Education is a deeply human-centered endeavor. Know your students well, and you’ll be better able to create learning experiences that meet their needs; co-design those experiences with your fellow educators and you’ve got the Consortium’s Act 45 course: Using Human-Centered Design to Support Student Growth and Achievement.
Now in its second cohort, seven new school districts began their design journeys in September. Over the course of five months, school leaders will apply the design process (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test), to a challenge within each of their unique systems.
School leaders are constantly tackling complex issues on a daily basis, but what sets this design course apart is its structured, active approach to problem-solving. Participants will learn how to facilitate and apply more than two dozen design methods, all within the context of K12 education.
During the first day of training, principals and superintendents spent time sitting down to interview one another to surface and deeply understand the challenges that each educator is facing in their system. Practicing empathy through those reflective conversations helped each team to pinpoint a focal challenge to drive their coursework. They then began mapping out the key stakeholders who are either impacted or engaged in solving their challenge. That map will guide them throughout the next few weeks as they return to their districts to listen, observe, and learn.
This focus on practicing the strategies and applying the methods to an issue in their own systems is one aspect that makes the course so valuable. As one participant reflected, “I love the interaction around our district-level needs!”
Throughout the following sessions, school leaders will expand their design thinking toolbox, practice and apply a variety of design methods to define their systems, develop novel ideas, and refine their solutions. And while they will use many of the hallmarks of design thinking including Post-Its and Sharpies, it will be their human-centered mindset that will matter most in the end.
Regardless of the tools you use or the methods you employ, it’s keeping students, families, and communities at the center of your decision-making and included in your process that makes a world of difference.
