#JALTCALL2017 Virtual Plenary | Design thinking: Going from practice to theory and theory to practice

It was an honor to be a virtual plenary at the JALTCALL 2017 conference last night. JALTCALL is a Special Interest Groups (SIG) of JALT (Japan Association for Language Teaching) for educators and researchers who share an interest in digital technology and language learning.

Unfortunately, I was unable to make it in person – but we were able to coordinate a recorded virtual session: Design thinking: Going from practice to theory and theory to practice. It was fun to watch the Twitter stream from Michigan (at 11pm!) I’m looking forward to interacting with the community virtually via the #jaltcall2017 hashtag over the next few days!

 

 

Slides:

ETOM Summer Retreat 2017 Recap – #ETOM17

ETOM17It was an absolute pleasure to work with the members of the Educational Technology Organization of Michigan at their Summer 2017 retreat.  I sincerely thank Carl Weckerle and the ETOM board for the invitation! ETOM has a fantastic retreat model set up at the Kettunen Center. You arrive at lunch on Thursday, we had a workshop from 1-5, then had dinner and relaxed by the lake. The next morning we had breakfast – a few rounds of sessions/discussions and then lunch before departure.

The ETOM board gave me the challenge of tackling the wicked problem of “Adequate Assessment of eLearning Classes.” This has been on the list of greatest challenges for distance education program administrators for the past several years on the ITC Distance Learning survey. It was no small feat – but – our iterative journey helped us explore the issue from several stakeholder standpoints.  You can see the prompts & activities in the slide deck below. One outcome of of our collective sharing was a brief collectively authored Landscape Scan which has several links to assessment initiatives and supports in the ETOM network.

On Friday, I had the opportunity to share some of the theories and tools we use at the MSU Hub to take on some of our “wicked problems” at MSU (slides below.) I look forward to continued conversations with the ETOM community!


Workshop Title & Description: Tackling Wicked Problems Using Design Thinking – Dr. Leigh Graves Wolf, Michigan State University

The goals of the workshop are two-fold. First, participants will engage in an embodied experience using design thinking. This will give participants first-hand and participatory knowledge of design thinking techniques and processes. Second, participants will be using these design thinking methods to address a “wicked problem” identified by ETOM, which will produce solutions (and questions) for the ETOM retreat.

Our presenter is Dr. Leigh Graves Wolf. Leigh Graves Wolf is a teacher-scholar and her work centers around online education, emerging technologies and relationships mediated by and with technology. She has worked across the educational spectrum from K12 to Higher to further and lifelong. She has been a disc jockey, network administrator, teacher, instructional technologist and now professor. She believes passionately in collaboration and community and is currently the Assistant Director of the MSU Hub for Innovation in Learning & Technology, and academic specialist in the Dean’s office in the MSU College of Education, and a fixed-term Associate professor of Educational Technology at Michigan State University.

Slides:

Session Title & Description: Tools of Project Workflow: Stories from #MSUhub

In January 2016 Michigan State University started a new campus initiative: The Hub for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (“The Hub”). The Hub’s mission is to “facilitate the passion and inventiveness of students, faculty, staff, and stakeholders both inside and outside of MSU to create, identify, and accelerate new ways to collaborate, learn, research, and deliver instruction.” While the core staff of The Hub leadership team has anchored much of its work and processes around design theories and processes. In this session Leigh will share examples of their workflow processes and the digital (and analogue) tools used in their work.

Slides:

Collective Power: Reflecting on the all University Online & Hybrid MA/MS/Certificate Coordinators Collaborative

One of the tenants of the MSU Hub is “Collective Power.”  As a Hub we “leverage, coordinate and scale MSU’s existing energies and creativity by connecting people, designing opportunities and facilitating innovation.”

On November 11th, the collective power was summoned to the Hub by gathering campus stakeholders involved in online or hybrid MA & Graduate Certificate/Specialization programs at MSU. This is the first time this group has been intentionally gathered. The purpose of this meeting was to make connections and have guided discussions to share strategies for advising, program development, curriculum development, marketing, economics, program data & reporting and to generate questions and possible innovations to serve our students and programs.

The invitation was intentionally inclusive – we wanted to invite/anyone who would have insight into programs (graduate TAs, administrative assistants, department chairs, etc.) or people who are considering developing online MA or certificate/specialization programs. We did not include current students in this invitation as we were focused on inward facing issues (we plan to include students in the future!)  The list of invitations was gathered by researching programs listed here: https://reg.msu.edu/ucc/onlineprograms.aspx

The structured portion of the meeting was kept simple – we divided the participants into 4 tables for a modified SWAT discussion focused on:

Table 1: Finance & Marketing
Table 2: Admissions & Registrar office
Table 3: Curriculum Development & Technology
Table 4: Advising & Student Experience

SWOT usually stands for Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats – we substituted Tensions for Threats.

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A rich (and rapid!) discussion ensued as we had 20 minutes at the first table (then 10 minutes at subsequent tables) to discuss each issue.  The groups moved from table to table so everyone had the change to air out their SWOTs.

After the SWOT participants had a chance to network.  It was fantastic to see the cross collaboration & discussions happening.  I witnessed relief that others were struggling with similar tensions and joy to find immediate solutions to some challenges. Immediate feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive and appreciative of the chance to simply take time to meet and talk.

We ended the meeting by using the large whiteboards in the Hub and asked the following:

  • Did you know ……
  • I wish we could……
  • Help!!!!

More connections were made and the following comment in response to I wish made me very happy to have had the opportunity to facilitate the experience:

Response to "I wish" prompt

Looking forward into 2017 – more meetings will be facilitated and small working groups organized to discuss issues surfaced during the SWOT.

Repurposing Cups for Co-work Collaboration Culture #MSUhub

UntitledWe are living in our new Hub space in Wells Hall.  For such a big shift of space and place, it has been (in my opinion) a very smooth transition. Our physical space is deliberately open and meant to be a co-working space.  People are coming in and out, working together, having chance collaborations and meetings or and getting work done and finding places to settle.

I seek out co-work spaces when I travel. I find them friendly, lively and conducive to collaboration or for productively working alone in a “nook and cranny.” When I was working at MYR Co-work (in Myrtle Beach) they had a great electronic check in system where you indicated your status when you checked in – open to collaboration, working alone, etc.  In the first few days of working together in The Hub, it quickly became apparent that we needed this messaging system. We may be in a group meeting, in the open, and focused – not wanting to be disrupted. Or, we could be working on a project independently and in desperate need for a collaborator or someone to bounce ideas off of (that’s why we are in this space!)  Co-work cups to the rescue!

This is not a new concept – I have seen this system used in classrooms and computer labs for students to indicate they need help. It’s a great way to make sure all students get help or to send signals without having to keep their hands raised.  To make our space accessible and conducive to all modes of work, we’re going to give the cups a try using this system:

G or Green = Open to collaboration & discussion
Y or Yellow = Working independently, but can be interrupted if necessary
R or Red = Please do not disturb

If you stop by to work with us, the cups can be found along the windows to your left when you walk in!

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Eight Lessons (we learned yesterday) for Running a Design Thinking Workshop

UntitledOver the past 9 months I’ve been stretched in new directions as a facilitator of workshops which are organized around design thinking frameworks.  I’m no stranger to workshop facilitation, and, do my best to make workshops interactive (see QuickFire challenges). Entrenching myself in design thinking frameworks has given me a new perspective and tool for workshop and discussion facilitation.

Yesterday our team ran a design thinking exercise. I was the designated “data collector.” As a learning exercise and to engage in some participatory action research, I was able to pull aside Caroline, Breana and Dave in the moment to ask them what was going well, what was not and what we should do to improve upon what we were doing. First and foremost I want to acknowledge how incredible this team is and how open they were to this meta level of reflection in-situ.  We as a team are learning and the commitment to this being an iterative and growing process as one of those essential conditions that will set us on a successful path.

With that said, here are a few quick and practical ideas that came out of observations and the reflection that we wanted to share. These are abstracted from the specific exercise with the intent of trying to generalize the ideas to a wider audience.

1. Create a beyond the basics kit of supplies

We have started to collect the basics (post-it notes, sharpies, large rolls of paper) however, we thought it would be a good idea to put together a box or bag that contains the following so we can be prepared for any design thinking “emergencies”:

  • Dongle
  • Markers & pencils
  • String
  • Measuring tape
  • Stopwatch (in case on screen tech breaks)
  • A non-annoying bell or buzzer (to get the attention of the crowd)
  • Compass
  • Phone chargers
  • Tape
  • Portable document scanner

2. Practice

This one is hard, especially if your team is working on several projects at once, however, we’re getting better at tracking time and developing a set of resources that we can customize for conversations/exercises. Ideally, the team should have everything completed at 2 days ahead of time.  Then, someone from the team should run through the exercise with someone else who does not have any prior knowledge of the experience. This will allow for revision and refinement of the small, but very important details of getting everything just right. I don’t want to give the impression that we don’t practice (or process is highly iterative! We document our hours and time carefully.)

3. Use participant workbooks strategically

We think that workbooks are a key tool to facilitating these highly interactive experiences, however, there are a lot of working parts to getting them just right. (Libby is doing a fantastic job researching and implementing this piece.)  It’s important to be very explicit with directions to the group you’re working with and to have your slides/prompts very clearly direct them to interact or write in the book. One of the things we’ve noticed is that even with warm up exercises it’s sometimes hard to get people to the point of writing – which is SO important for the post workshop analysis. We are going to make sure that questions/prompts are replicated in the workbook so that if and when timers are used participants have the workbook to reference to have the questions present in their minds.

4. Have table facilitators

This one is a bit tricky because depending on how large your group is, it may be a luxury to have a whole team of people at your disposal to help. Design thinking exercises are timed and fast paced experiences, something that not many audiences are used to and it is very easy to lose the attention of a group or group of people around the room. Table facilitators can serve as your partners in keeping things moving and directing attention to the lead facilitator. Additionally, if your room is not ideal for design thinking work, your table facilitator can also be very helpful in re-iterating directions and keeping things on track.

5. The sound of music

Timers are essential for the iteration side of a design thinking exercise. (Kristen Soullier created this tremendous set of timers for anyone to use!) There is debate as to whether or not music increases productivity and creativity however we feel it’s an important piece to the mood and feel in the room. With that said we have learned that some of our participants are highly sensitive or adverse to music being a part of the process.  We consider this a work in progress – so next time we are going to start with the music very, very, very low.  Additionally, we are going to explain to participants that music is a part of the timer so it does not come a surprise.  We may also alternate in/out of using music and we can always hit mute if it becomes a problem that impedes the flow.

6. Respond to questions carefully

Oftentimes questions in a design thinking exercise are intentionally ambiguous. This often does not sit well with participants and they will push for a clarifying or more direct “answer.” There are two sides to this problem of practice – crafting good prompts is not easy (thus the need to practice with others to hone them) but as a facilitator you have to let discomfort settle with participants. The explicit intention of many of the questions and prompts are to bring to light different interpretations among participants and stakeholders.  Facilitating this process is very tricky and takes nuance and practice.

7. Record conversations and discussions

If you have a group or discussion component to your workshop, it may be helpful to have an audio recording of the conversation. This one is also a bit tricky, we’re not advocating that all audio recordings be transcribed, however, depending on the purpose it could be very handy to have as back up and with the ease of recording on smartphones, it’s not a lot of extra work to collect, which, leads me to my last point…

8. Design activities with artifacts in mind

I have discussed before that all too often design thinking stops in a room. When we plan out our workshops now, we very explicitly add an artifacts “line” to our planning document – what are we collecting and why are we collecting it. This helps greatly in the post-event analysis because we have strategically thought through the analysis piece. We are getting better at pre-labeling these artifacts which drastically cuts down on the time it takes to process and clean up the data for analysis. (This is also why a high-speed portable scanner comes in handy so the workbooks can be quickly scanned and archived!)

We would love to hear thoughts from you! What are some of your lessons learned? How can we continue to improve our workflow and processes?

#OLCInnovate 2016

Oy, it’s the end of the semester and time is flying! Two weeks ago I attended my first OLC conference – OLC Innovate in New Orleans. It was a fantastic experience.  We had quite a few MSU faculty, staff & graduate students in attendance and it was a rare opportunity to hang out with colleagues after hours! (As a telecommuter, I don’t often get the chance to stay late and socialize!)  My session was titled: Facilitating & Fostering Passion and Inventiveness: Embodied Experiences From a University Unit Start Up. It was a great opportunity for me to take a look back at the past 7-or-so months that The Hub has been in existence and to reflect and share our successes and failures iterations.

Here are the slides & abstract from the presentation:

Michigan State University has started a new campus initiative: The Hub for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (“The Hub”). The Hub’s mission is to “facilitate the passion and inventiveness of students, faculty, staff, and stakeholders both inside and outside of MSU to create, identify, and accelerate new ways to collaborate, learn, research, and deliver instruction.” While the core staff of The Hub is quite small, many on campus will be working with and through the Hub, a new mode of work in a large land grant institution. To facilitate this change, the Hub leadership team has anchored much of its “getting started” work and processes to design thinking.

In this session you will experience some of the design challenges used with the MSU Hub team and learn about our work and progress so far. Participants will also be asked to share their experiences with design thinking. Expect to walk away from the session with tangible resources to further your own design thinking work in teams or in the classroom.

Recap: March 30, 2016 MSU Lilly Seminar: Applying Design Thinking to Academic Plans

On Wednesday, March 30 I was honored to facilitate the final MSU Lilly Seminar of the 2016 Academic Year: Applying Design Thinking to Academic Plans. The slides from the presentation are embedded below – (hyperlinks to resources are embedded in the slides.)

As is usually the case, the best parts came during discussion during the breaks, debrief and in the seminar feedback. I’ll share a few of those insights here since they were not shared with the group at large.

 

In my presentation, I shared some of the challenges I have faced associated with design thinking. During one of the breaks, Dr. Chivukula had a fantastic suggestion when using design thinking with groups – share a set of ground rules with participants. This is such a simple, genius solution that can thwart some of the resistance you may get (as design thinking is not a scientific process.)

 

After the session, I was honored to meet and connect with Daniel W. Linna Assistant Dean for Career Development & Professor of Law in Residence at MSU. I am VERY excited to learn more about http://legalrnd.org/ and how they are using lean thinking (and design thinking) at the Law School on campus. One of the best parts of Faculty Development seminars is the opportunity to learn from people all around campus. I’ll be keeping my eyes out for news and seminars out of the LegalRnD department!

 

Finally, in reviewing the feedback there were a few points that I will address to hopefully help with the take-aways. One participant felt the session was self-promotional and another walked away feeling that there were not concrete ways to apply design thinking to the classroom.  I’ll do my best share a few more resources here that can help with that!  By sharing my own work, I was hoping to lend some legitimacy to my own use of design thinking (walking the walk and talking the talk) as opposed to simply linking out to the work of others.  I appreciate this feedback and will work at a better mix in the future. I was additionally asked to share concrete ways the Hub has been working across campus for the participants – I should have made that a bit more clear as I was sharing.
  • In the slides, I linked to the MSU library search for academic articles on “design thinking” – this is one place to start
  • Educause is another great place to search – here is the link to “design thinking
  • A great campus resource is Jess Knott – she has been doing a lot of thinking in this area as well and is a great person to tap for a brainstorming session.

 

In sum, I don’t want people to walk away thinking that this is the only way that I work.  It’s a tool in my toolbox (or whatever metaphor you want to use) as a way to tackle wicked problems.  I wish there was one single answer, but, honestly, where is the fun in that? Additionally, as I shared in the session, design thinking isn’t something that just gets done in a 1, 2, 3-hour workshop! It’s a continual process of iteration and re-design as you work towards solutions.

 

Finally, a huge shout out to Breana Yaklin and Dave Goodrich, my colleagues at The Hub. (Thanks for visually documenting the day Dave!!) They are two more people to tap on campus for your design thinking needs!

 

Thanks again to all who attended – would love to continue the conversation/resource sharing here in the comments or on twitter. (You can use the #MSUhub hashtag!)

Design Thinking + Our Digital Strategy = Making IT Matter | #CESIcon 2016 Follow Up

I was honored and delighted to spend some time with friends at #CESIcon 2016 today! Here is a brief follow up to our design thinking challenge this morning. We very (very!) quickly ran through two steps of a design thinking challenge (empathize & define) to wet the appetite for learning more about design thinking and how it can be used to tackle wicked problems.  The design thinking activity today was directly connected to the Digital Strategy for Schools 2015-2020 guiding document.

Here are the slides:

And, here is the raw data (the invisible made visible) from the session – you can use this to continue the challenge and to ideate – prototype – and test! Looking forward to continuing the conversation – please share your adventures in design thinking, would love to hear from you again!

Tweets from session: (Storify now defunct :( ) 

Transcript from TodaysMeet: