1: Discovery

The first stage in the design process is Discovery.

To create solutions that are meaningful and effective we need to have a thorough understanding of the needs of our students, parents, and staff. The problems we hope to solve need to be clearly understood before we can move towards creating solutions. We will also need to spend time understanding who you are as individuals, with the goal of using our strengths and weaknesses to maximize our effectiveness in our groups.

1-1 Understand the Challenege

• How Does the design thinking process work?
• What is your design Challenge?
• Learn the background of the creation of this Design Group
• Form groups based on strengths

1-2 Prepare Research

• create a timeline
• Plan out your research
• Generate a question guide

The Design Challenge

The problem we will be tackling is our school timetable. Last year the school went through a rigorous visioning process that involved staff, students, and parents. At the end of the year we arrived at an aspirational vision of what we would like our school to be. Here is the completed vision below.

Centennial Vision

As you read through the vision you will see that there are several statements that involve our school timetable.

• A schedule that considers the unique needs of our learners
• Re-evaluate the timetable to allow for longer transition times, more time for homework. academic balance, common lunch, and flex blocks.
• A timetable that considers our learning needs
• Create a timetable that is flexible, increases time for support, increases time to collaborate, and increases opportunities for authentic learning experiences

so…

How do we create a timetable that aligns with our school vision?

Group Dynamics

Design thinking is not a solitary activity. Effective design experiences involve multiple people working together using their unique strengths. To help with this we will need to spend time getting to know who we are, and our strengths and weaknesses. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses will aid us in effectively assigning roles and responsibilities within our groups.

To begin we will be complete the following activity:

Get to Know You Game:

Time Line

We are on a timeline for completing this project. Due to the iterative nature of design processes, we need a clear timeline or we risk endlessly refining our solution attempting “perfection”. It is important at the start of the process to sit down and map out the stages and dates for this experience.

Prepare Research

Before we can commence with gathering our data, and doing our research. We need to spend some time identifying sources and places of inspiration. We will be completing the following activity to help ensure we will be connecting with the right people and places.

Inspirational Schools

• A.L Fortune Secondary School – Link
• Abbortford Virtual School – Link
• Cowichan Secondary School – Link
• Inquiry Hub – Link
• Marple Ridge Secondary – Link
• Osoyoos Secondary – Link
• Pender Harbour Elementary Secondary – Link
• Performance Learning Program – Link
• Pleasant Valley Secondary – Link
• Surrey Academy of Innovative Learning – Link
• Thomas Haney Secondary – Link
• Timberline Secondary School – Link
• Valemount Secondary School – Link
• Walnut Grove Secondary School- Link
• West View Secondary School – Link

Generate a Question Guide

Though great interviews often have organic moments, it is important to prepare prior to your interviews. You should have a set of questions prepared before you interview to ensure that the primary areas of interest will be covered.