This whole design journey started with one experience. A student in my eighth-grade class could not name three different religions. “There’s Christian, which I am, and isn’t Jewish one?” I was shocked. I reflected on that conversation and it really opened my eyes to the lack of cultural knowledge that my students have acquired. Teaching in a school district that has an 87% white demographic, I really questioned how I could help teach my students about other races and cultures. How could this student not be able to name three religions? What if none of my students could? Have I failed them? Have their previous teachers not taught this content? These questions began swimming in my head as well as possible solutions to help fix this issue. EmpathizeTo start the design process, I was asked to empathize with my students and really try to figure out their mindsets. To ask students about their thoughts on race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation directly would lead to inappropriate comments and uneasy feelings, as these actions have been demonstrated in other classes. Instead, what I decided to do was poll the students. I had them answer a few questions on the back of their warm-up one day. I framed the questions around the idea of their “perfect novel.” First, I asked: It was interesting that more students seemed to favor having a book character who is not like them. This showed me that my students may be more inclined to read books about diverse characters than I originally anticipated. Many students added that they would like the character to be around the same age range, but race, religion, and gender did not matter. There was not a single mention of sexual orientation, which I think is due to a lack of experience with the subject. I then asked: Family issues seemed to be at the forefront and that is definitely something that would be relatable for my students, as many of them come from dysfunctional or broken households. I was excited to see that students openly asked for books about physical and mental disabilities, which furthered the notion that my students were truly interested in the experiences of characters different from themselves. DefineThe next step in the design process is to truly define the problem that the designer is facing. This was easily the most challenging aspect of the process for me, as this topic seemed cumbersome and out of my reach. Along with that, there were so many factors and stakeholders involved that I questioned if there was anything I could really do to “fix” this issue. Their parents/guardians have an influence and these students often repeat comments heard at home. Parents of minority students have also expressed their concern about teaching content like this, as it makes those students feel uncomfortable and targeted in the classroom. This was an uphill battle and it was challenging to pinpoint what the true problem was. Was it parent influence? Was it a lack of education at school? What is a lack of diversity in the community? Eventually, with some help, I was able to pinpoint the problem: My specific problem is that my 8th-grade students' interest in becoming more culturally aware is hampered by a relative lack of experiences. IdeateOnce I had identified a lack of experience as the main stem of the problem, I reflected and noted all the thoughts that swirled in my head. It was important to get these down on paper, as they were becoming overwhelming. I wanted to communicate with colleagues about potential solutions. Turns out, I didn’t even have to schedule a meeting. Showing up to lunch with my eighth-grade teacher team, the discussion was already centered around a student wearing a sweatshirt covered with confederate flags. The sweatshirt said “heritage not hate,” but we all still pondered if that was a dress code violation or freedom of speech. I talked about how I genuinely think the students have very little experience with people who are different from themselves. I highly doubt that that student realized that some people may take offense to his sweatshirt. The teachers agreed that there are definitely opportunities for us to inform students of these topics in the classroom. I then sat down with my English Language Arts department to find that they had witnessed similar situations and thought novels would be a great way to expose students to characters different than themselves. Here are my notes from both meetings: I used these notes and ideas to start thinking of what I could design to aid the problem many of the teachers at my school have experienced. PrototypeFrom the first step of empathy to now designing a prototype, the idea of a novel study never left my mind. For my prototype, I decided to create a unit plan that would include the reading and discussion of novels, videos, and non-fiction articles to grasp real-world experiences. I decided to make a table calendar on Google Docs, as this is the way I make yearly plans for my own organization. I really found the process of creating the unit plan enjoyable. In class, I had the students participate in a book tasting, where I set books out and they had to summarize and rate their interest in reading them. This gave me a lot of feedback about potential books for this unit. I was able to narrow it down to six novels, all of which included some form of “family issues” that the students had requested during my initial survey. It was exciting to dedicate time to finding new resources, from the children’s books to the Ted Talks I wanted to use. I do like planning lessons when I know students are going to be engaged and I am going to show passion for the content. Here is what I developed: While designing this prototype, my school closed temporarily, which then became closed for the rest of the year. It was hard designing this prototype knowing that I probably wasn’t going to be able to teach it, at least not this year, to these students, whose input I had used to design it. However, I still wanted to gain feedback on this prototype, so it was on to the testing phase. TestFor the final testing phase, I ended up asking two teachers their thoughts on my unit plan. My first user was a Kindergarten teacher and I did a think-aloud observation, where I had the user examine my unit plan and express their thoughts aloud. From this user, I gained ideas for some clarifications to the unit plan as well as ideas for how to get more participation from students. The second user was the seventh-grade ELA teacher at my school, who teaches the students I have the year prior. When asked if this unit was challenging, I think this teacher, understanding the environment we work in, really captured what I had been trying to express all along: The students we teach are apt to say whatever comes to mind and teaching students to think first before speaking will inherently be the biggest challenge of the entire unit. If students are able to acquire that skill, they will be able to discuss the novels at hand and hopefully become impacted by them. From the beginning of the design process, I could have easily decided that I was going to do a novel study unit with diverse books. I could have chosen the books, created the unit, and taught it without any input. A lot of curriculum planning, specifically at my school, is done in this manner. After going through the design process, I think more input than just the individual’s is necessary. I would say by following the steps of empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test, I was able to gain valuable feedback and ideas from all stakeholders, including the students, the teachers, and even administrators. By following the process, I was able to think more deeply and clearly about my problem of practice and develop a design that I feel will truly impact the participants. While the design process was lengthy, the ideas generated and the topics discussed were well worth it. By using the design model, I was able to gain support from my fellow staff, which is something I will definitely need to conquer a unit like this. I appreciate that my prototype is something that is applicable to my practice. It was nice to have the time and support to build what I think has the potential to be a phenomenal design.
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Jennifer StirlingThis is my #MAET journey! Thanks for reading! Archives
August 2020
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