In this exercise, Donna Baker and I applied the Design Challenge to develop a tool designed to support learners in generating ideas that help them take intellectual risks in digital learning environments.
If you would like to participate as a critical friend for Donna and me, please post your comments on Donna’s blog post.
Our method
Before starting the challenge, we clarified the purpose and process together, including sharing reflections from past courses and experiences.
What worked…
- The interview section helped us to gain a general overview of the other person’s position, and a more concrete awareness of our own experiences.
- The timed interventions pushed us to stay on task and to focus on generating unfinished ideas, as opposed to finessing content.
- Digging deeper provided context and allowed us to check in with the other person to clarify meaning and gain empathy and trust through reflection.
- Working synchronously in the same document and watching the other person share their raw ideas served as a spontaneously generated way to understand their thought patterns and empathize with their experience.
What we developed based on what we learned…
Based on the exploration and application of our respective experiences, we developed an experiential learning tool (Crichton, S. & Carter, D. 2017) for learners to use for planning a systematic method for taking intellectual risks when interacting with their colleagues online. Learners consider both their purpose and audience to help frame their interactions, and apply several techniques to mindfully plan and develop interactions through a series of checklists. After piloting the use of all suggested techniques, learners reflect on what worked, and develop a shortlist of proven techniques that they can use to support them in taking intellectual risks in digital learning environments. Providing a proven method for success in a digital learning environment enhances their student experience, and contributes to their self-regulated learning capabilities (Winne, 2013).
Conclusion
Our experience was successful overall. We have two ideas for future improvement:
- Our interactions were solely text-based. If we used visual tools that more readily capture abstract ideas, such as mind mapping or process mapping tools, would we have arrived at different conclusions?
- The individual interaction steps felt forced, as intended. Would the use of an audible timer to provide an x-second warning help to give a sense of closure to the individual interventions? We found that we were often in the middle of a good idea when the timer went off, which caused us to “switch off” and begin to think about the next task, as opposed to fully formulating and sharing our idea.
Questions…
We have a few additional questions regarding the process of mindfully exploring intellectual risk taking using the Design Challenge framework:
- How well would the interactions work based on pre-existing relationships? Would your current perceptions of someone that you know well influence your interactions?
- Would the process work differently with a complete stranger? And how would that be influenced by how the facilitator worked to develop a safe learning environment, such as establishing group norms, defining roles, and clarifying expectations?
- Would our perceived success of the experience have been different if we hadn’t participated in, researched, or read about the processes we examined?
For your review and comments…
Click the link below to review a copy of the intellectual risk-taking tool we developed through the Design Challenge. We welcome your review and insights.
Note: We have produced an interactive PDF document. You can view the document’s contents via the Dropbox link, but must download the file in order to activate the interactive elements.
References
Crichton, S. & Carter, D. (2017). Taking Making into Classrooms Toolkit. Open School/ITA.
Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). A virtual crash course in design thinking.
Winne, P. H. (2013). Learning Strategies, Study Skills, and Self-Regulated Learning in Postsecondary Education. In Paulsen, M. B. (Ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research (pp. 377–403). Dordrecht: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-5836-0