Universidad Mariano Gรกlvez Facultad de Humanidades Escuela de Idiomas Final Project Catedrรกtica: Licda. Silvia Sowa
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José Luis Villeda Pérez 6076-05-2350
Table of Contents
Introduction Have you ever asked yourself: How to improve your classes? Am I thinking on my students’ needs? Do I go by the book? Well, let me tell you that this document was made with purpose of helping you and other teacher to make of you classes, projects and activities a better real-life experience for your students. You will read all of the information based on “Design Thinking” which is a methodology or an approach based on the needs of your clients. Now days, technology is a very important tool that cannot be left out of our classes. This method emerges your students in the project they are going to be the main producers of their own learning process. In order to get the most out of this method you have to follow the steps, by doing this you will engage you students in the process. It is very important to follow the each of the phases systematically and you will have better results and very innovate and creative experiences not only for the students but for you as well.
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There are many problem in education today but if you take the time to design new and creative solutions for your classroom, so start thinking in your students’ needs it is your responsibility to create solutions and start thinking in designing new projects, new experiences for your students. Remember that if you design is equals to changing, make of your students critical thinkers, a teacher in the United States who is already applying this methodology in her classes said: I have seen teachers start to redesign their classroom spaces by interviewing their students...and develop new curricula by brainstorming and then prototyping out a unit...The fact that teachers are using human- centered design techniques to understand their students better makes students feel more engaged in the changing learning environment. The fact that the teacher is becoming the designer of his or her own classroom experience professionalizes the role of the teacher and allows for the most valuable change–authentic change driven by the students’ needs rather than a school or district mandate. Design thinking is a creative act and lets teachers understand that the act of creating an effective learning environment is an art that is both reflective and intentional. If we want to change education and learning to make it more relevant, more effective and more enjoyable for all involved, teachers need to be the entrepreneurial designers and re-designers of the “systems” of schools and of the schools themselves. Dominic, Head of School
Objectives General Objective: •
Understand the process and the implementation of “Design Thinking in Higher Education”.
Secondary Objectives: •
Apply this new methodology in our curriculum, daily classes, and unit projects
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Design better projects in an intuitively and creative way.
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Test our students´ process and ours as well. 3
Design Thinking In Higher Education
What is it? Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to learning based on evolving students’ confidence, creativity and it is about making a difference and getting into new solutions with a good positive impact on others. It is all about innovating and exploiting students’ problem-solving skills. This approach brings intuitive, real life experiences, and ways to discover new forms to work on problem solving. I could say that design thinking has four main characteristics:
Human Centered:
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It understands the needs and what motivates other people. Empathy.
Collaborative:
Many ideas put together are always stronger than just one. Everybody can freely express himself or herself. Together work and share all ideas.
Optimistic:
It is the belief that all of us can make a change. It does not matter the size of the problem design is a fun process
Experimental:
You can learn from your mistakes because you will stand up and bring new and innovated ideas.
The Process for Design Thinking
There are five steps or phases in the process for Design Thinking; you must follow them in order to have better results and innovative experiences. Discovery:
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The best projects or designs are human-centered so that means that you must focus on the needs of others. Understand the users. Students must immerse themselves in learning. Discovery is the beginning to build a new set of ideas, creating meaningful solutions for your students begins by understanding what they needs. Discovery means opening to new opportunities and will inspire you to create more ideas. Understand the Challenge:
1. Collecting thoughts as team altogether. 2. Establish any restrictions. You can make a list for specific challenge. 3. Frame the challenge base on ideas you have collected. 4. Create a visible reminder by posting it where everyone can see it.
Prepare Research:
1. Imagine people you might meet, think of characteristics why would make them interesting to meet. 2. Think of extremes, think of people who might me involved in the topic or not. 3. Make a list of activities that might be interested for your students such as: learn from individuals, groups, peers, experts, immerse yourself in context. Gather Inspiration:
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1. Create a good atmosphere by talking about an unrelated topic of your research this will make them feel comfortable. 2. Pay attention to the environment ask about objects around the place. 3. Capture all of your observations by taking notes in the place of a participant. 4. Get ongoing feedback form your participants.
Interpretation
In this phase, your point of view will change as you get a clearer understanding of what the observations mean. Interpretation transforms your stories into meaningful perceptions. Observations, field visits can be of a great inspiration for your students. Tell Stories: 1. Set up a space, you must plan your storytelling session in a room with plenty of wall space. Hand out post-it notes and markers. 2. Take turns describing the people you met and the places you visited. Be straight out and say what exactly happened, print the photos you took and use them to illustrate your stories. 3. Actively listen as they speak compare and contrast what you have learnt. 4. Capture the information in small pieces; write them down on post-it while listening to a story. Use concise sentences so everyone in your team can understand them. 5. Surround yourself with stories. Use one sheet of post-it per story so you can have an overview of all the people and experiences you have met.
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Search for Meaning: 1. Select what surprised you the most, what was interesting and what have you learned from it. 2. Reconnect the learning to your challenge, check the questions you started with and see how the findings are related to your challenge. Narrow the information to what is relevant. 3. Construct your perceptions work with the words and structures to communicate your insights. Make short and memorable sentences. 4. Get an outside view, invite someone who is not part of your group to verify it relates with outside audience. Frame the Opportunities: 1. Create “how might we” statements or “what if” this is where you generate many questions and write them down. 2. Pick a brainstorming questioning, select a group of questions for your brainstorming session and select the best options.
Ideation
This is the phase where ideation provides the spark and the source of material for creating prototypes and coming up with innovative solution for your audience. Innovation comes from a variety of ideas. Generate Ideas:
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1. Select someone who will facilitate or lead the group through each activity. Familiarize with brainstorming rules. 2. Present the theme by shortly introducing the challenge you are working on. You may share some of the stories from the Discovery Phase. 3. Explain the rules of brainstorming in order to set a good scene for the activity. 4. Involve and prepare everyone for participation by getting teams together near a wall and give them a post-it pad. Remind them to write one idea per post-it. 5. Begin with a warm-up so you can get the people in the mood. 6. One by one post a question so everyone can see it. Ask them to take a few minutes and start writing their ideas. 7. Keep the energy flowing by encouraging participation.
Refine Ideas: 1. As a team, you have to find what the idea is really about. What is the most important value for your audience? What is the real need? Capture everything on post-it notes 2. List all the restrictions you are going to encounter with your idea. What is missing? Who will oppose? Place it on the wall so everybody can see it. 3. Brainstorm new ideas describing the core of each idea. 4. Evolve your idea by discussing what can we change based on the new ideas. 5. Archive ideas, here you must forget ideas that somehow are difficult to create or not happy about it. Always keep up the post-it so you can check them later.
Experimentation
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This phase brings your ideas into life. Constructing prototypes means making ideas tangible, learning while you are working on them and sharing them with others. Make prototypes: 1. Create a storyboard; you can visualize your experience through a series of images, sketches, cartoons. You don´t have to be a great artist, you can use post-it or sheets of paper. 2. Create a diagram to map out the structure of the process of your idea you might try different types of them. 3. Create a story to tell your idea from the future. Write a newspaper article about your idea. 4. Make a fake advertisement that fosters your idea. Be free to exaggerate enormously. 5. Construct mock-ups digitally and websites with simple example of screens on paper. 6. Create a 3D representation of your idea. Either on paper or cardboard or any type of material you can find keep it low and evolve as time goes by. 7. Create a role-play, act out your experience of your idea. Uncover questions people might ask.
Get Feedback: 1. Be honest, present your design you are working on. State that it is still in progress. 2. Present different types of your prototype so people can compare and contrast. 3. Keep calm, do not be defensive, listen to all the feedback and take notes of positive and negative comments.
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4. Change your prototype right away, always be open-minded and accept any changes.
Evolution
Feedback is the most important element to developing an idea, but it might bring doubt to you as well. Go over the responses on the feedback and decide what to integrate on you next process. Evaluate Learnings: 1. Discuss all feedback received from prototype. Share all the good impressions and always take notes on post-it 2. Take some time to go back to where you started and ask yourself if it is what you intended from the very beginning, does it still hold the truth? 3.
Make the necessary changes where it supposed to be done. Create a new prototype and go through feedback repeatedly in order to improve your concept.
Build the Experience: 1. Specify materials by making a list of everything you are going to need to build your concept. 2. Calculate your budget because money always comes handy. You might hold a fundraiser. 3. Be time wise. Always consider time. Time for preparation, training time, etc. 4. Share your story. 5. Spread your story.
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PLAN OF DEVELOPMENT OF WEB PAGE HOW?
WHEN?
I searched for information before creating this webpage, since this a new topic for me. Once I had found some information, I started working on it.
I worked on this project after I got off work or when I did not have anything to do at school.
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WHERE?
In my house, that is the only place where I had access to internet.
WHICH?
I decided to use Yola.com. I found this website very friendly.
SOURCES?
I used some sites on the internet to look for the necessary information to create the webpage. I also visited images in Google. Downloaded some documents in order to extract the information.
Conclusion By doing the document I can conclude by saying, the Design Thinking will help me in my everyday classes. I am the only person with the responsibility to have my students learn through different activities and by implementing Design Thinking in my classes I know I will have my students become more participative in class, show a different attitude towards English. All I need to start making a change is to have the desire and not to be afraid of making mistakes, remember that all of us learn from previous experiences. So I invite you to teach your students not to be afraid and show them new ways to get better results. Design Thinking will give the necessary tools to have meaningful classes and the implementation of problem solving skills.
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References: Š 2015 YouTube, LLC. (2015, April 30). Youtube. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/?feature=ytca G., M. H. (12 de January de 2015). EDUCAUSE. Recuperado el 28 de April de 2015, de Using Design Thinking in Higher Education: http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/using-designthinking-higher-education Riverdale, IDEO. (2014). DTtoolkit [PDF file]. Design Thinking For Educators, downloaded from http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com/. 14
Screenshots of the website:
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Link to Webpage: http://designthinkingumg.yolasite.com/
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