Problem of Practice: The 5 Modes of a Design Mindset

sjizzini
Apr 20, 2020
6 min read

You do not need to be a designer to be a design thinker. All sorts of people from different backgrounds have applied design thinking in their professional contexts and even their daily lives. Understanding the user, challenging assumptions, and redefining problems are all pieces of the process that give way to innovative problem-solving. The 5 modes below, highlight the stages of the Stanford d.school's Design Thinking model.

figure 1: The 5 modes of the design thinking process.

This post is my final report on my learning journey as I engaged with the 5 modes of design thinking to address my chosen Problem of Practice (PoP). As an educator, I constantly try to create effective learning experiences to improve student comprehension and reduce any barriers to their learning. My PoP is that the majority of my students are English Language Learners (ELLs) who face challenges to understand given tasks, which are theoretical and text-heavy as prescribed in the current science curriculum. This problem evolved as I observed that it was common that teachers spend most of the actual class time focusing on language skills rather than retaining the purpose of the lesson itself. I have personally observed a positive correlation between students' English and science grades. Take a look at the details of my report below.

MODE 1: Empathize with the user.

Empathy is the foundational stage of human-centered design that focuses on understanding the user's needs by stepping into their life. I used a combination of methods in my attempt to immerse myself in the students' perspective and understand their feelings towards science content. Since I had access to schools, I decided to first observe how students reacted to the material they were learning. I attended a 45-minute class introducing a new science topic. The main resource was the science textbook and students were required to listen to the instructor's explanation, read the text, and complete assigned questions.

I recorded notes on my observations with regard to student behavior, responses, and engagement. Since I am a visual learner, I used the notes to create a color-coded mind map of the students' journey to study their behavior and try to find common trends.

figure 2: Student observations during the empathy mode.

MODE 2: Define the problem.

The next goal was to define an actionable problem statement by analyzing the observations in my empathy report and in turn work towards an effective solution.

I engaged with 3 strategies from Standford's design thinking bootleg:

5 Whys
Why-How Laddering
Point of View Framework (POV)

figure 3: My why-how ladder exercise.

The POV helped me articulate my problem by choosing the most surprising insight and what would be game-changing for my user. I was surprised to notice how students chose to highlight concepts in their textbooks. Some only highlighted the sentences that contained bold terms while others practically highlighted the full text. When I asked students why they did this, they responded that everything will be on the test. The administration and Ministry of Education officials evaluate teachers based on their completion of the curriculum, which in this case means covering the information in the textbooks.

Due to a lack of time and resources, teachers are not able to cater to the needs of students who are ELLs and choose to stick to the textbook. It would be a game-changer if I could tackle this problem by creating a resource that meets the student's language needs and increases student understanding rather than rote memorization. That being said, I re-defined my problem statement to the following:

Teachers are using instructional materials that impose a language barrier for ELLs, which encourages them to memorize rather than understand scientific concepts.

MODE 3: Generate ideas.

Ideation is most effective by considering the following two processes: active brainstorming & passive incubating. While experiencing these processes, ideas can combine, interact, and transform to make new ideas. In this case, it is quantity over quality and the ideas can be focused on the problem, but also can be unrelated, improbable, and unusual.

I asked a couple of colleagues to collaborate in a brainstorming session. The best ideas came from asking good questions that would spark new ideas in the minds of the participants. While actively collaborating with others, I realized the power of bringing together different perspectives.

Even though we were all educators in the room, we all came from different backgrounds and classroom environments. This allowed us to build on each other's thoughts and transform ideas so they reach their full capacity. It was helpful to learn about the stories and connections other teachers have made with their students.

figure 4: My collaborative brainstorming session.

On the other hand, I kept an Incubation Journal using Notes on my phone. I added many ideas that would pop into my consciousness while doing my everyday tasks. The most interesting idea was to create a universal language understood by all such as the one used by students using social media.

figure 5: My incubation journal.

During the processes of brainstorming and incubating, I learned first-hand the importance of each process and how they worked as a feedback cycle to generate imaginative and diverse ideas.

MODE 4: Build a prototype.

Ideas take many shapes and sizes but have one similarity, they are in your head. In the fourth mode, ideas were brought to life by building a rough draft of my design solution, or what is also known as a prototype.

After analyzing my ideas, I believed an effective solution to my PoP depended on creating differentiated learning materials catered to the students' language levels, but still meeting the standards of the curriculum. In parallel, I wanted to motivate students to deepen their cognitive thinking and build connections with the content. Therefore, I developed a playful experiential lesson that is part of a larger gamification scheme that spans over an entire science course. My hope is that students are engaged to look beyond their language barriers and increase their curiosity to understand scientific concepts by exploring authentic real-life problems. My prototype is mapped to unit 5, lesson 1 titled 'Describing Motion' of the grade 6 science curriculum. Students can experience the laws of physics and design a vehicle to calculate the speed of moving objects, rather than solve lengthy word problems.

The instruction sheet includes pictorial representations of science concepts along with short sentences that meet the Lexile level of students in the class in order to help eliminate any language barriers. Language is an essential medium to teaching and learning, but I also wanted to incorporate 'social media language' consisting of symbols and emoticons that students are familiar with to reduce the word count and help visualize the text. In order to motivate students, I added a gamification component that incorporates rules of play and a star/badge system to reduce the fear of grades and a wrong or right mindset.

figure 6a: Instruction sheet of an experiential learning lesson.

figure 6b: Badgdex

MODE 5: Test your prototype.

It is common practice that teachers create formative assessments to improve student understanding and their instructional methods. Similarly, designers test to improve their product. Before rolling out my product, I tested my prototype to gain valuable insights into what worked and what needs to be improved.

The first part of my testing methods was to assemble a focus group of three grade 6 students using Google Hangouts. I had chosen three students that had different English skill sets and who were also willing to participate in testing. I wanted a heterogeneous group to be able to compare results and gather feedback on student opinion and performance. Students responded positively to the gamification aspect of my prototype. They asked several questions on how they can collect all the badges to complete their Badgedex. The valuable insights were that students no longer perceived science as big words that they needed to memorize. They wanted to complete the missions and they grasped that they needed to understand the science in order to reach their goal. I also realized that little words might be helpful for students to read the task, but they still needed proper guidance and instructions.

The second part was to interview teachers and gather their feedback, which was also essential as my solution depends on teacher instruction. I contacted a fellow middle school science teacher to participate in an interview. During the interview, the teacher suggested adding a digital component to design, so that it is accessible to students at all times. They would also be able to track their work. Given the current pandemic, this is something worth looking into to accommodate learning from home.

Video: Highlights of my testing methods and protocol.

Over the past couple of weeks, I realized that as a designer you can personalize the process to overcome different challenges. These modes can be done sequentially or even in parallel. That being said, each mode is an important piece to solving the puzzle.

Looking back at my work, I thought about the different cognitive tools and how they allowed me to tap into my creative potential. Divergent thinking was the one that resonated the most with me. So often, I fixate my mind on finding the one right solution rather than generate ideas beyond my self-imposed constraints.

The design thinking process reminded me of a spiral where my thinking would diverge and then converge. Divergent thinking allowed me to make connections and transform barriers into opportunities. On the other hand, convergent thinking was involved when decisions had to be made.

figure 7: The spiral of the design thinking process.

Testing might be the last step of the process, however, it's not the last step in my

design work. Through my work on my PoP, I have learned first-hand that design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process and involves multiple cycles and iterations in developing a product.