Our Mission
Klaus Rimke, Terra Aartsen, and Angie Maksymetz were challenged to use Stanford’s d.school design thinking process to prototype a single element of an online integrated program for promoting engagement, a sense of inclusion, and intellectual risk-taking. Given how we are a group of three with disparate work domains, we chose to adapt and adopt a joint solution within a context we share: an online graduate program.
Empathize & Reframe
By both interviewing and being interviewed, the empathizing process allowed each of us to approach the problem as designers while also looking through the lens of learners.
“The closer the designer comes to the real user, the more easily the designer can step into the user’s world. The more the designer can live and experience the users’ emotions, the better she can transform the ideas and constraints into appealing and pleasing design solutions” (Mattelmäki, Vaajakallio, & Koskinen, 2014, p. 70).
In box #4 of our design process, a combined need emerged for a structured, socially connected, and safe learning environment.
Solution
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development describes stimulating learning environments as “learner-centered, structured and well-designed, profoundly personalized, inclusive, and social” (Crichton & Carter, 2017, p. 18). In order to provide a safe, social, structured domain while addressing our assigned problem scenario, we designed an ice-breaker activity to take place at the beginning of an online graduate program. We named the exercise “Question-Making and Risk-Taking,” and it is detailed below:
1. Each student conducts a 10-15 minute synchronous interview via telephone, video, or online chat of one classmate, randomly assigned by the professor.
2. Interview questions: How would you describe yourself in one sentence? What motivates you? How does this program help meet your goals? What is your opinion of the role intellectual risk-taking plays in your education?
3. Ask 2 or more questions about anything (within reason and being respectful).
4. Complete a short post on moodle about your interview subject using their name as the title. Your post should contain either their word-for-word responses to your questions, their answers paraphrased, or a profile of them in your words. Optional: include a photograph of your subject (with permission) or an image which represents some aspect of them. YOUR POST IS DUE ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 5th.
5. The professor has randomly assigned every student three other classmates. Find their names in the titles of interview postings, then read the results to get to know a bit about them. Provide one positive comment and ask each subject one more question about anything (within reason). POST COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS BY WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8th.
6. BRIEFLY RESPOND TO QUESTIONS ASKED OF YOU BY SUNDAY, JANUARY 12th. Read about and get to know your classmates at your leisure.
Effectiveness
To tackle the need for structure, we provided clear ground rules, deadlines, and expectations. To address the need for connection, we created an engaging exercise for getting to know peers and building community through an inclusive, egalitarian format. To meet the need for a safe environment which welcomes intellectual risk-taking, we placed this activity in Moodle, allowing students to gain comfort in presenting unpolished content online.
The exercise is intended as a first step, laying a solid foundation for building engagement, a sense of inclusion, and endurance for future intellectual risk-taking while meeting the needs captured from our empathizing process.
References
Mattelmäki, T., Vaajakallio, K., & Koskinen, I. (2014). What happened to empathic design?. Design issues, 30(1), 67-77.
Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). A virtual crash course in design thinking.
Crichton, S. & Carter, D. (2017). Taking Making into Classrooms Toolkit. Open School/ITA.
I really like how you are directly challenging your learners to be intellectual risk takers, making them mindful of the intent, and asking them to explore their own benefits of doing so.
As the exercise begs the question: “What’s intellectual risk taking?”, would you provide a definition/discussion/component for them to gain an understanding before the ice-breaker exercise, or would that be part of their discovery and interaction process through the exercise?
What kind of follow up component would you offer to provide an opportunity for your learners to be intellectual risk takers?
Hi Sean, thanks for your comments and questions. Yes, we had imagined that the weekly or unit introduction from the instructor would include a definition of intellectual risk-taking along with its benefits for learning. We actually wrote a paragraph dedicated to intellectual risk-taking in our first draft of this 500-word piece, complete with the definition and our reasons for encouraging it… alas, condensing everything into so few words caused that portion to be edited out.
What follow-up components might we offer? Well, the end goal is to have a cohort full of confident bloggers, sharing their intellectual prowess with the worldwide web. Our vision was that this exercise in the closed Moodle system would begin to help alleviate fears of online exposure and get students more comfortable with sharing themselves. We didn’t specify exact future activities, but we discussed slowly opening up, expanding the learners’ comfort levels a bit more which each assignment, using baby steps until students feel self-assured and willing to risk putting their thoughts and knowledge out there. Another other option we discussed was actually keeping the entire course in a closed system. We reasoned that broadcasting work for the whole world to see while learning is new, incomplete, and not fully developed can create stress for students, and they might actually be willing to take more intellectual risks if course activities were shared only amongst peers. What do you think? Is intellectual risk-taking nurtured more in a closed or open online system?
Hi, Angie, Klaus and Terra:
First, thank you for modelling how a trio successfully takes up an assignment designed for a partnership. You have provided some valuable lessons learned in this description of your prototype.
Your critical friends, Sean and mbahador, have provided excellent descriptions as to the strengths of your prototype for promoting engagement and a sense of inclusion. I am sure their comments, questions and examples from their personal practices will serve you well as you complete the second part of Assignment 1.
I chose to place my reply here since your response to Sean’s question brought to my mind a place where I require more clarity about your prototype: How are you addressing intellectual risk taking in your prototype? From your response to Sean’s question, I am wondering IF you are choosing academic risk taking in your prototype to provide some scaffolding, laddering or bridging for your adult learners to be ready to take an intellectual risk later in the course. Or possibly, as you mentioned, you have addressed my question in the paragraph you weren’t able to include in your blog post.
I believe my question was initially prompted from the quote you chose from the literature that mentions users’ emotions which was prompted again by your interview question – what motivates you? And then again as I read how mbahador has students draw themselves as superheroes and then name two abilities of their superheroes. Might it be easier to describe emotions and motivations through role-playing or photographs when first starting an online graduate program?
Possibly you have considered some adaptation to your prototype that will give context to the question of users’ emotions and motivations. For example, you might considered adding the second step of the design thinking activity into your prototype – asking your students to provide more detail or a story about their first answers or why they chose a particular image. Alternatively, might you, as designers, chose a series of images as prompts similar to how we used the design challenge to focus your assignment? As Susan Sontag (2001) states “photographs are evidence not only of what’s there but of what an individual sees, not just a record but an evaluation of the world” (p. 88).
As time is precious, I am not sure you will be able to discuss as a group, complete the second part of Assignment 1, AND respond to my post. Hopefully, you will find time to return before the end of the course to describe how your prototype and thinking has evolved.
Deb
Sontag, S. (2001). On photography. New York: Pan Books Ltd.
Hi Deb, thank you for your thorough post, lots of food for thought for our group to chew on 🙂
Sontag’s book was a good one, a fascinating view on photography!
I think this activity would be an excellent way to encourage online students to get to know each other and take risks. I always have icebreaker activity at the bigging of all my online courses as well to encourage the student to feel more comfortable to have online discussions. I can attest from experience that they do work. I think the questions you picked are very good, and also adding a picture is a good idea, however, I think students sometimes have a hard time proving their pictures online. In one of the icebreaker activities I use in my class, students are asked to draw a superhero that would describe them and name two of the hero’s super abilities. They have to post the picture of their drawing for their peers to view and comment on. I found it easier for the students to share the drawings rather than their pictures. I think it is excellent that mentioned the word “positive” for the comments. When you say: they can ask anything within reason, does it mean they can ask personal questions, or personal questions are off limits? is there a list of sample questions provided for the student to pick from?
Thanks again for your post, I think you created a great activity!
Hi May, I appreciate you taking the time to read, comment on, and ask questions about our work. We didn’t plan a list of sample questions. Our vision was that asking the initial questions might trigger the interviewer to want to dig deeper, or leaving the questions open would create more diverse and unique student profiles. I think personal questions could be fine if it seems the subject wants to share. For example, if she mentioned her kids or pets while answering one of the first questions, maybe she would love to share more about them. To combat the possibility of controversial, unreasonable, disrespectful personal questions, I think it would be a great idea to add a rule:
Everyone has the right to refuse to answer any question.
Excellent point about encouraging students to take intellectual risks and to create thoughtful and significant blog posts. If students believe a post is simply “part of the work to be done,” I believe instructors get a “certain kind” of post. If students come to see the posts as thoughtful dialogue and way of extending awareness, curiosity and collective knowledge, I think you end up with a stimulating learning environment.
I think it all comes down to engagement and fostering curiosity!
Hi Klaus, Terra, and Angie:
I thought you did a great job of making a practical activity aimed at developing community immediately, which can be a challenge. I thought too, that the layout of your activity and process was clear and well rationalised. I think you have done well to address the issue of inclusion by forced interaction, but how do you manage engagement if this initial ice breaker activity does not yield positive results? For example, what if respondents do not engage fully in the process, or ask questions that do not provide a workable continuation of the process? Your interview structure involves a certain degree of risk taking, not everyone is as comfortable in sharing with comparative strangers, but how do you encourage these types of people to take risks moving forward, and in general what type of activities did you have in mind to generate risk taking moving subsequently?
Great work on the layout, it must have been challenging to cram three people’s thoughts into such a small space!
Thanks for this thoughtful and very clear post. I appreciated your statement, “a combined need emerged for a structured, socially connected, and safe learning environment.” I am curious, do you think you would have arrived at this same “solution” for your project using a different process? I also appreciated your concluding statement about the first step and the components that are in it. It makes we wonder if you are suggesting engagement and inclusion as central for intellectual risk-taking? I would suggest they might, along with curiosity and commitment.
Susan
Thank you for your comments and questions Susan. Certainly the process is 100% responsible for our solution. Empathizing, then being asked to boil down the content from the empathizing, and then condensing it all into a single sentence which states a clear need… that’s the ticket!
And yes, we certainly would suggest how feeling engaged and included would help students be more comfortable taking intellectual risks. Curiosity and commitment too, indeed!
Hi Klaus, Terra and Angie.
Thanks for your well thought out and intriguing post. I really liked your premise and how you structured the process for getting to know fellow students in a graduate program. This is something that not only is relevant and applicable to our own situation, but also could be utilized in working contexts as well as other educational ones. I can imagine activities like this (perhaps with slightly different requirements for commenting) as being effective at a work conference or meeting where many employees don’t know each other well.
I did though have a few questions and comments on your design. Does everyone use the same set of questions? Do the people who are being interviewed have a chance to prepare a bit before the interview starts? The only reason I ask this is that I am not sure I would give a great answer to ‘describing myself in one sentence’ or the one regarding the role of intellectual risk taking if just asked on the spot. Perhaps you could give the person interviewed a couple of minutes to think about what they are going to say before the interview starts, and then to engage them further to look for insights with your further questions.
I really enjoyed the interpretive post that is then required of the interviewer. That requirement will really promote intellectual risk on their part, as what they write will be seen by all, and many may struggle to be concise and objective.
By all students being on both sides of the interview, not only will empathy ensue, but respect and camaraderie could result. Well done!
Stu
Hi Stuart, thanks so much for taking the time to be our critical friend. We thought to provide everyone the same questions would get the ball rolling, and then the “about anything” followup questions could take the conversation elsewhere or further. Having some preset questions also helps serve the need some students have for structure.
I don’t see any problem with allowing students to think about their answers to the set questions. If everyone receives the assignment at the same time, then theoretically each student should have a chance to ponder the set questions before the interview.
Hi Stuart, I was thinking about that very thing. How could this apply in the corporate world? Too that, I found the extent that intellectual risk-taking, engagement, and inclusion is intertwined within the interaction of multiple organizational levels. Each of which with different levels of academic training and ability, many of these managers and employees are assigned by upper management as Subject Matter Expert’s (SME’s) to provide info and or content to the project. In communicating and developing a strategy in assisting the SME’s on needs to “get to know” the SME, as stated in our prototype this needs to be accomplished at the start of the project. The idea of utilizing an emphatic process in determining the current tolerances of the team and through team building exercises such as this one to increase the comfort level of the SME. Keeping the SME in the loop, by creating an atmosphere of inclusion, involvement, and validation through peer support and allowing for an ever-increasing level of the intellectual risk-taking. The process of how and where the info provided is reviewed, and to which level of review is being directed. As with our prototype, in the corporate world would be easily modified by maintaining a prearranged structure and list with specific groups of peers and managers that will review and critic the information. Validation and acknowledgment of contributions can be met in various ways and through this step by step structured approach can help guiding the SME out of their comfort zones in a controlled fashion. All of which will aid the SME in putting their intellectual knowledge to paper in an organized and coherent manner, the benefit for both the organization and the confidence the SME develops in furthering their personal growth. Thanks for the great response and I wanted to through some of my thoughts on this.
Klaus Rimke
Klaus, Terra, and Angie,
Firstly, may I say that I am on board with what Crichton & Carter outline as “learner-centered, structured and well-designed, profoundly personalized, inclusive, and social” (as cited in Klaus Rimke, Terra Aartsen, and Angie Maksymetz) when it comes to developing curriculum for any style of pedagogical environment. Nice intro! It does state what today’s instructional design is all about.
This “Question-Making and Risk-Taking,” is a very well thought out and nicely structured prototype module. I am do implement problem-based learning within my experiential academic environment. However, I strongly believe that structure and rules must set in place to help guide the learner. The rules should also come real-world environments.
I could post a complete analysis of your step-by-step process, but your outline says it all. Detailed. Time allotment. Introduction to a new online learning community. It has it all.
I have no questions, accept is there pizza involved?
Thank you.