And if there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it. Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it
Vanilla Ice, “Ice Ice Baby”
Teaching students how to solve problems is an important part of a 21st Century education. But what if you don’t have a hook for a DJ to revolve like that great philosopher Vanilla Ice? Is there a process we can teach students to help them solve problems? Of course there are a number of different processes but the one I will focus on here is Design Thinking.
I recently organised a teacher workshop around this called ‘Design for Success’. Supported by Dr Cathy Bunting (Director of the Science Learning Hub), we guided 25 Tauranga based educators through a sequence of activities designed to enable teachers to “use Design Thinking to unlock students’ creative problem-solving potential.” So first up, what do teachers come up with when asked to articulate a process to solve problems? Check out their responses:
Next step was to hear from people who used a process in their day to day work. I was fortunate enough to have a link with Rocket Lab through their recently announced Space Educator programme and had a one hour video call with Felicity and Alex who went into great detail of how the $4 billion aerospace company use a design thinking process to build and launch rockets. We were particularly lucky to have Alex, who is the project manager on the Neutron rocket project, describe in detail their processes. He talked about trying to solve complex problems, where the solutions are unknowable and that it is often the ‘crazy solution’ that can lead to a significant insight in to building the actual solution. He also stressed the importance, as a project leader, the importance of empathy and integrity when leading a team on such ambitious projects.
Then it was time to get into some of the nitty gritty of how to teach this process to students. When I first started this, I used the d.school Design Thinking process – you know the one with the pretty hexagons?
But I found that I had to put in a heap of time and effort to deliberately teach what those words mean to students. They weren’t that accessible to the students I was teaching, but then I discovered John Spencer’s LAUNCH cycle.
I have been using this approach over the last couple of years with much more success than the more challenging language of the the d.school steps. Over that time I’ve sourced a series of activities for students to complete as they work their way through the LAUNCH cycle and come up with a solution to their problem. I’ll go through a task for each step in more detail with each heading being a link to a web page with more activities, but feel free to make a copy of the slide deck I put together (and please share with me any awesome activities that you have come across!)
Look Listen and Learn (Empathise)
The first step is to get a problem and a user. So it’s not just enough to have a problem with Design thinking – you need a user who is experiencing that problem to come up with a solution for. A task I get my students to do is to story board for someone who is experiencing the problem:
Ask Tons of Questions (Empathise)
In this next step, we want to get a deep understanding of the problem so that when we come to identify possible solutions, we know we are solving the problem at hand. The 5 Why’s task is a great activity for getting students to consider the root cause of the problem (best explained in this video).
Understand the process of the problem (Define)
As well as researching existing solutions, technology that they could use for their solution, students should get a deep understanding of users by conducting user research. They can either conduct an interview or use a survey.
Navigate Ideas (Ideate)
One of the best activities I’ve found in this phase in Crazy 8s. There’s a great video explaining the process as well as a timer you can use when your class does this task.
Create a prototype (Prototype)
This is then fun part – creating a physical representation of the idea. This could be a scale model or a diorama that represents how the idea works. Although it would be great to have a flash as maker space with different stations such as laser cutter, 3D printing, fabrics, modelling and the like, I’ve found pretty good success with just cardboard, hot glue guns, and a couple of bins of ‘junk’ that would have just been thrown out (think Pringles cans, egg cartons, disposable cups etc).
Highlight and Fix (Test)
Now the students have something physical to communicate their idea, they can show it to someone else to get feedback. John Spencer has a really good structured activity for peer feedback and you want students to end up with some sort of summary so that they can make improvements (iterations) to their idea.
LAUNCH to an audience
So we’ve been through all those steps and your student has a kick arse idea, it’s now time to share with the world! So, get them to create a LAUNCH video – a sort of ‘elevator pitch’ where they communicate the problem, who is affects, and their solution with all the awesome features. Flipgrid is such a great tool for this. Students can record straight from their device using a web cam, or make their own video to upload. Then all student submissions are shared with the class for others to see, like and comment.
So I hope you found some of these ideas useful, check out my short video of the whole process.
