NOTES FROM
ACADEMIA
A Quarterly Newsletter from the Office of the Assistant Head of School for Academics
Fall 2016
FWCD Summer Fellows The biggest movies this summer seemed to be about workplace dynamics: Ghostbusters, Captain America: Civil War, Star Trek: Beyond, the list goes on. To believe what Hollywood presents, coworkers squabble non-stop unless they need to come together to save the world. Why then, would about a third of FWCD faculty apply to return to campus in the middle of the summer to collaborate on curricular projects? Because they’re awesome. In the inaugural year of the FWCD Summer Fellows Program, teachers were given the opportunity to propose a curricular topic on which they wanted to collaborate with their peers. Sixteen projects were approved for up to three days of funded, on-campus work. As much as we learn at conferences, the efficiency of turning this work into results is hard to beat. The ideas they generated during the summer are already playing out in new lesson plans and improved instruction during the school year. In Lower School, several grade-level teams and Lower School Learning Specialist Teresa Hoppe worked on preparing the rollout of Everyday Math 4. Middle School English teachers discussed grammar alignment, while Upper School English teachers audited their use of writing assignments and the practical use of writing portfolios. Additional projects included: • Killian Philipson and Chesley Cunningham working on “gamifying” (no, really, it’s a thing) a unit in A House on Mango Street. • Colin Douglas ’06 and Brian Farda developing project-based learning for World History. • Kathr yn Sohne, Theresa Fuss, and Kathy Roemer developing cross-divisional collaboration for proactive counseling programs. • Ravi Pillalamarri, Chloe Bade Anderson ’05, Hester Burdman, and Andreanne Annis developing cross-divisional inclusivity and multiculturalism programming. • Heather Peace and Chuck Kraus merging mathematics and music theory into a project for students. • Kathy Roemer and Kendall Davis working to use photography to promote healthy selfimage through a project they’re calling “Redefining Beauty.” • Sara Teegarden and Christy Alvear connecting forensic science and government classes by tying the study of a murder scene in one class to a mock trial in the other. • Chuck Maddux, Tara Finn, and Chesley Cunningham digitizing the sixth-grade geography passport project. • Sara Teegarden, Colin Douglas ’06, Maggie Philpot, and Christy Alvear studying design thinking. The last project on this list, the design thinking study, was part of a larger effort on campus this summer, one detailed in the rest of this newsletter. Enjoy!
Bradley S. Philipson, PhD Assistant Head of School for Academics
Design Thinking Trends in education are a dangerous thing. A buzzword goes around, and everyone tries to jump on board, often more concerned with using the lingo than with internalizing meaningful principles. I was not alone in treating “design thinking” with skepticism when it first caught fire in education three or four years ago. Nevertheless, I discovered through a peer school presentation last year how the design thinking process can be applied as a means of teaching empathy and problemsolving across subjects—not just in science and math, but even in the humanities and arts. Teaching kids to define empathy is one thing, but teaching them to empathize is another entirely. Design thinking requires students to take the perspective of others and think about others’ needs. When those same presenters were coincidentally in town to learn from us, I made sure the division heads and Head of School Eric Lombardi had a chance to learn from them as I had, building on some work we had done in our TCU leadership program and leaving us eager to get more teachers on board.
Chesley Cunningham and Killian Philipson review their gamification project.
The top place in the country for independent school teachers to train in design thinking is The Nueva School (CA), an entire PK-12 school running off the philosophies of Stanford’s “d.school.” As we secured three coveted spots there, we received another bit of good news: The Good Shepherd School in Dallas would be hosting representatives from Stanford’s d.school in the metroplex for a three-day training. Third-Grade Teacher Kelly Lanier Tierce ’93, Middle School Librarian Kim Gardner, and Upper School History Teacher Sara Teegarden went to The Nueva School, while Lower School Art Teacher Rebecca James, Middle School Science Teacher Jamie Ringgenberg, and Head of School Eric Lombardi attended the d.school program in Dallas. After returning to town, Sara gathered with Upper School peers Christy Alvear (science), Colin Douglas ’06 (history), and Maggie Philpot (English) for their Summer Fellows project. Maggie had prepared by reading Creative Confidence:
Maggie Philpot, Christy Alvear, Sara Teegarden, and Colin Douglas ’06 talk design thinking.
Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by d.school creator David Kelley and his brother Tom, a partner at IDEO. IDEO is a design company best explained by a 1999 Nightline clip about the creation of the perfect shopping cart. It’s worth a Google, and the 20-minute segment is a stalwart of conference presentations on design thinking. The book had Maggie almost as excited about the work as Sara when Lower School Assistant Head Trey Blair and I walked into their meeting. We were just going to poke our heads in, say hi, and maybe solicit some faculty in-service volunteers. We emerged hours later, a bit twitchy. I was glad I stayed. I learned that design thinking is not always about following a rigorous process. Sometimes, just a step or two from the process may serve your classroom needs. I learned that it’s not about the jargon. Practitioners are encouraged to adapt the terminology to their own needs. In fact, Maggie took advantage of open source materials to create a poster describing the stages as this group chose to frame them. Design thinking requires students to take the perspective of others and think about others’ needs. The first step is literally to empathize, a process that may include interviewing, observation, and perspective-
taking. In pragmatic terms, it teaches skills that will help students understand both what they read and how they interact with others. It expands their schema beyond their own experience to the experience of others. This step needn’t be theoretical; commonly, design thinkers seek input from their target audience to the greatest degree possible to identify their needs. The next step asks students to define their question. The wording of the question determines the value of the answer. Time and again, students will be faced with a task wherein not understanding what they’re looking for will preclude success. Defining the question properly sets their compass points; without it, all the effort in the world won’t move them in the right direction. Next, students brainstorm or “ideate.” They work collaboratively to come up with ideas, creating a safe space to think differently. Two important elements to this are the collaboration, the opportunity to bounce ideas off one another and feed each other’s creativity, and having an environment safe enough to throw out unconventional ideas, to take giant leaps to come up with what might work. Next comes prototyping, building a solution, whether physical or conceptual, to see how it plays out in real life. A
prototype must represent the best thinking the group has had to date, but it should not be too precious; to see what works, a prototype must be ambitious enough to risk failure. The last stage involves testing. The prototype is rolled out for the target audience, who tries it out and offers feedback. Some degree of failure is expected, as it means the design was ambitious, that it pushed boundaries to achieve as much as possible. With feedback gathered, the design thinkers will move through the steps again, implementing what they have learned to make their design better and better. A few days after that July session, Rebecca, Jamie, and Eric began their training in Dallas, and members of both groups led workshops for a few dozen more during our August in-service days. Demand for the poster Maggie designed has grown, and we’re ordering a reprint. We’re excited to apply this framework in a way that enhances teaching at FWCD, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have our faculty leading the way. Their work this summer is a testament to the way lifelong learners continue to expand their knowledge base to the benefit of others.
Fallingwater As an English teacher, I wish I could walk around in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I wish I could travel through France and Spain with Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley and watch events unfold in real time. Literature doesn’t work that way, but sometimes art does. This was the case when Middle School Art Teacher Holly Clifford was awarded a prestigious and coveted teacher residency at architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater this summer. Fallingwater, which graced the cover of Time magazine after its completion in 1938, was a private home constructed over a waterfall in rural Pennsylvania and is considered the finest example of Wright’s work. The 11 teachers selected for this program stayed in a small dorm on property and worked on a series of projects to understand the interrelationship between landscape and structure that Wright brought from Japan and incorporated into the Prairie School style of architecture. Having free reign of the larger property and a studio adjacent to their living quarters, Holly and the other teachers were also able to view parts of the home not open to the general public. They climbed to the bottom of the waterfall to look up at the house and were even granted full access to the interior on the day the home was closed to tours. Though not permitted to share pictures from that day, they could explore the mid-century art and artifacts throughout, open windows, and generally treat
the home, well, if not like their own, at least like the home of a relative whom one would be deathly afraid of disappointing by damaging anything. Holly has already brought her enhanced knowledge in organic architecture back to FWCD, teaching a hands-on workshop for interested faculty and incorporating what she has learned into art classes. She remains connected with the teachers of her Fallingwater cohort, sharing ideas and lessons across the country in a way Wright never could have conceived.
Holly’s workshop for faculty.
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