REFLECTION - STORYTELLING             Challenge             I am a program director of “Center for Design Thinking and Innovation in Education” of  Puerto Rico. Besides me, our program consist of another 10 coworkers and together our goal is  to improve education in the now-day sistem by applying Design Thinking in the regular basis. As  we were all recently graduated from high school and had no experience teaching or working  with a program as well, our biggest challenge was how we will make that happen. This includes  making everyone in our surrounding comfortable with the way we implement this new method in  an old way of teaching. Not only the teachers but the whole system in the department of  education were used to keep following strategies that doesn’t give results in the students  academic and personal growth. As they’re all professionals, older than the whole team (because  we are all 18) was very hard for us to expand the program in other schools because not all  teachers were okay with us trying to change their whole way of teaching.     Selection         ​For this challenge the tool that worked best for me was Storytelling (​Put the human beings  and their experience front and center. Take the listener along on their journey​). As we  were seeking to expand the program we needed them all by our side. By this I mean we needed  to make sure everyone was comfortable and familiar with the process. Without teachers,  directors, and the department of education, our work would never achieve the desired results.  So as part of having a Design Thinking mindset as our main and primary strategy, in this part  we step out of our shoes because the most relevant and important thing to keep in mind was  how they feel about it and why we were not receiving good feedbacks from some of the  teachers. As a Andre Martin said “it may not connect to you, it may not always make sense to  you, it’s not using words you might be familiar with but it’s thing your audience understands and  your audience knows” .       Application        We started the process by seating with teachers first. Some of them were complaining about  lack of time for trainings, lack of materials, or others. Each day at lunch time we were ready to  split the group to make sure we would listen to teachers at their free time at schools. We all  knew that most of the time they used to talk about work at lunch. We took advantage of this  opportunity to listen to them and see how this new method affects their regular environment at

their classrooms. This way we can make sure that successfully we improve our way to  implement the program so everyone can be part of the progress and change without having  problems.         We slowly made them part of team meetings and team gets-together after school so this way  we could interact with them more and not only we learn about them but they would know from  all of us too. Every time we were reunited we tackled the storytelling tragedy by asking them  from their personal experiences and life in general. After analyzing them all we met as a team  so we could discuss how we were going to make it work for them.       Insights and Approach           I learned from this tool the importance of being empathetic and how listen to others its  beneficial not only for them but for making big steps in order to succeed. Some of the insights  actually make me realize why empathy it’s the first step in design thinking process and its  because in order to create solid solutions you need to know your audience, how they think, how  they work, how they feel and why they do what they do. I would say that using another tool like  mind mapping with story telling would even help us more because of the way both of them  concentrates in human thinking.


REFLECTION - STORYTELLING Challenge I am a program director of “ Center for Design Thinking and Innovation in Education ” of Puerto Rico . Besides me , our program consist of another 10 coworkers and together our goal is to improve education in the now - day sistem by applying Design Thinking in the regular basis . As we were all recently graduated from high school and had no experience teaching or working with a program as well , our biggest challenge was how we will make that happen . This includes making everyone in our surrounding comfortable with the way we implement this new method in an old way of teaching . Not only the teachers but the whole system in the department of education were used to keep following strategies that does n’t give results in the students academic and personal growth . As they ’re all professionals , older than the whole team ( because we are all 18 ) was very hard for us to expand the program in other schools because not all teachers were okay with us trying to change their whole way of teaching . Selection ​For this challenge the tool that worked best for me was Storytelling ( ​Put the human beings and their experience front and center . Take the listener along on their journey​ ) . As we were seeking to expand the program we needed them all by our side . By this I mean we needed to make sure everyone was comfortable and familiar with the process . Without teachers , directors , and the department of education , our work would never achieve the desired results . So as part of having a Design Thinking mindset as our main and primary strategy , in this part we step out of our shoes because the most relevant and important thing to keep in mind was how they feel about it and why we were not receiving good feedbacks from some of the teachers . As a Andre Martin said “ it may not connect to you , it may not always make sense to you , it ’s not using words you might be familiar with but it ’s thing your audience understands and your audience knows ” . Application We started the process by seating with teachers first . Some of them were complaining about lack of time for trainings , lack of materials , or others . Each day at lunch time we were ready to split the group to make sure we would listen to teachers at their free time at schools . We all knew that most of the time they used to talk about work at lunch . We took advantage of this opportunity to listen to them and see how this new method affects their regular environment at their classrooms . This way we can make sure that successfully we improve our way to implement the program so everyone can be part of the progress and change without having problems . We slowly made them part of team meetings and team gets - together after school so this way we could interact with them more and not only we learn about them but they would know from all of us too . Every time we were reunited we tackled the storytelling tragedy by asking them from their personal experiences and life in general . After analyzing them all we met as a team so we could discuss how we were going to make it work for them . Insights and Approach I learned from this tool the importance of being empathetic and how listen to others its beneficial not only for them but for making big steps in order to succeed . Some of the insights actually make me realize why empathy it ’s the first step in design thinking process and its because in order to create solid solutions you need to know your audience , how they think , how they work , how they feel and why they do what they do . I would say that using another tool like mind mapping with story telling would even help us more because of the way both of them concentrates in human thinking .