN mindset that Kiran wishes her students to embrace.
" Fig. 4. Feel Imagine Do Share mindset framework
They have also invested their efforts into designing a method that can be shared with children to experience it around the world. This Riverside approach is based on the 5 goals (See Fig.5.).
" Fig. 5. The Riverside school goals
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Their curriculum is structured in 3 stages. Key stage 1, which is for young Learners and its focused in sensorial and multidimensional learning. They develop competencies from simple to complex. Key stage 2, where they begin to interact with more complexity and more self-managed. They are ready for making connections and conclusions from experiences. Key stage 3, is where mature Learners have advanced competencies in communication and problem-solving skills. Additionally, Kiran Bir Sethi has founded a school competition called Design for change8. Which is also based on FIDS methodology and aims to develop empathy, ethics, engagement and elevation in children, so they can be equipped with tools to understand and shape the world around them and take action towards their future.
Seema Bansal, Department of School Education in Haryana, India This example is about Leaders and governments involvement in education. Seema Bansal was a speaker for TED talks, and she shared the experience she had in helping the government in India to fix the public education system in a state called Haryana9. Which has 15000 schools and 2 million plus children attending. She explains the process in which she and her team were able to create a change and an impact in education, and we’ll explore this process. The whole process began with a call, where Surina Rajan, the head of the Department of School Education in this state, asked for her help, telling her that they’ve already tried several things with no success. Seema and her team began to research for another example to replicate and implement in Haryana. But they realized that there wasn’t any and that they had to create their own process. And there’s where they began with the ideation process, but they realized that having a specific goal actually helped them to limit and restrain their ideation. That goal was “by 2020, we want 80 percent of our children to be at grade-level knowledge”. These ideas were mostly based on assumptions that people outside the classrooms, though, so they made an immersion in schools and interviewed and supervised Teachers. Only after that, they realized that the assumptions were incorrect and the problem relied on Teachers dedicating their time not to teach, but supervising and being responsible for other projects in schools. This happened because there were incorrect expectations and goal settings about what was expected from them from their Leaders. And so the team decided to tackle this issues as a special part of the program they were creating. They went back into research, and they found out that there were already successful programs being applied on a small scale. Therefore, they defined that their solutions had to be scalable and within the existing budgets and resources that the state has.
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Summarizing, Seema gives two examples they applied in the program that had positive and immediate results. 1. Applying hands-on learning experiences. As resources are limited, they made a handbook for Teachers with ideas about activities that can be done to reinforce learning with things they can find in their immediate environment, either inside or outside their classroom. This also gives the option to implement this changes across all of the 15000 schools. 2. When implementing changes, they needed an efficient way of communicating it to the 100000 Teachers. They knew it had to be technology based, but many of the schools didn’t have computers or email, so they came up with the idea to make groups in WhatsApp. Everyone in the system is acting as a peer group, they respond each others questions, and everybody is aware of the challenges and wins that each school has. With the implemented changes, the quality of teaching has improved, and students are being assessed on their learning outcomes. Schools are getting additional support if needed. Now, Haryana is one of the few states in the country showing the fastest rate of improvement.
Paths for innovation To analyze everything that we’ve explored so far, I’d like to delve in the fact that change is needed and the Teachers are ready and eager to create it. Generating and applying those new ideas or methods is what I refer to when talking about innovations. Their innovations are required to be created within boundaries and restrictions from the system, such as budget, scalability, accessibility and even simplicity. User-centered Design methodologies applied Educators need to be guided into creating spaces within their responsibilities for innovation. They need to be able to apply changes that are based in their Learners and even done in a collaborative way with their students or with other Educators in a complementary way. I believe that now is the best time to be collaborating and co-creating. Technology has made the experience an easy and simple one. Additionally, Educators now have the guide and expertise from design companies such as IDEO and Frog. These companies have adapted Design theory to be applicable to education and be used as inspiration. To complement this point of view, I want to share just two examples of communities/ programs where Teachers can join, create and share their innovations.
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The Teachers guild The Teachers guild10 is a collaborative community designed for Teachers that wish to innovate in their schools and solve challenges in education (See Fig.6.). It uses the design thinking process, which is Human-centered.
! Fig. 6. The Teachers guild innovation program
The Teachers will be in a support system of Coaches and Mentors, where they learn about five leadership competencies (See Fig.7.) when applying Design thinking with an IDEO toolkit for educators. Each “innovation journey� duration is 10 weeks and at the end of the process the vote for the favorite ideas (solutions) to try in and with their schools (See Fig. 8.).
" Fig. 7. Five leadership competencies
" Fig. 8. Innovation journey
They have a strong belief that every Teacher is a designer, and that working as a community, they can have stronger and faster innovations. All this by making sure that they are designed for and with their students in mind. This website does not only work as an informational site, other Teachers can access it for inspiration and they can also try their solutions and join their social media or read their Medium stories. This is what a community should work like, Teachers get support, guidance on how to build their own process, extrinsic motivation and tons of examples that they can also use. 11
The School retool The School retool11 is a second example of communities where Teachers come together to collaborate and innovate regarding challenges that they have in their classrooms or schools. This is a program that has a duration of 3.5 months. They believe that “deeper learning” is successful when radical approaches are applied, they call this small “hacks” and they have a framework of the mindset that they want Teachers to learn (See Fig.9). These hacks are in depth specific innovations applied in teaching and learning.
" Fig. 9. The hack mindset
In School retool, they have this concept of deeper learning as their core philosophy, and it’s based on “making sure that the students are at the center of the learning experience”, they wish to impact the future of Students by equipping them for it in an integral way. “Deeper Learning prepares students for success in college and careers, as well as civic and everyday life. It gives them real-world skills through meaningful experiences. It builds their ability to transfer what they’ve learned from one context to another”.
" Fig. 10. Deeper learning elements
Something that I found very useful in the School retool website is a section called Big ideas, where they ask whoever access it to use it as an inspiration for their own process. They have also sorted the ideas by their goals, which are among others: make learning relevant, increase student voice & choice and set every student up for success. 12
Looking into the future Finally, I’d like to emphasis on the importance of paying attention and making sure that we give enough importance to what we might miss if we don’t make sure that the current education is transformed and becomes more flexible and inclusive with its Users. According to the World Economic Forum12, in 5 years from now, 35% of important skills considered important for the workforce will have changed. They highlight that the skills that will change the most will be Creativity along with Emotional intelligence. These are purely human traits which we should make sure that education fosters. Quoting McNeal’s interview to George Siemens again, they advise Educators to prepare their students for this unique skills, and they mention again creativity, self-regulation and, communication. Similarly, several companies from the United States founded a partnership with its own views on which skills are important for the 21st Century education. It is called P21, The Partnership for 21st Century Learning13. Their mission is to serve as a catalyst to build collaborative partnerships so that Learners acquire integral knowledge and skills to thrive in the 21st-century world. Among several topics, they have a framework in which they state that the skills that Learners need to succeed in work and life should focus on creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. As a common factor, creativity is at the top of the list and should be considered as a top skill needed for Learners and from Educators.
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Conclusion As a conclusion for this essay, I’d like to list the most important aspects that we should consider when applying User-centered design methodologies to learning experiences. First, we need to consider the problem and the need that there is a transformation of the current educational systems. Learners should be considered during the whole process of deciding what they learn (curriculum), how they learn it (teaching) and how they apply that learning (assessment). It should consider their individuality, their unique talents, their passions and help them in the process of discovering themselves and the world around them. Second, efforts to bring change and innovations are coming from the bottoms up, which means that students want their voice to be heard, and the Teachers are the biggest catalysts to do this. They should be empowered, supported and awarded while implementing this transformation in their schools or learning environments. Third and last, we need to consider the future of the work and life of the Learners to make decisions in which skills will be necessary and interesting for them. With our ever changing world, creativity and communication are at the top of what they’ll need to thrive. 14
Bibliography 1. Robinson, S. K., & Aronica, L. (2016). Creative schools: The grassroots revolution that’s transforming education. United States: Penguin Books. 2. McNeal, M. (2016, August 11). “Our technology is our ideology”: George Siemens on the future of digital learning (EdSurge news). Retrieved January 13, 2017, from EdSurge news, https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-08-11-our-technology-is-our-ideologygeorge-siemens-on-the-future-of-digital-learning 3. Torcivia, P., & Kilgore, W. (2016, December 15). What faculty need to know about “Learner experience design.” Retrieved December 27, 2016, from LX matters, https:// lxmatters.org/learner-experience-design/ 4. Pilloton, E. (2010, November 8). Teaching design for change. Retrieved January 21, 2017, from TED, https://www.ted.com/talks/ emily_pilloton_teaching_design_for_change 5. Project H Design. Retrieved January 21, 2017, from Project H Design, http:// www.projecthdesign.org/ 6. About. Retrieved February 12, 2017, from Studio H, http://studio-h.org/ 7. Riverside Education Foundation. (2016). Philosophy. Retrieved February 12, 2017, from Riverside School, http://www.schoolriverside.com/philosophy 8. What we do. Retrieved February 12, 2017, from Design for change, http:// www.dfcworld.com/whatwedo.html 9. Bansal, S. (2016a, June 22). How to fix a broken education system ... Without any more money. Retrieved January 17, 2017, from TED, https://www.ted.com/talks/ seema_bansal_how_to_fix_a_broken_education_system_without_any_more_mone y?language=en 10. The teachers guild. (2016, November 28). Retrieved December 22, 2016, from The teachers guild, http://teachersguild.org/ 11. School Retool. Retrieved February 13, 2017, from http://www.schoolretool.org/ 12. Gray, A. (2016, January 19). The 10 skills you need to thrive in the fourth industrial revolution. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from World Economic Future, https:// www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-10-skills-you-need-to-thrive-in-the-fourthindustrial-revolution/ 13. P21. (2017, January 28). Retrieved December 30, 2016, from http://www.p21.org/ index.php
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Confirmation of Authorship I hereby formally declare that the work submitted is entirely my own and does not involve any additional human assistance. I also confirm that it has not been submitted for credit before, neither as a whole nor in part and neither by myself nor by any other person. All quotations and paraphrases but also information and ideas that have been taken from sources used are cited appropriately with the corresponding bibliographical references provided. The same is true of all drawings, sketches, pictures and the like that appear in the text, as well as of all Internet resources used. Violation of these terms will result in failure of the seminar and no credits will be awarded. 
 I am aware that plagiarism is serious academic misconduct, which can lead to further sanctions on reoccurrence.
Daniela ChavarrĂa Aguilar _____________________________ First name, last name
13.2.17 ___________ Date
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