Reflecting on the first two months

On to the daunting task that is 'the reflection'.

I'm not going to lie, I've been putting this particular post off for at least a week now. But I know that it's going to be quite long, and I have no idea where to start. So let's just jump into it.

Mr. Heidt has asked us to use the 8 Characteristics of the Innovator's Mindset to reflect on "how what we’ve done so far has allowed us to exert ourselves as learners in ways school may not have allowed us to do so before", and "how we feel the class is helping us to achieve an innovator’s mindset".

The Innovator's Mindset is described as "the belief that abilities, intelligence, and talents are developed, leading to the creation of better ideas".

I'll start with the first characteristic; Empathetic.

One of the first things a designer must be able to do is to empathize with their user, as empathy is the foundation of a human-centered design process. They have to understand the people they're designing for.

The class mainly tried to empathize through interviews. For both the classroom and library redesign, we talked with our users (students/teacher and middle schoolers/librarian) to learn about their experiences and observed their body language and emotions. We were able to discern their expressed and latent needs, and then we did plenty of research to make sure we designed the best solutions possible.

The communication aspect is a really important driver of the class, and we definitely got that one down.

Being Observant (#5) is tied into the empathy skill, so I'd say that we succeeded at incorporating that characteristic into the class as well.

Problem Finders (#2).

This one makes me think about several different things. One, that we were able to find problems (needs) within our community, and design solutions or answers to them. That's the entire basis and pitch of the Design Lab class, and we were able to do that pretty well - especially with the classroom redesign (even though we're still being given some trouble with the grant and financial stuff).

This characteristic also reminded me of something that Mr. Heidt says; "ask for forgiveness, not for permission". This is (apparently) what designers live by. And I understand why, because I do this a lot. To explain, I'll start with the fact that people generally don't like change. So when designers show up and want to change all of the old, normal things that people are used to, said people are not likely to agree or permit these changes to take place. But in order to make a positive difference, we have to try. We're going to fail 90% of the time, but the only way we're going to learn and grow is by trial and error. So lots of times, designers have to take risks and do things before asking for permission. They might get in trouble (problem finders, get it??), but that's where the apologies come in.

And I'll connect Risk Takers this as well, because well...... if you're going to defy the establishment, you have to be willing and able to take risks. LIke when we tried getting those foam cubes.... not exactly a risk, but trying anything new (especially in the traditional common core school system) is always difficult and kinda scary. Not to mention hard to do.