INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN THINKING

Reflection – Visualization

Warning: This is a very specific case of study, not a generalized problem in all the universities in  this unmentioned Latin-American country.    Challenge:    I am a Math teacher for students in their first year of studies at university level. Our challenge is  to obtain an improvement in the student’s attitude towards mathematic courses, that maximizes  the learning and minimizes some corrupt practices plaguing the area. The social context of the  university is suffering from several maladies including persistent corruption at several levels;  wanting basic and intermediate education systems, with students growing a bad attitude towards  mathematics and other sciences; the viveza criolla (the natives cunning) pervading the whole  society. There is not an easy answer as for why the corruption exists and what the solution should  be, there is quite a corpus dealing with this topic from different perspectives, ranging from the  moral point of view to the Utilitarian point of view, and several in between [1]. Students enter in  the superior education system taking the vices and virtues from the environment and personal  previous experience.     Selection:  Visualization tool is selected in order to obtain better understanding of what is expected from  students, from the stakeholders; who are stakeholders in the students view, and why the student  choices may differ from what is expected. The goal is to make sense from the variety of  observations that are expected [2].      Application:  Several talks and interviews with students were conducted in three of the most important math  courses, namely Calculus I, Linear Algebra (LA) and Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE),  during the first semester of 2020 (May to August in the local scholar time). The approach was  designed using a strategy similar to the “bad cop, good cop” technique, since it was expected that  the principal professors would behave the same way as always, i.e., giving exhortative speeches  against corruption and dishonesty. On the other hand, three assistant professors behave in a  sympathetic way, offering extra time for counseling and to help students out of hard homework  and assignments. The student paying some advanced student to make the assignment for him/her  was par for the course, hence the free help from the assistant teacher was essential to establish a  connection with the students. At the end of the partials, the confidence built made students open  to talk about why they cheat and look for shortcuts even in courses other than C, LA and ODE.

Figure 1: Trying to figure all the stakeholders from the student point of view

Insight:  It turns out that, while many students really wanted to learn from their lessons, they didn’t see a  direct practical application of what they were studying to their future jobs. Therefore, courses like

LA were seen mostly as an obstacle hindering their careers instead of a set of techniques they could  benefit from in future. The view of the students can be summarized in the following figure, where  a shortcut, any shortcut, is better than following the regular process:

Figure 2: The current students view of the homework

Students feel pressure from their families, teachers, significant others, and peers to progress.  However, a new stakeholder made appearance, it will be called External Agent (EA; Figure 1). EA  consists of people related to students with no other purpose than to cheat, help cheat offering to  make the homeworks, and providing alternative ways of education; all for a pay. EA is the main  agent of the shortcut. There is a raging business sector developed around the idea of helping  students through the formal education system. EAs compete offering parallel lessons and showing  the higher approval rates between their clients, as opposed to the approval rates in the formal  education system. Why a student would pay for these services in a public education setting  supposed to be free? The answer is that the formal education is not providing students with a  vision and a mission, neither guidance or mentoring; they are seen as providers of just obstacles.    Teachers demand highly difficult tasks in a short time. There are reports of requirements of  readings 90+ pages just to be evaluated in three days via an online quiz. Why should a student  spend 10 hours to understand the matter, when an EA can explain it to you in a short 2 hours  lesson, to many students simultaneously and even make the quiz for you? Economically, this is a  lost battle for the formal education system. All things together, there is a too high cost of being  legal [3].     Approach:  The knowledge gained allow us to propose some guidelines for an alternative approach in the  formal education in mathematics, not being exclusive from other areas of sciences. Teachers need  a reminder to reassess the structure of the lessons by following the instructional moments in class  [4], so that more emphasis be given to the motivational component.

Figure 3: The view of a better future by following the regular process.

For the students to see the regular path as taking them to the next level of knowledge (Figure 3),  the homeworks and assignments are to be redesigned to be less in quantity, but more quality

oriented. Meaning: exercises designed to potentiate the abilities needed in the career, starting from  the easy level, up to the advanced one. Hence, a sense of purpose and achievement can be attained.

Figure 4: Assignments categorized as easy, intermediate and advanced level

Small groups should be organized in order to make collaborative the development and the problem  solving. There are several tools provided by the information technologies, so that mentoring and  guidance can be provided online. There should be reasonable deadlines (“plazos”).

Figures 5 & 6: Collaborative work with reasonable deadlines

It is expected that some peer pressure would build up, but also escalating the collaborative problem  solving. When the students see they can actually get help from their peers and better mentoring  from their teachers, they would see the cost of staying in the regular path as favorable.    The visualization tool will become essential to share the insight gained with the rest of the faculty,  and will be key in the next stages of the project.     References     [1] Lagunes, Paul, Xiaoxuan Yang, and Andrés Castro. 2019. The State of Corruption in Latin

America. Baker Institute Report no. 07.08.19. Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public  Policy, Houston, Texas.

[2] Liedtka, Jeanne, and Tim Ogilvie; 2011. Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for

Managers. Columbia Business School Publishing.

[3] Coase, Ronald, 1960. The problem of social cost. The Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. III,

1960, pp. 1–44.

[4] Kolb, D. A, 1984. Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development

(Vol. 1). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

