Wednesday Aug 21, 2019

Best of the TechNollerGist - Design Thinking

Again we jump into the Way Back machine and pay a visit with a slightly younger and more vivacious TechNollerGist who has thoughts on incorporating Design Thinking into the classroom. If you find the pod useful or at least mildly interesting, please subscribe and give us a rating on your app of choice and as always thanks for listening and inspiring!

Larry Burden 0:19

So much good content. So much good content.

David Noller 0:24

I was starting to worry about a few are getting my good side but I'm not sure I have one anymore.

Larry Burden 0:35

It's episode 5 of the TechNollerGist

David Noller 0:39

I keep thinking you're hanging on numbers like this is only the fifth one

Larry Burden 0:43

This is only the official fifth one, I checked. I was looking through the records and it was number five.

David Noller 0:48

All right,

Larry Burden 0:48

Unless my records are bad, which is very likely because like, math, not strong.

David Noller 0:52

That's not. I'm sure it's right.

Larry Burden 0:54

By the way, I am your humble host Larry Burden, and I'm joined by the man who's gamed the system. It's the TechNollerGist.

David Noller 0:59

That's right, gaming the system. I like that, I like it.

Larry Burden 1:02

David Noller, the TechNollerGist, the topic should you choose to accept it? Is design thinking?

David Noller 1:08

Do we not have a moment of Zen

Larry Burden 1:09

We, the moment of zen is that other that we don't talk about that other podcast?

David Noller 1:15

I'll give you one, the guy who directed.

Larry Burden 1:17

The TechNollerGist Tidbit,

David Noller 1:19

TechNollerGist Tidbit. The guy who directed The Red Balloon that famous French short film also invented the board game Risk.

Larry Burden 1:27

I didn't know that.

David Noller 1:33

So the idea of design, the design cycle in education. I started getting introduced. I started getting interested in this a couple years ago. And every time I saw the design cycle, I always felt like it feels like it's another lockstep and I know it wasn't supposed to. But every time I saw a model, it was start here, then do this, then do this, then repeat. And I understood the purpose of it that you introduce an idea, you create a hypothesis, you build something to test that hypothesis, you determine if there's any, anything you need to change in order for it to be more successful, you adjust it and you do it again. But it still felt like a pattern. It still felt like a...

Larry Burden 2:19

like something that was designed?

David Noller 2:20

like an unwieldy process.

Larry Burden 2:22

Okay, okay,

David Noller 2:23

Maybe it's my, my sort of, my approach to design in the first place, which is to sort of jump in and swim around for a while, and then take a look around and see where you are. And if there's sharks, then you obviously have to swim away. But, but if there's no sharks, you can keep going.

Larry Burden 2:39

Isn't that though, a system?

David Noller 2:41

it isn't a way

Larry Burden 2:43

you said that. And I'm like, that kind of mirrors the system that you just mentioned.

David Noller 2:49

And it does. And because you know, I'm kind of a visual person, When I would see those design cycles with a starting point, and then it would loop around and start again, It looks a little bit like a rat race, or a mouse wheel, I guess, is the thing. And I never want to get stuck on that mouse wheel. And we, we saw something when we went to the METS fall rally, which was the Michigan Educational Technology Specialists fall rally. And we did the design project. But the, the, the, the cycle, the design cycle came from Ford's model I Project,

Larry Burden 3:28

Okay.

David Noller 3:29

And It's another look at how to do innovation. It's another look at how to do a design cycle. And what I liked about it was that there there are the, what they call the the actions of innovation. And these are things that you would normally see on, on a design cycle. Uncover, which is the idea where we're trying to figure out what it is that's needed. Then we're going to define the problem, we're going to design something to address it, we're going to test it and optimize it, and then we're going to implement that solution. Okay, Those are the things that normally see in a design cycle, versions of that. But the Model I approach adds, things like being empathic. When you're working with your test audience, or the people who are going to be using that thing, that product, that idea. Engaging them with empathy. Now, that's an old human design concept. But the way it's engaged here is, is different in that, for some of the old design human design projects, you start with empathy. You talk to your consumer, you talk to your audience, you figure out what they need, and then you take over from there. And, and maybe it's just the way that the Model I laid out. But they have that empathy piece being, coming into the process at each step. So sure, in the beginning, when you're trying to understand the process, but also when you're designing it, and also when you're implementing it. And also when you are generating ideas. What they call the habits of the innovator, are sprinkled in throughout the actions of innovation. So you've got the action of design. And then you've got these habits and things like: taking risks, be empathetic, collaborate, stay curious, learn from failure, challenge the rules. So that at each step along the way of that design process, you're being reminded to challenge the rules, be empathetic, Stay curious, collaborate, take risks, all those things. And when I, when I saw that model, as somebody who is someone who kind of challenges status quo and looks to do things differently. It was, it's, it's another look at a design model that allows for a lot more customization and interaction, where the the empathy part isn't just in the beginning to figure out what you need. It flows through the whole project. If nothing else from the METS fall rally, that was my big takeaway. Was, was that new look at the model. Nothing, nothing in the model's, particularly brand new. We've been doing human, human design theory for a long time. But it's the way I think that it's implemented that I think was, for me, at least a new thing.

Larry Burden 6:12

It's not just the program, it actually shows you how to navigate the construct. Yeah. Which is different.

David Noller 6:18

Yeah, the "what" hasn't changed? Maybe the how, and maybe the why, I think maybe...

Larry Burden 6:23

Even maybe the who?

David Noller 6:24

yeah,

Larry Burden 6:25

Because really, what they're what they're doing is they're they're engaging, they're getting you to engage in it, and reflect on it as a, as an individual or as a group going through the process. I think that's different, you're not just looking at the process, you're actually engaged, and they're asking you to be subjective, right in the process, right, so that you're really engaged in it.

David Noller 6:45

And I think it's really reflective of, of teaching and how, how our staffs engaged in planning, where we're reading The Kite Runner right now. And you can, you can set, you can set your students up in the beginning, understanding where they're understanding where they're, where their prejudices might lie, or just their pre judgments about parts of the world or, or even about reading. And we can, we can engage those things early on. And then throughout the process. We do that all the time, we come back, and we check back in and we see have your attitudes changed? How have your, how has your understanding changed? I think that's built into a lot of our planning in the in the first place,

Larry Burden 7:23

You know, we're going through the ISTE standards for educators, right. And it just so happens, that next week, we're going to be jumping into the I do believe the fifth standard, which is designer. And yeah, well enough. And if I can read, I'm kind of curious what your take on it is? Educators design authentic learner driven activities and environments that recognize and accommodate learner variability?

David Noller 7:45

Yeah,

Larry Burden 7:46

I'm not going to go through the indicators and what that is. But it's interesting that in METS, there was there were discussions on this. Here in ISTE standards, it's important enough to be recognized. Why, and you mentioned that this is something that educators just do, why is there so much of an emphasis on this? When, to some extent, well, you know, we design we design all the time, we're designing curriculum, we're designing our classroom management process, you know...

David Noller 8:24

Sure. Why is there, why is there an emphasis when we already do it? Because I think there's a difference between, sort of accidentally walking into it and being intentional about it. And I think we all as teachers do it from time to time. But I think there's also a challenge that we can meet by being intentional about engaging it more often. Anytime we engage kids in a meaningful, learner centered activity, that's authentic, that gives them real world experience. We know, that's how they learn better. Sometimes we get stuck in, yeah, but I have to finish this chapter or, yeah, but I have a textbook and I started at page one, and I got to get to the last one. And sometimes I think we get stuck in curriculum, when if we take a step back and slowed down just a minute, we can engage them in things that are going to last longer, in terms of impact for them. Then, as, as needed by finishing the book, finishing the textbook, or getting to that last chapter. Now I know, I'm speaking for teachers who, you know, like math teachers, I've got the SAT to confront, you know, that's something that we know that they they have to deal with. But it's how we get the kids there. And I think sometimes we can get stuck in that curriculum. And sometimes we can get stuck in the way I've always done it. I'm actually kind of lucky in a way that it's rare that I have a textbook for any of my classes. I had a textbook for 10th grade, and I had a book that I used for AP Lit. But just about every other class I've taught has been go figure it out.

Larry Burden 10:01

Even the classrooms, in the pieces that are in the areas of the curricular, areas that have textbooks or have some pre, some designated materials that they have to go through. One of the neat things about design thinking I feel is what it's doing is saying, Look at your playing field. There are variables in every playing field, every game has rules. Every game has rules. Once you recognize what the playing field is, and what the rules are, now you can construct and design within those rules. Yeah, you know, it's nice that you have a little bit wider playing field, right. But really the, the, the concept behind the design thinking is is therefore any, any playing field, any game.

David Noller 10:45

Yeah. Any game. And the other nice thing is that within this within that philosophy that approach using design thinking, It also lends itself towards customizing your experiences for the kids who need the customization. I have three English language learners this year, exchange students from Germany, Italy, and Sweden. And I've had to make adjustments along the way, in order to make sure that their experience of the class is meaningful in a way that I mean, literally meaningful, like linguistically meaningful to them. And so we've we've added some new things within the, within how I teach to make that makes sense. Google Presentation now has live Closed Captioning of presentations. So as I present information, if I do it in a in a Google Presentation, It will live closed caption as I speak, and it's pretty accurate. It's pretty cool. I actually use a podcasting Mic to do it, because it can't hear me a little clearer. But that fits right into that part. As a designer of the empathy. I look at my audience, and I see who needs what, and then I make adjustments based on who needs that thing.

Larry Burden 11:54

I think every educator on some level is an artist. You have to be when as you're a designer, you're an artist, you're using creativity. And really the magic of, what happens in the classroom is exploring. But It's neat to see that the educator, and I think it would be good for the for the educator to recognize that they are exploring and they are digging into their their own creative mindset, their own design, mindset, the design mindset every time they look at their curricular area, right or their classroom, and they really think about it holistically and empathetically,

David Noller 12:31

And how can you get, how can you best get to the outcome that you're looking for for that audience? We have the same goal for all of our all of our students in terms of outcome, but how we get them there, because as part of that art, and sometimes we do adjust the outcome for our students. But we don't adjust it in a way that removes the meaning from it that it might be a slightly lower target, it might be a slightly different way to complete the target. But I don't think we ever change it to the point where the goal has lost its meaning.

Larry Burden 13:01

So you're going to go there earlier. But I and I kind of stopped I feel I gotta apologize. But so before we jump into it, I wanted to ask you a question because this is going to be a new segment of the TechNollerGist podcast, and I don't have a name for I was struggling to find a name for the segment, you know, we have in tech tool or in the TCAPSLoop weekly podcast, we have the Tech Tool of the week, we have our name,

David Noller 13:23

Right?

Larry Burden 13:24

We need a name for this. So I'm actually you know, anybody that's listening, if you've got a if you've got a name for like some kind of a gamification now gamified title,

David Noller 13:35

Okay, if I get to,

Larry Burden 13:37

absolutely.

David Noller 13:38

I'll have to think about? Yeah,

Larry Burden 13:40

So look out for that. So with that, what is, what is it?

David Noller 13:45

Here's the thing. So I thought maybe that's it. here's the here's the thing, that's actually a thing that I say quite a bit. So here's the thing. Last year, I talked about a version of Monopoly that I played with my sociology kids, right? I haven't done that yet this year. I'm playing around with where I do it in my in my semester, I did it.

Larry Burden 14:04

Are you designing?

David Noller 14:04

A little bit. I did it early last year. And I don't feel like it had the same kind of impact as when they had a little bit more under their belt. So I'm holding off on that. But I came away from the METS meetup that we had thinking more about design and engagement. And I keep coming back to games in the classroom. And we're reading The Kite Runner. And there's a section of the Kite Runner where the family is trying to escape because the Soviets have come and things are bad. And so they're they're, they're on their way out. And they have to figure out how to leave. And so we've done a little bit of background information with our kids about what's the social situation in Afghanistan and the time, I think it's 1979. The Soviets have returned to the country, if you look at a map of where they were, they kind of created a ring. And then Kabul was also a dangerous place to be. And so I gave the kids of the challenge of they were making decide how many people are in their family, and they they have to leave from the same neighborhood as our characters in Kite Runner. So we're working on 1979 political condition, but 2018 financial condition, because I didn't want them to have to, "How much is a plane ticket in 2018, verses 1979." The idea was, they had to come up with a route and plan out how much money they were going to spend, to get out. And they could go to any number of, of locations, I could go to North America, Australia, someplace in Africa, Japan, South Korea, UK, Europe. They could go pretty much anywhere they wanted to they had to figure out how to get there, in an affordable way. And that's all I said was affordable. I kind of tricked them. And when they were while they're traveling in the airport, if they had to buy food, it was twice what they would normally spend. If they were around town, just for average. I asked them to figure out how much per hundred miles it would cost them to drive. And then I asked them to use travel websites to figure out how much it costs to fly or take a bus or whatever from. So The goal is Escape Afghanistan. But...

Larry Burden 16:19

now we're not talking Afghani you bus fares. We're talking about bus fares,

David Noller 16:22

right?

Larry Burden 16:23

Just, you know, they said, having to go into the dark web. And

David Noller 16:25

Yeah, they said how we supposed to know how much it costs get from Kabul to whatever. And I said, Well, what do you think? And somebody said, Well, can we just figure out how much it costs to get from here to like Chicago, and then use that? Sure. Let's do that thing. It's not going to be 100% accurate. But for the purposes of what we were doing, It worked. So that that's all great. And that could be its own little thing on its own, probably. But that's just math. But this was the fun part, I thought. Whenever they changed modes of transportation, entered another city, cross the border, I rolled dice, and then I game mastered the condition. So I rolled it, I use six, six sided dice, I would roll these virtual dice and ones are failures. They're terrible. Sixes are awesome. They're great. And everything in between four and above is a success. Three and below is a not success. And based on the dice rolls, I would then tell a story. Normally, I would want the kids telling the story. But based on what we were doing. I was I was giving them complications that then they had to respond to. So there was a group that rolled really high and actually got to borrow their rich aunt's private plane and fly to Turkey. They weren't all the way home yet. But they got to that. Another group that rolled very low. One of the people in their group was abducted. There's other players who they ended up running out of money in Moscow. And so now they're in Moscow as an Afghani, not speaking the language with no money and can't go any further. After this whole thing was over, and we took an entire day to do this. And we role played out all kinds of things that people along the route that stopped you and demanded payment, somebody who was was treated very kindly by somebody that they met along the way, there was somebody who was put on a terror watch list, because their last name matched the name of somebody who had just committed an act of violence. So we had all these sort of historical and present day consequences that happened as a result of me rolling dice. So I wasn't just deciding, oh, you're gonna have a terrible thing, I would roll the dice and say, Well, here's what happens. We've talked a little bit about the design thing and the the idea of empathy. We started with the idea of we're going to do something to try to understand our characters better, because they're about to go through something that's, that's...

Larry Burden 18:53

Pretty difficult,

David Noller 18:54

Pretty difficult. And then we played this game. And the real kicker came at the end, when I said, Okay, everybody know, how much did y'all spend? And it was in the thousands, Right? And I said, Okay, here's the issue, though. The typical Afghan makes $400 a month, on average. So those are 2018 dollars you're playing with? How are you going to get that much money together to get your family out? And I said, so these really journeys that we just took? And we looked at all the list the money that we just spent, and one student from the back of the room says, they're just dreams. And I went, yes, that's, that's it. And and then I asked them to write about how that changed their understanding of refugees, people who try to escape countries, and why they do, and why they take the routes that they take? Why are people willing to get on a boat with 60 other people when it's supposed to only hold 15. So they have no other way.

Larry Burden 19:54

That chance is better than no chance.

David Noller 19:56

That chance is better than no chance and, and

Larry Burden 19:59

So you're saying I got a chance,

David Noller 20:01

You're saying there's a chance. So In the end, the whole game was designed to get the kids in a more empathetic place themselves as readers of the literature that we're considering and to have them experience even in that just that simulation, what goes through your mind when you're trying to get out. Because they really engaged in this. I was really proud of them for taking it seriously. There was one group, what they weren't willing to do is accept the negative. When we role played this out, a lot of the teams were they were very accepting of the negative. They, they knew they had to trade something good for something bad. There, were there were times when they had to decide, am I going to leave this other person behind? Or am I going to pay the bribe and be penniless from now on. And they confronted that, and they wrote about that. The one group that didn't really come along? Was because they didn't want to accept the negative, they didn't want to deal with the consequence. They wanted to just shield themselves from it. So they're not used to dealing with, you know, life changing consequence of

Larry Burden 21:07

zero sum game zero.

David Noller 21:09

That's right. So,

Larry Burden 21:11

so is this podcast about design or empathy?

David Noller 21:14

Yes. How can I not only use empathy to design the game, but then have the game produce empathy? In Human Design Theory, You start with empathy. And so if we're going to engage our kids in modern thinking about work. Our design companies, well, not even our design companies, our companies use these kinds of approaches and how they make decisions. Our kids need to get used to that kind of decentralized, more collaborative, decision making, engaging and empathy along the way so that their decisions can be informed by the human condition,

Larry Burden 21:55

If I can argue your point. I think our kids are,

David Noller 21:59

Yeah.

Larry Burden 22:00

I think, I think as educators were maybe you know, might be lagging a little bit in that process.

David Noller 22:08

That's great clarification. There's so many things where I think our kids are naturally already doing it. And we're trying to play catch up. They're used to being collaborative. When they play Fortnite, they're collaborating with Team all day long and talking to each other and giving each other instructions and, and helping each other accomplish something. If you don't understand it, but your friend does, ask him. A couple last little things. You know, one of the a couple of the things that we had were challenge the rules, take risks, and stay curious. Collaborate, okay, they collaborated, I had them working in groups, they had to figure this out together. The groups that did the best and had the the highest level engagement, and frankly, had the best times, were the ones that were really willing to role play it and to stay curious about, well, what happens if we go here? If is there, What's there that we can get? Is there a bus station? Is there a plane station?

Larry Burden 22:57

has questions,

David Noller 22:58

Google Maps does a great job of providing you with that information. The other part was challenging the rules, I would have kids and I love this would say, well, can we, don't give them a lot of rules. But they would say can we and then they prompt me with something that I hadn't thought of? Sure, you can do that. There's the group that said, Can we hire a private jet? Well, let's see what the dice say. They're the ones that rolled like five sixes and a five. At that point, I said, not only can you hire a private jet, You actually have a famous aunt who was an actress, and she has offered to foot the bill for you to get Turkey. She's flying there for film festival anyway. So as long as she's going there, she'll take your crew and then all you have to do is get from there to Greece, because they wanted to go to some someplace in Northern Greece. So that's the kind of thing that would happen along the way where they would challenge the the assumptions, even though there weren't really that many rules. But they would, they would, they would sort of challenge the context. And and I want to say yes, as much as I can. And then, and then, taking risks. And there was a kid who had to decide, he had to, he had to choose between either sacrificing himself, he was just going to not be alive anymore, or becoming a drug mule. Because stuff like that happens.

Larry Burden 24:11

Did you have, you said 3, 3, 6 sided dice or 18?

David Noller 24:14

6? 6? Yeah.

Larry Burden 24:16

So did you have that many variables set up? pre had you designed as? And The reason I say that is you know, you, you game?

David Noller 24:27

Yeah.

Larry Burden 24:27

And and have a penchant for storytelling?

David Noller 24:30

Yeah.

Larry Burden 24:31

Not every educator is going to have,

David Noller 24:33

understood

Larry Burden 24:34

have that skill. So what would you, and what we're going way long here, so then I shouldn't do this. What would you recommend for an educator that maybe doesn't have that skill set.

David Noller 24:47

When I have done this before, I've also used what I call chance cards. And I don't call them chance cards, monopoly calls them chance cards. But I would design a series of cards that have a consequence. And I could I could do this completely independently, where the kids come up and just grab a card and they see what happens. I like to be engaged in the kids. And I do enjoy the storytelling part. And so for me, rolling the dice and telling a story is easy. But I could, It would take an extra hour of preparation to prepare 30 chance cars of what's going to happen as a result. And you will, you could have still have the kids roll dice. And then if it's a good result, they pick from this pile. And if it's bad result, they pick from the other pile, they can set it up ahead of time on cards or just on a grid. They could ever everything typed out, and printed out, and have two columns of good result, bad results, and kind of cross things off as they happen.

Larry Burden 25:39

Good solution.

David Noller 25:40

Yeah.

Larry Burden 25:41

Alright. tutorials and updates. Just wanted to throw it again that we had a podcast last week on the blueprint with Dr. Grant Chandler was very interesting. Good stuff, if you're interested in how a school district is changing how it's running. We have another ISTE standards, collaborator, pod coming up, should be posted. Hopefully this week. It's been a busy week. So I'm a little bit behind. I wanted to just give you a shout out. The tutorials you've been putting out are, are awesome. You've been like the tutorial machine.

David Noller 26:13

You know, that's I decided this year that whenever anybody asked a question of how to I? Iwas going to instead of answering it, I was going to make them wait about two hours and create something that everybody can use. And one of the things that's going to be coming out hopefully tomorrow is how to convert your old Google classrooms to have a classroom page so that you can reuse those moving forward. And that's a whole new thing. And

Larry Burden 26:37

the thing is, if you actually look through the entirety of these tutorials, your, your ability to navigate and make google classroom work for you as an educator is going to be upgraded significantly.

David Noller 26:50

One of the most recent ones was the the student view of Google Classroom because I think there's some teachers that that want to see what it looks like for the kid before they're willing to jump in. And so that one's out there, and I have a YouTube channel that's connected with my school email account. I think my channel's just called David Noller.

Larry Burden 27:08

I do believe it is

David Noller 27:09

very creative.

Larry Burden 27:10

There's a new Tell Me About It, a podcast with Jame McCall and Allison McBride-Culver coming out as well. And check back it's been a couple episodes ago, but the BiblioTech Halloween podcast, She's got some great, it's that time of the year, and she's got some great suggestions for books for kids of all ages. So In closing, follow us on Facebook and Twitter @TCAPSLoop, @TechNollerGist.

David Noller 27:33

Ooh, yeah, excellent @TechNollerGist

Larry Burden 27:37

subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud and the Google Play Store. leave a review. We love the feedback and remember,

Best of the TechNollerGist - Design Thinking

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