Design Journal Series: Week 4
[As part of my design thinking class at the Harvard Graduate School of Education this Spring, I’m exploring how edtech experiences are designed and tested, with the help of a great bunch of classmates, instructors and ex-colleagues (who I debrief with first thing after class!). I’m starting this series of weekly design journal- where I hope to list down my assumptions, thoughts and post testing reflections.]
This past week we did role playing in class. The difference that I felt in our class was how powerful the diversity was. My groupmates were from 3 different continents. I didn’t have the online module ready for last week’s discussion- hence used it for this one.
Reason it worked was because the target audience for my course is a mixed group- current undergrad students, people taking job breaks, retired professionals. It’s difficult to package learnings for everyone in a way that is inclusive but not generic, that is serious, but not boring.
Stephanie asked me how do I know who will enroll for this class- I don’t. But Haneen added how I need to package the content in a way that appeals to a general audience who are new to the topic of social innovation. We started with roleplaying.
I scribbled some keywords on my computer to help me get started on the course offering- and my colleagues started asking me questions, as silly as “Is there math? Are there guest speakers? Is the TA cute?” to “Where will I be able to apply these learnings if I am not from the industry? Which organizations/cases am I learning about and why? Do I have to buy the cases? Is this a reading heavy class? How am I graded?”. We were trying to get a diverse perspective from a wide range of audience.
Wilbert added “What is the biggest selling point of your course? One thing that makes it interesting? Biggest takeaway?” They call it the unique selling proposition in Marketing. I thought the biggest selling point was learning from a professional. But then that is a hypothesis I haven’t yet tested.
I also sketched out the big milestones of the course, and there was a suggestion to take a class intake survey that I hadn’t considered, and keeping marks for class participation from Week 3, considering week 1 and 2 are for people to understand the basics of the topic, and 3 is to start engaging. So I changed the module- I am going to start with an ungraded Case-0, followed by frameworks to understand social innovation, followed by more case stories and concepts. I also concluded- that since every class discussion will be diverse, I will include concluding slides to help folks wrap up. I will also have an open offer to the students to co-teach. I don’t know how feasible but I also intend to include ongoing discussion threads on canvas. I already updated the first module as ‘Unlearning’, starting with some ‘myth busting’ inspiration to get the class engaged. I’m aware that I don’t know how students who take classes at the Experimental College at Tufts University- choose classes. My groupmates mention ‘who are my classmates’ can also be a concern for class discussion quality (Too young? Too old?) Didn’t think of it before.
I’m submitting the proposal to the curriculum committee in June, before that I’m going to prototype the module, first with a PDF of syllabus and course description- asking my BRAC colleagues, Professors, peers and undergrad mentees to tell me:
· What is their first impression?
· What did they remember from the material (course description/syllabi/bio)? What caught their eye?
· Who would they recommend this course to? Why? How would they describe this class?
· Who would they never recommend this course to? Why? How would they describe this class?
· What did they like?
· What are the 3 things they would change?
· How would they teach it?
I’m already getting anxiety!