Design Thinking for Innovation Assignment

Challenge  A group of 30 teachers from a K-12 school are working together to identify a core issue in their class that can be  addressed through design thinking, resulting in student improvement. This is professional learning time being used  to set goals for the next Semester of school. Teachers already know their students and have spent a Semester with  them. They now want to identify goals for students for the remainder of the year and plan actions they can take in  the classroom to meet those goals. During the WHAT IS process, teachers are required to think deeply about  students in their class, and reflect on their own teaching processes, in this way, they can then start to identify what  needs exist within their classroom, and through WHAT IF, WHAT WOWS and WHAT WORKS, develop innovative  classroom practices to engage students.

Selection  The tool for teachers to use is Mind Mapping, specifically a Root Cause Tree Diagram.

EFFECTS

CORE PROBLEM

ROOT CAUSES

This link explains a root cause analysis.

https://www.changemakers.com/youthventure/resources/rootcause

This tool was selected for the challenge as it will allow the teachers to explore what they already know, categorise  the information and challenge assumptions about what happens in their classroom more effectively than through  open discussion. The tool guides teachers to ask what is happening and why, starting with identifying a Core  Problem, the teachers are asked to explore why this is a problem through Root Causes, and then what are the Effects  of the problem, or what do they see happening as a result of the problem. As the tree can have endless roots and  endless branches, they can dig deep into the core problem and continue adding levels of detail through branching.  With teachers are working together, they can develop a broader set of insights into the classroom experience.

Application  Teachers were divided into smaller groups according to classes they share.

WHAT I DID  WHAT I OBSERVED

Before the Root Cause Tree Diagram they spent time  sharing stories about the students from first Semester,  along with hopes or concerns for students with an  interviewer who does not teacher that group of  students. The interviewer recorded these stories and  helped the group to find a common thread in the  discussion. The group further discussed the common  threads before agreeing on a CORE PROBLEM to be  addressed.

I observed that this was very easy for those teachers  with more challenging classes as the problems to be  addressed were more obvious. However, there were  two groups who found it more difficult to find a core  problem as they had a very successful Semester of  learning and had no obvious issues to address, we  changed the language from PROBLEM to CHALLENGE,  and the teachers thinking moved from what was the  problem with students, to what can teachers do to  make learning more exciting.

Once the Core Problem/Challenge was identified each  group wrote down the ROOT CAUSES, what is  happening that creates this problem. In this part of the  conversation they are encouraged to list everything  that comes to mind, and to branch the root causes  where appropriate i.e. to find where there are deeper  root causes with more than one action or behaviour  creating the problem.

This generates a lot of discussion, as the teachers were  able to clearly identify what is happening to cause  problems to arise. It was useful to encourage them to  look through different lenses: personally, socially,  family, policy, governance, environment, community to  encourage broad thinking.

Finally, in the Root Cause Tree Diagram the teachers  were asked to look above the Core Problem/Challenge  and find the EFFECTS, meaning what is the result of this  problem, or what symptoms do we see in student  behaviour, engagement and results. Again, the tree  diagram allows the teachers to branch their ideas as  they see further into the possible consequences of not  addressing this problem.

At this step, teachers were able to really find what  matters to them and the students, and they spent more  time talking about key concerns about the effects on  student learning and understanding.

After completing the Root Cause Tree Diagram in the WHAT IS phase, they moved into WHAT IF, particularly  bouncing off the conversation around EFFECTS and imagining what their students might achieve in Semester 2.

INSIGHT

INSIGHT  REFLECTION

The most insightful lesson I observed while working  with teachers was the importance of the language used  to introduce the Root Cause Tree Diagram as a tool and  to encourage deeper thinking about their classroom.  Initially, those teachers with more difficult classroom  behaviours or learning difficulties found it very easy to  discuss problems while those with students who were  ‘easier’ to teach had less to discuss in the initial stages.

At this point, the language got in the way. CORE  PROBLEM sounded like there was something wrong,  however, it was intended to point to what was  happening in the classroom that made learning for  understanding difficult.

Teachers liked talking about problems. Conversation  started to become about other people and less about  the classroom.

I also had to put some framework around the  discussion for the Root Causes, so that rather than  assigning blame, teachers were able to think more  deeply about why problems exist, taking the idea of  local, national and global as a framework for thinking  about why problems exist.

I found this tool helped extensively in guiding  discussion and recording of information. Previously  when using brainstorming and mind mapping exercises  I have seen that discussion quickly and easily goes off  on a tangent, with initial and obvious points discussed  before dissolving into storytelling and conversation.

By giving teachers a chance to tell their stories to a  neutral person first, the rest of the mind mapping  exercise was more productive. The tool kept teachers  focused on key concepts and resulted in a richer and  deeper discussion about their own understanding of  the learning process and the students they teach.

Approach  I would use the Root Cause Tree Diagram again as it was so successful in guiding discussion and bring out about  more insightful discussion and observations from teachers. In the future, I will look at the language used, and either  change it on the printed diagram, or provide some definition around the language used so that there is less initial  confusion about the tool.

If I were to do a similar activity with the same group of teachers I would use a different tool to help provide the data  around WHAT IS, as I believe that little new knowledge would be gained by repeating this particular tool. The Root  Cause Tree Diagram had potential to become an increasingly negative conversation with blame and frustration of  the teachers being discussed, rather than the needs of students for advancing learning. I would try something like  the “Well Being North Star” (explained here: http://gamestorming.com/uncategorized/wellbeing-north-star/) as it  would focus on positive outcomes and is good for analysing any situation. Briefly, the Well Being North Star  identifies a main topic for conversation in the centre, then the points of the star have sub-topics to guide the  conversation.

