Challenge

I’ve previously followed a training in design thinking where I was intended to carry out a project applying  its principles and tools. In this context, I worked to find a solution to better integrate children into  elementary schools. I chose this subject as I have relatives working in schools who are able to share their  experiences with me. I wanted to focus on bullying as it’s a problem that hinders the correct evolution  and learning of children suffering it. This may arises because when children are perceived as being  “different” (e.g. they have disabilities, they are part of a minority group, etc.). After following the different  steps of design thinking I was able to identify a concept that would potentially help improving the  integration of children thanks to a reduction of the bullying suffered. The concept I propose intends to  solve one problem that emerged during the problem definition phase: there’s poor monitoring and  following up of children due to a lack of effective and timely communication among the different  stakeholders concerned by this issue (parents, peers, teaching staff and other school staff).

Selection

The tool I select is the “Learning launch”. I chose this tool because at this stage it is recommended to go  to the field with a fast and cheap prototype in order to test our assumptions and most importantly: learn.  The most important aspect is to “fail fast and at low cost” in order to acquire knowledge which will help  us decide if we continue exploring the concept or if we should pivot (cf. “Learning Launch Tool” by  Ali Martinez on week 4). That’s why it’s called “learning launch” because we are not trying to  sell our solution but to learn, hence we shouldn’t consider that we failed as long as we learned something.

Application

The concept to test will be a smartphone application used to record any bullying event into a database  shared with all the teaching staff. As I mentioned previously, this concept intends to improve the share of  information among the school staff. In some cases, the teacher of the next grade (e.g. 4th grade) is not  aware of the history of a student because of lack of communication with previous year teacher (3rd grade).

First of all, we should define the assumptions that we want to test and in this case (in order to keep the  document short and simple), we will test if teachers will find it easy and not too much time consuming  the action of entering a new record. Therefore, the experiment is as follows:

During 4 weeks, all the teachers in a pilot elementary school will use an app that asks 4 questions to record  any bullying event: “When did it happen? (select from a calendar having today’s date as default)”; “What’s  the name (Student ID) of the child who suffered bullying? (dropdown searchable list)”; “What are the  names (Student ID) of the children who bullied their peer? (dropdown searchable list)”; “Push the button  to record a short message describing the event (it’ll be post-processed to be stored in text format thanks  to Google API “Speech-to-text” as it’s an algorithm ready to use)”.

Every time they record an event into the database, the time spent doing so is recorded. They will also be  interviewed after the test phase to have their feedback and better understand how they felt during the  experiment.

Insight

It has been found that teachers are willing to engage in recording any bullying event that happen as it  doesn’t take too much time to do it (4 minutes on average); the basic information is introduced quickly

and most of the time is spent in recording the vocal message with the context of the situation; they like  it’s simple (4 questions) and the option to record their vocal message; it’s important to engage as many  teachers (and other school staff) as we can because network externalities have a high impact to keep  them engaged. This means that if for example one teacher doesn’t like using the app but on average word  of mouth is positive, the community pressure will make him adopt and start using it. All of these insights  confirm the assumption that teachers find easy and not too much time consuming the action of entering  a new record.

The insights generated affected my thinking about the challenge in that even if the final objective is to  better integrate children in schools thanks to bullying mitigation, it will be possible only with a strong  collaboration and engagement of school staff. As I mentioned in the analysis, the ability to record new  entries in the database in a simple fashion is important to not discourage the teachers to do so. Moreover,  network effects and the massive use of the concept will provide community support thus encouraging the  long term use of the solution. These results confirms that we should have our minds “prepared” with the  good mindset for doing design thinking as it means learning from our successes and failures. For example,  thanks to the effective application of “learning launch” we acquired more knowledge which will help to  continue developing the final solution.

Approach

Now that more knowledge is available to us and that we found that we should also focus on another group  of stakeholders (teaching staff), I think we could apply ethnographic analysis and observation in order to  better understand their profiles. For this, we could use an alternative tool that we learned during the  course: mind mapping. This will help us cluster the different behaviors related to a profile in order to  better address their pains. Why should we proceed like this? Because if we address their pains during the  recording of a new entry in the database it will ultimately get them more engaged in solving the initial  problem which is to help in the integration of children in an elementary school.


Challenge I ’ve previously followed a training in design thinking where I was intended to carry out a project applying its principles and tools . In this context , I worked to find a solution to better integrate children into elementary schools . I chose this subject as I have relatives working in schools who are able to share their experiences with me . I wanted to focus on bullying as it ’s a problem that hinders the correct evolution and learning of children suffering it . This may arises because when children are perceived as being “ different ” ( e.g. they have disabilities , they are part of a minority group , etc . ) . After following the different steps of design thinking I was able to identify a concept that would potentially help improving the integration of children thanks to a reduction of the bullying suffered . The concept I propose intends to solve one problem that emerged during the problem definition phase : there ’s poor monitoring and following up of children due to a lack of effective and timely communication among the different stakeholders concerned by this issue ( parents , peers , teaching staff and other school staff ) . Selection The tool I select is the “ Learning launch ” . I chose this tool because at this stage it is recommended to go to the field with a fast and cheap prototype in order to test our assumptions and most importantly : learn . The most important aspect is to “ fail fast and at low cost ” in order to acquire knowledge which will help us decide if we continue exploring the concept or if we should pivot ( cf . “ Learning Launch Tool ” by Ali Martinez on week 4 ) . That ’s why it ’s called “ learning launch ” because we are not trying to sell our solution but to learn , hence we should n’t consider that we failed as long as we learned something . Application The concept to test will be a smartphone application used to record any bullying event into a database shared with all the teaching staff . As I mentioned previously , this concept intends to improve the share of information among the school staff . In some cases , the teacher of the next grade ( e.g. 4th grade ) is not aware of the history of a student because of lack of communication with previous year teacher ( 3rd grade ) . First of all , we should define the assumptions that we want to test and in this case ( in order to keep the document short and simple ) , we will test if teachers will find it easy and not too much time consuming the action of entering a new record . Therefore , the experiment is as follows : During 4 weeks , all the teachers in a pilot elementary school will use an app that asks 4 questions to record any bullying event : “ When did it happen ? ( select from a calendar having today ’s date as default ) ” ; “ What ’s the name ( Student ID ) of the child who suffered bullying ? ( dropdown searchable list ) ” ; “ What are the names ( Student ID ) of the children who bullied their peer ? ( dropdown searchable list ) ” ; “ Push the button to record a short message describing the event ( it ’ll be post - processed to be stored in text format thanks to Google API “ Speech - to - text ” as it ’s an algorithm ready to use ) ” . Every time they record an event into the database , the time spent doing so is recorded . They will also be interviewed after the test phase to have their feedback and better understand how they felt during the experiment . Insight It has been found that teachers are willing to engage in recording any bullying event that happen as it does n’t take too much time to do it ( 4 minutes on average ) ; the basic information is introduced quickly and most of the time is spent in recording the vocal message with the context of the situation ; they like it ’s simple ( 4 questions ) and the option to record their vocal message ; it ’s important to engage as many teachers ( and other school staff ) as we can because network externalities have a high impact to keep them engaged . This means that if for example one teacher does n’t like using the app but on average word of mouth is positive , the community pressure will make him adopt and start using it . All of these insights confirm the assumption that teachers find easy and not too much time consuming the action of entering a new record . The insights generated affected my thinking about the challenge in that even if the final objective is to better integrate children in schools thanks to bullying mitigation , it will be possible only with a strong collaboration and engagement of school staff . As I mentioned in the analysis , the ability to record new entries in the database in a simple fashion is important to not discourage the teachers to do so . Moreover , network effects and the massive use of the concept will provide community support thus encouraging the long term use of the solution . These results confirms that we should have our minds “ prepared ” with the good mindset for doing design thinking as it means learning from our successes and failures . For example , thanks to the effective application of “ learning launch ” we acquired more knowledge which will help to continue developing the final solution . Approach Now that more knowledge is available to us and that we found that we should also focus on another group of stakeholders ( teaching staff ) , I think we could apply ethnographic analysis and observation in order to better understand their profiles . For this , we could use an alternative tool that we learned during the course : mind mapping . This will help us cluster the different behaviors related to a profile in order to better address their pains . Why should we proceed like this ? Because if we address their pains during the recording of a new entry in the database it will ultimately get them more engaged in solving the initial problem which is to help in the integration of children in an elementary school .