Monday, August 17, 2015

The Design Thinking Guide 
Grade 7, 5th August 2015
Introduction: The class of Grade 7 was led by Mrs. Phoram Desai.

Hook- Phoram Ma'am informed the children that she's been suffering from back pain for a very long time.

Flow of Session- 

The children gave various responses and in one of the response they identified that the cause of her back pain maybe because of the bag she used daily. They wanted to understand if other teachers faced similar problem.

The students chose a teacher for whom they wanted to design a bag. They went back to their place and designed and illustrated the bag which they thought was ideal and would help their teachers. The went around the campus to show their design with their respective teachers
One of the children shared the bag designed for the home room teacher. The teacher said that the design was not aligned to his need. The teacher needed a back pack whereas the child had designed a trolley bag
The children understood that they did not consider the need of the user. They went on their assumptions. Certain teachers were not even available for the student at that time. Hence this resulted in understanding not just the materialistic need of the teacher, but also the importance of respecting others time.
Phoram Ma'am explained the importance of the need of the user by letting the children share their experience with the teachers. “What happened when the teacher was busy? What did you understand about her need? What sort of preparedness should be kept in mind before even approaching the user?”
 What are the different aspects that should be kept in mind while.
At the end of the session the students reflected on what did they understood about themselves. What patterns did they observe about their own behavior? They noted down the reflections on the sheet.
Guiding question:
  1.  Who are your users?
  2.  Why are they important to us?
  3.  What should you keep in mind while designing for your user?
  4.  What happened when the teacher was busy? 
  5.  What did you understand about her need? 
  6.  What sort of preparedness should be kept in mind before even approaching the user?
Closing the Loop:
      
       The session was closed by getting the children sit with Phoram Ma’am and sharing about their personal reflections.
        As next steps they will re design the bag for their user keeping all the important facts in mind.

Key takeaway of the session:
  • ·        Children understood the importance of something as small as knowing the time and manner in which they need to approach their users
  • ·        They became observant of their own behavior pattern



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The Design Thinking Guide 
Grade 7, 13th August 2015 
Session 2

Hook: 
This session was a reflection session after the bag activity. Children gathered in a circle and shared their insights from the bag activity.
Flow of the session:
The session began with the teacher probing the children to dig deeper into their own behaviour pattern that they observed while engaging with the user. They were made comfortable with the fact that nobody would judge them for what they share. Each kid took turn to share individual reflection from engaging with the user. They shared about things they did not know about the user. 
The teacher probed further asking what it that they noticed about their ownself is. One kid shared that at times he is so much in a hurry that he does not even wait for the person to finish. He identified that he behaved mostly in that particular manner because he just wanted to finish the task at hand.
Phoram Ma'am also spoke about surplus and deficit behaviour. Surplus is a way to add value to the environment and spaces. It was also shared that one can always add value to the space by feeling for it and by observing the space. Guiding questions were used to streamline the reflections.
Guiding questions:
1) What pattern did you observe in your behaviour?
2) Where is the one place that you can add value?
3) Is it your assumption that you need to add value or does the space really require your input?
Closing the loop:
The teacher concluded the session by asking the children to find out where they can add value. She also told them the key in understanding where they can add value is by observing the space. The teacher also called out how each of them very brave and courageous to share about themselves.
Key Takeaways:
The children were comfortable to share their own pattern of behaviour that does not lead to surplus. 
They understood that being mindful of individual actions is very essential.
Assumptions will never help in understanding the need of the user



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The Design Thinking Guide 
Grade 7, 19th August 2015 
Session -3
The session was conducted as a prelude to the cartography exercise to introduce children to three key lenses.
Hook
The session started with Phorum Ma’am introducing children to three kinds of paper- white paper, yellow and green cellophane paper and leading them to see the space they are sitting in through these eyes to introduce them to the three kinds of lenses important for cartography- Physical, Social and Emotional.
Flow of the session
The session began with the teacher taking the children to a space other than their classroom and then regrouping them into groups of four.  After she introduced the three different papers, she asked the children to spend one minute at least with each and then lead each group to discuss what they saw through each paper.

The children shared what was discussed within the group. For the white paper, kids shared that their vision seemed blocked, which the teacher paraphrased as that sometimes our vision could be blocked with the shadows of our own experience.  Further, the yellow was brighter and clearer while the green was darker. Some children shared that by mixing green and yellow, the view became blue which lead to a point that sometimes mixing two things can change your vision of the focus area. While combining the white and cellophane paper, the kids could not see through were able to see things that were right in front of them.

She led the children to understand that in order to understand the space from different perspectives we need to observe it from different lenses ourselves before interacting with the user.

The teacher used the board to collect all the responses and link them up to a holistic understanding of the three lenses (physical, social and emotional) by leading them to identify the pattern in their responses; and how they helped them to see things from a different light and observe the way they saw things change.
She used some questions to lead the kids to understand the lenses and what is it that we need to observe in the space.
How do the people feel in the space- Emotional
Who uses the space and what is happening there- Social
Structure of the room- Physical

Once the children had a sound clarity on the lenses, the teacher regrouped children of similar personality in groups and allotted one space to each group to understand if children use the lenses and if they have assumptions in their mind about the observations, i.e the children don’t just see the shadows.

The children were given 10 minutes to observe their allotted spaces. She made sure she observes the way how each group did its observations, whether they tend to focus on just one lens or they see different perspectives. A big chunk of children ended up focusing on the physical lens.
Also the teacher linked the observations to the responses from  the paper activity to make the children aware of their behavioral patterns – whether we see with blocked vision, or are just using one angle to see the space.
She then led a discussion if the time we spent is enough to understand the space from all the possible lenses. The teacher gave an example of google maps to lead them to understand how it is better than any other maps, because it has been created by keeping all the user needs in mind.

Guiding Questions

  • ·         Why is it important to view our space from multiple lenses?
  • ·         Do our assumptions come in play while observing?
  • ·         Do we keep our user in mind while looking at the space?
Closing the Loop
The teacher concluded the session by introducing the student manuals and instructing them to do fill their reflections in the book before the next session.
Take Away

  • ·         Even though the children were acquainted with the name of lenses, they developed a sound understanding of what each lens meant.
  • ·         They understood the importance of taking a pause and observing before coming to a conclusion.