#DTAction lab assignment - prototype and test

1. Your challenge is to redesign the school-to-
work transition.
Rebecca Ward
Team: Sydney Shapers
Stanford Design Thinking Action Lab
August 2013
Rebecca Ward

2. 1. Empathise and define
Rebecca Ward

3. Empathy mapSAY
THINK
FEEL
DO
I have very little to do with the school-work transition at the
moment and that’s part of the problem.
The traditional view at the school I teach at (a girl’s Catholic
high-school) is that all students will go to university. We are
meant to be teaching to create ‘life-long learners’ – but we
use old-school ways and don’t teach with some of the
technologies people need to understand. The biggest issue is
that we teach everything with the end goal being a test. And
that is because this is how the school is judged. So there’s an
element that it’s not actually about the individual student.
Teachers are accountable for ensuring there are certain skills
teached but not others which are essential for how people
live in the real world – like creative and critical thinking.
Environment doesn’t work in the same way as a corporate
environment, and even more so a trade environment – which
school does essentially nothing towards for students. It’s all
assuming that they will follow academic paths.
- Scratching head and showing he is very passionate but quite
perplexed by what could be a possible solution.
- Raised voice as he got nearer to the realisation that
schooling as is doesn’t provide all the right skills for people
to actually carry through into their lives.
Schools aren’t providing the right skill set for real life.
They aren’t ‘keeping up with the times’ in relation to
technology.
Schools are too focused on purely academic results.
There should be a new way of assessing students – not purely
around a test.
Frustrated that it’s not black and white and never could be.
Passionate about the ability teachers have to shape students’
lives.
Concerned that it is expected that most students will definitely
go on to academic university study regardless of what is best for
them personally.
Rebecca Ward

4. Problem statement
A young tech-savvy, hungry-for-change high-school teacher who’s been out of
university less five years and is frustrated with current processes needs a way to
improve how assessments are carried out in high schools because current academic
testing only measures academic skills in a test environment that is not applicable to
‘real-life’ and doesn’t prepare students to live in the rapidly changing world. It also
doesn’t help identify strengths outside the current school curriculum, such as
trades, that students could take – which may be more suitable to them.
Rebecca Ward

5. IDEATE
All ideas: http://www.slideshare.net/wardbeck/ideate-how-to-improve-school-assessments
Top 3:
• Most practical: Have a percentage of students' year/course grade judged
by a cross-age group, team project that leverages different skills and
strengths relevant to the individual (diversity, collaboration, teamwork and
strength-based working all key to real world)
• Most disruptive: A percentage of your grade is assessed by a whole term
where students go out and get work experience in their chosen field and
the employer gives them constructive feedback (this will be real world
experience that will dispell myths for students about working and provides
them with practical experience)
• Favourite: Student choice. At the beginning of year/course students get to
decide with the teacher how they would prefer to be assessed - eg. what
weighting will be given for exams, assigments, extra-curricular activities
and the rate at which they have improved. (this would be aligned to
individual skillsets and learning styles - introvert/extravert/visual
learner/presentation skills - and would allow the teacher to get knowledge
of how much prior knowledge of the subject that student already has.
Rebecca Ward

6. PROTOTYPE and TEST
Visualisation of the process and a discussion
around this
Tested with:
The teacher interviewed
A student in their final year of high school
A recent graduate (from university)
Rebecca Ward

7. Prototype one
Most practical: Have a percentage of students' year/course grade judged by a cross-age
group, team project that leverages different skills and strengths relevant to the individual
(diversity, collaboration, teamwork and strength-based working all key to real world)
Rebecca Ward

8. Test
Feedback:
ALL:
• Makes sense
• Quite simple
• Might not have a lot of impact for the effort involved
Student:
• Wouldn’t know if she would find this particularly useful for her – still a blanket approach
• Likes the idea of working with different age groups but doesn’t think it would work in practice –
maturity levels etc
Teacher:
• Nice idea but logistically difficult
• Would they really get the collaboration benefits? He feels the older students would take over.
Recent graduate:
• Felt this would be quite a good university assignment – but not high-school
At this point I decided to go back to another idea instead…
Rebecca Ward

9. Prototype two
Favourite: Student choice. At the beginning of year/course students get to decide with the teacher how they would prefer to be
assessed - eg. what weighting will be given for exams, assigments, extra-curricular activities and the rate at which they have
improved. (this would be aligned to individual skillsets and learning styles - introvert/extravert/visual learner/presentation skills -
and would allow the teacher to get knowledge of how much prior knowledge of the subject that student already has.
Rebecca Ward

10. Test
Feedback
All:
• Great ideas but not so clear in the image
• Hard to picture the exact process
Student
• Love that this would be tailored to my strengths
• Would feel I was more motivated if I had a say in how I was measured
Teacher:
• Probably more feasible if a set amount of the percentage was allocated for
academic results still (a smaller step that would make significant impact)
Back to evaluating the visualisation and incorporating the feedback
Rebecca Ward

11. Prototype two - modified
*What you can’t read is 60% has to be exams/assignments. 40% made up of extra-curricular
activities
Rebecca Ward

12. Test
Feedback
All:
• Improved visualisation of process
• Liked generally by all
• Would like more in-depth prototype into a
‘persona’ – particular person and how their
year would pan out
Rebecca Ward

13. Reflections
What I learned by testing…
• Feelings are paramount – even when something is logical and from the outside
could work, you need to be appealing to people’s emotions (and those people who
are impacted often have a good gut instinct)
• Simplification is key – spell things out as your thought process might not be clear
to someone else
• Visualisation is a powerful tool – you can let the pictures speak for themselves to
some degree if they are done correctly and this helps to not ‘sell’ an idea
If I was to continue working on this project…
• I would create a persona prototype (perhaps multiple personas – teacher, student
etc) to show how this process would impact various stakeholders and how it would
look
• Speak with teachers from different schools – would this work in some and not
others? Private/public etc. There would be state policies that would need to be
taken into account in some instances
• Probably go back to the drawing board and start again from scratch – to assess
whether I could come up with an idea that is even better; speaking to more people
to reframe the problem and either parking this one or ripping it up
Rebecca Ward