Curb cuts are the gentle sloping edges to sidewalks that are now ubiquitous across the country and all over the world. Yet, there was a day when curb cuts just didn’t exist. The tenacious activist Ed Roberts led a movement in Berkley, California to demand that the city make curb cuts (99PI podcast episode) to increase access for the disabled who wished for mobility around … Continue reading Design Curb Cuts to Help All of Your Students
The Greatest Consumer of Student Data Are the Student Themselves Continue reading The Greatest Consumer of Student Data Are the Students Themselves
In the schools I’ve worked and have been given real agency to make decisions, only a few meetings are usually set aside for the work of choosing a course of action and always the conclusion of this set of meetings has resulted a final decision to be implemented. The stakes are high as everyone in the room knows one final answer will come out of … Continue reading Step 4 of The Design Process: Develop Solutions (Prototyping)
After a diligent and timely process to understand the problem (Step 1) and to collect information as a self-study (Step 2), you are now fully ready to springboard into brainstorming, heck, your team may be chomping at the bit to dive right in! The critical element to success in brainstorming is to rely heavily on your work in the last two steps as a frame … Continue reading Step 3 of the Design Process: Brainstorm
The second step in many design processes is to research, collect information, and to more deeply understand the internal product/system to be redeveloped. In education, that information can come in the form of achievement data, community surveys, classroom observations, anecdotal evidence and from meetings designed to try to organize information that relates to the the problem being addressed. This article will focus on collaboration and … Continue reading Step 2 of The Design Process: Collecting Information
Step One of The Design Process is to Define the Problem. Understanding and leveraging validation over verification may be a much greater tool to identifying the right problem to solve — more than even a focus on empathy.In fact, when working through the design process and design thinking on your campus, being careful and deliberate with verification and validation to ask the right question can … Continue reading Step 1 of The Design Process: Verification vs. Validation
Universal Means “For All” To understand what Universal Design is and where it comes from is to realize how limited the scope it has on education, even with Design Thinking being so trendy. While the last 30 years or so has seen the transformation of our school’s physical spaces accommodate physical needs more universally, our practices as educational professionals has often gone the opposite way, … Continue reading A New Universal Design in Education
Like it or not, there are parts of our school and courses that we designed in all of our schools that is aimed at deterring unwanted student behaviors or outcomes, however it doesn’t solve the root cause of the problem. Instead, it ends up irritating students and teacher alike, destroying student-teacher relationships and disenfranchising segments of your student population. This is the story of Hostile … Continue reading Hostile Design In Schools #SpikeStudents
Design Thinkers have a good thing going – Continue the journey with me won’t you? Design Thinkers in education have a good thing going for them. There is so much to gain from the deliberate process and great outcomes to be had. Most exciting may be better meetings, happier staff and a real process to improve your school. All of which may lead to better … Continue reading What Design Thinking Can Become
Skhooldesign with Jim Ellis 