Example Reflection - Learning launch

Challenge:  This is one of the challenges I faced during my work as an associate professor teaching  mobile development to engineering students: We decided to adopt a Project Based Learning*  approach for the next year. A selection of professors in each department was deciding the way  to achieve this goal. The challenge was to make the classic software development courses  more meaningful and engaging to students and mentors.     Previous state : teaching classical mobile development courses with the same goals/objectives    Next state: Project Based Learning approach as an engaging experience during which each  student make his own mobile app.    Selection:    Our team is using some design thinking activities and tools during our courses (story-telling  to explain a concept , mind mapping to introduce a complex module..etc.)   We decided to use Learning launch tool since the challenge we’re facing contains many  variables through time ( motivating students , motivating professors , changing the  curriculum, changing the way to grade students…etc. ). The Learning launch is a tool that  implies to inspect and evaluate each assumption/initiative ( in our case each idea and change  we will make to the curriculum ) . Each initiative is reviewed to understand the generated  value which will be the key factor to keep or abandon that initiative.     Application:    First learning launch :     The first decisions concerned the courses structure:

-  Assumption => Making decent projects must be preceded by knowledge transfer.  Decision => During the first half of the semester, students learn the basics of mobile  development,  then they have to develop their mobile app prototype in order to make a  final presentation with a ready to publish mobile application. Every student has 2  grades : presence during the courses and capstone project.

-  Assumption => Including professors in the projects raises their motivation therefore  the quality of their effort.  Decision => The description and theme of all apps were chosen by professors.

As we inspected the assumptions and decisions made through the first semester, we

decided to plan a second learning launch according to anonymous feedback we gathered from  students and professors participating in these projects.        Second learning launch    The decisions focused on enhancing the values generated from the previous learning launch:

-  Assumption => Making decent projects must be preceded by knowledge transfer.  Decision => Each course is divided into two parts : a guided workshop made by the

professor , then a hands-on workshop during which the student apply the concepts  learn to his own project. This way, the semester is a continuous and incremental  process. Every student has 2 grades : active presence through submitting each  workshop and capstone project (this time submitted to the store since the essential  pillars of the app is developed through the semester).

-  Assumption => Including professors in the projects raises their motivation therefore  the quality of their effort.  Decision => The description and theme of all apps were chosen by professors and the

students have the right to suggest 3 ideas. Then the student has convince a jury of 3  professors of his idea in a scenario like talent reality shows. If the student gets the  approval of the majority , he will develop his idea, otherwise, he will get a project chosen  by the professors.

Insight:    Through learning launch, I learned to identify and prioritize assumptions then how to

inspect and develop each assumption taking into consideration feedback and gained value.  Personally it was interesting for me to get anonymous feedback about decisions that the  team had different opinions about. Then, build on this feedback and correct/enhance the  assumptions and decisions. Example : in the first learning  launch, we expected that the  students will be productive after finishing learning all the basics of mobile development.  In the contrary , we didn’t have a positive feedback on the first part. Students and  professors preferred to apply directly every concept learned in the capstone project. This  was an important issue that we didn’t anticipate!

When we took this feedback into consideration we discovered that we can have some

time left before the module end (between 1 and two weeks). And therefore, we were able  to make publishing the capstone project to the mobile store (Android/iOS ) mandatory.

We decided that decisions affecting courses must be taken in association with the

continuous suggestions and feedback from our current and alumni students.

Approach:    Since the team is familiar with design thinking, and that the challenge is complex with

many variables to consider, I think that learning launch is the perfect tool to use. The  specter of use though could be enlarged to cover other topics/courses. The same design  thinking tool could be used with management, marketing and entrepreneurship  courses  that students are having simultaneously with our mobile development module : the  published mobile application could be a starting point to introduce marketing and  branding for example ! and this will join our team efforts to other professors teams in  addition to reshape the student experience into a continuous meaningful and unique  experience.

*Project Based Learning: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/what-heck-project-based-learning- heather-wolpert-gawron

