I spent Monday and Tuesday of March Break at Design Thinking for Impact: Solving Complex Problems with Stakeholders, a 2 day workshop where participants develop understanding of the design thinking approach to problem-solving by going through the design thinking process to solve a messy problem.
It was held at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto, a place that made me once again consider how different schools could be if spaces were designed differently.
This was not an education event and I found myself the only formal educator at the table which was an interesting position to be in. All too often educators are isolated from the world they are preparing students for. To consider problem-solving with those who are expected to solve 'real' problems in their workplaces so that their organizations or policies can advance is a different experience. We often talk about the need for schools to become interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary should mean more than bringing subjects together. I often wonder what education planning would be like if we had public health, designers, members from the private sector and parents at the same table. I am certain that our views on the role and delivery of education would shift.
Take collaboration for example. This is a word bandied about in the education world and some, but by no means all, teachers have heard that they should be teaching collaboration. The imperative for teaching collaboration skills remains distant, though. To some it still seems like a choice. Collaboration is not group work. It requires an effort and skill that goes well beyond merely working with others to complete a task. It requires teachers to show students how to enter into and embrace conflict, how to negotiate, how to set feelings aside and explore ideas, how to develop a common language, how to build on ideas, how to critique, how to identify and question assumptions, how to deal with those who dominate or don't contribute, how to work with contradictory ideas ... how to ... it's complicated.
On the first day of DT4i, one of the participants brought up the issue of collaboration in the changing workplace. Interdisciplinary teams working collaboratively are now an expectation in many work environments, yet many employees lack the requisite skills. Some have gone right through graduate school working independently. This is a real issue that employers are struggling with and it was a very real problem in her own workplace. For groups to truly develop new and better ideas rather than "default to the solutions they already know"*, the skills of collaboration must be in place. Part of the reason why she and others were attending the Design Thinking for Social Impact workshop was to develop a better understanding of collaborative problem-solving so that they could help their colleagues. She expressed frustration that these skills are not being taught in school. Students should be graduating knowing how to work collaboratively.
What Design Thinking does, is provide a toolkit for collaboration - techniques for working through complexity to solve really challenging problems so that the solutions found are ones that no one would ever have imagined on their own at the start of the problem.
I'll be sharing more of what I learned about the value of Design Thinking during those 2 days later this week, including how I along with another participant ended up at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern, interviewing an Indian (this was the person's preferred label) hockey cameraman who had just returned from the Sochi Olympics, about community, hockey, art and what one longs for from childhood, in order to solve a complex problem ... and how this made me bang into my assumptions head first. I still have intellectual bruises!
*Jennifer Chan
It was held at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto, a place that made me once again consider how different schools could be if spaces were designed differently.
This was not an education event and I found myself the only formal educator at the table which was an interesting position to be in. All too often educators are isolated from the world they are preparing students for. To consider problem-solving with those who are expected to solve 'real' problems in their workplaces so that their organizations or policies can advance is a different experience. We often talk about the need for schools to become interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary should mean more than bringing subjects together. I often wonder what education planning would be like if we had public health, designers, members from the private sector and parents at the same table. I am certain that our views on the role and delivery of education would shift.
Take collaboration for example. This is a word bandied about in the education world and some, but by no means all, teachers have heard that they should be teaching collaboration. The imperative for teaching collaboration skills remains distant, though. To some it still seems like a choice. Collaboration is not group work. It requires an effort and skill that goes well beyond merely working with others to complete a task. It requires teachers to show students how to enter into and embrace conflict, how to negotiate, how to set feelings aside and explore ideas, how to develop a common language, how to build on ideas, how to critique, how to identify and question assumptions, how to deal with those who dominate or don't contribute, how to work with contradictory ideas ... how to ... it's complicated.
On the first day of DT4i, one of the participants brought up the issue of collaboration in the changing workplace. Interdisciplinary teams working collaboratively are now an expectation in many work environments, yet many employees lack the requisite skills. Some have gone right through graduate school working independently. This is a real issue that employers are struggling with and it was a very real problem in her own workplace. For groups to truly develop new and better ideas rather than "default to the solutions they already know"*, the skills of collaboration must be in place. Part of the reason why she and others were attending the Design Thinking for Social Impact workshop was to develop a better understanding of collaborative problem-solving so that they could help their colleagues. She expressed frustration that these skills are not being taught in school. Students should be graduating knowing how to work collaboratively.
What Design Thinking does, is provide a toolkit for collaboration - techniques for working through complexity to solve really challenging problems so that the solutions found are ones that no one would ever have imagined on their own at the start of the problem.
I'll be sharing more of what I learned about the value of Design Thinking during those 2 days later this week, including how I along with another participant ended up at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern, interviewing an Indian (this was the person's preferred label) hockey cameraman who had just returned from the Sochi Olympics, about community, hockey, art and what one longs for from childhood, in order to solve a complex problem ... and how this made me bang into my assumptions head first. I still have intellectual bruises!
*Jennifer Chan
Heidi! Thank you so much for attending the workshop, it was a distinct pleasure having you participate and sharing your "intellectual bruises". I look forward to your additional reflections and especially looking forward to getting feedback from you on how might we learn from our participants how design thinking impacts their day-to-day. I am taking time to think about all the additional resources we could share and the sticky points of the workshop that we need to build on.
ReplyDeleteYou have and always will be a huge inspiration for a great deal of my work and I often think about you when I am designing a workshop. I am glad I got to test it on you at least once.
Jenn