PHASE THREE:
DEVELOPING POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
This phase had two tasks that allowed our group to converge on our solutions and creating a prototype.
TASK 5: Exploring different design processes
We explored two different design processes to complete task 5. The first design process was Universal Design for Learning and the second design process was Design Thinking. The results of each examination overlapped.
Universal Design for Learning Process:
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) focuses on removing barriers for learning. UDL acknowledges that every learner is different and therefore there are multiple solutions to every problem (Rao & Mao, 2016). UDL addresses the multiple means of representation, action and expression, and engagement. Our essential question focuses on engagement and UDL recommends that facilitators should tap into the students’ interests and motivate them to learn.
We began our process by listing multiple reasons for why students would not be engaged in the classroom. We were forced to put ourselves back into practicum and most importantly, put ourselves into our students’ shoes to think of reasons. We envisioned a classroom of thirty students and we acknowledged that each student is coming into the classroom with their own baggage. Baggage that becomes a barrier for their learning. Our reasons consisted of multiple examples including, bullying, substance abuse, language barriers, and intellectual disengagement.
UDL was also helpful when thinking of solutions to the reasons we had listed. UDL recommended that facilitators use technology to increase accessibility and engagement. As a result, “technology” was one of the many solutions we came across.
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Design Thinking Process:
We then began to look at the potential reasons and list multiple solutions for each one. We started off strong and came up with solutions very quickly. As time passed, we began to find it difficult to think of other solutions. We continued to remind ourselves that we should be brainstorming without any constraints. Some of our ideas were out of this world, but we understood the importance of not restricting our ideas. “Crazy” ideas were the ones that would give us momentum to think of even more solutions to our problem. For example, one of our “crazy” ideas was, “to change schools.” Although this would not be the most conventional solution, Design Thinking encourages the designers to look at options without any constraints. Our solutions consisted of, dual language texts, problem based learning and student choice.
TASK 6: Generating and testing possible design solutions
Our group had the opportunity to receive feedback from multiple Education students and our professor. We had two laptops set out on our table to display our website (prototype) to our “experts.” We found it helpful to receive feedback from individuals outside our group because after days of working on our prototype, there were a couple of aspects that we overlooked.
An Education student noticed that the website consisted of unnecessary extra space. As a result, the overall aesthetic of the website was lacking because the space could have been filled with useful information, or removed. After receiving this feedback, we included more visuals on certain pages to attract the user and organize our information more efficiently.
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Our prototype includes multiple steps for educators to follow. Step 2 in our prototype focuses on the “7 Wounds” that Dr. Kirsten Olson mentions in her work, Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing up to Old School Culture. We had the wounds listed in point form on our website in black font, but we had received feedback from our instructor to make the information stand out more. We decided to display the 7 Wounds in boxes, and once the user hovers over a box, information about that specific wound appears. After making that change, multiple Education students mentioned that the information was very interesting, but they would have loved to know where we got our information from. As a result, we have included the book title in our website for educators to continue learning about the topic.
The final feedback that we received was to include a quick reference page that compiled the list of resources. The list of resources would be helpful for individuals who want to have easy access to the information without navigating through the website. At the very end of our website, we uploaded a PDF file of references that people can access.
We are aware that if we had the opportunity to go through the iterative process of generating, testing, and refining our design solution more times, our solution would continue to improve.
