Learning and Design in Action: A Case Study
Leadership+Design is a learning organization. We partner with organizations to understand their needs and deliver learning experiences with the power to spark innovation in education. We also choose projects from which we are excited to learn.
Here is one of our current projects, shared through the lens of our learning. We hope you can take some of our insights and apply them to leading change at your own school or organization.
In 2021, Leadership+Design began a partnership with The Chicago Public Education Fund (The Fund). Our collaboration began with an initial task: To create and facilitate virtual professional development on design thinking. These trainings were intended to support schools in learning about the habits and mindsets that accompany the design thinking process and then use design to create prototypes and action plans to better serve a group of students who have a unique academic or social challenge) in their school. Like other major metropolitan cities, Chicago schools and communities were deeply impacted by the pandemic. Schools increased expectations and demands on families and communities to provide services (basic needs, enrichment and academics), and were accountable for their academic growth when growth felt more like triage.
School teams needed a user-centered way to move forward; and with the investment from The Fund, L+D delivered design thinking training to more than 100 schools in the district. From the moment we invited educator teams to join us on this design journey, we were learning. As human-centered designers, this project has illuminated some powerful insights that we want to share.
“One and done” does not actually mean done:
As an organization L+D has made an intentional pivot away from one-time professional development opportunities in an effort to more effectively support change efforts. In an effort to honor this strategy, we built supports around the single-day design studio training. We provided support for teachers conducting empathy research prior to the studio which helped connect the training with their design work. In the design studio session, school teams were armed with basic skills in design and they created an action plan to test a prototype. At the end of the session, teams were encouraged to implement their prototype on their own and let us know how it went. Most schools chose systemic challenges facing students furthest from the opportunity in their schools (“opportunity” as uniquely defined by the school). This approach led to sustained action in teams.
We started to identify “frequent fliers”. School teams registered more staff, a new challenge, or simply an appetite to continue practicing. This showed us that while a “one off” may have less impact than a deep partnership, if we stick around and consistently invite teams to join, a learning relationship can still emerge.
Implementation of prototypes and design practices persisted over time. In Spring 2022, Leadership+Design co-designed a Design Challenge, hosted by The Fund. Design studio alumni were invited to bring their design work back into focus and share their current thinking and implementation efforts through a next step pitch that was presented for cash prizes. In this challenge, The Fund disseminated $50,000 in prize money between 15 schools who had completed training. When schools told their design stories, some shared how their focus on empathy building had changed their philosophy and approach to serving students in their care, and how they had embedded these approaches across their school. Schools found that even if their particular prototype was not the primary focus, building empathy with students persisted. The work shared by these schools was inspirational, and confirmed that when there is readiness for change, even a small spark, such as a one-day studio, can change the mindsets of leaders who strive to serve students in a more human-centered way.
The practice of conducting empathy research and co-designing solutions with stakeholders can change the hearts, minds and practices of educators
Empathy is a practice and a mindset. Empathy interviewing is a tool even a beginning designer can leverage to deepen understanding of a complex challenge facing a student, a school, and a community. Teams who adopted an empathy mindset designed more effective solutions and consistently were awarded prize money. When school teams collaborated and listened to the people impacted by their design solutions, they designed better solutions.
Building empathy often means changing course: School teams often came to studios focused on academics and closing achievement gaps, a clear and obvious need. However, when the words and stories of their students surfaced through the empathy work, the focus would often shift. One example that stood out was a team that started by aiming to improve reading scores. Their focus quickly shifted toward inclusion and belonging, another to student discourse and improving peer relationships. Teams learned from students what they really wanted school to be. Change can often be hard in schools, but research shows that the most motivating force for educators is hearing directly from students. Our work confirmed this.
Co-design goes beyond an interview and can spark healing and build a feeling of inclusion:
Students and families want to be actively involved in all aspects of solving problems. Without their ongoing engagement, we are less effective at bringing solutions capable of navigating complex problems. During an in-person design studio in a high school in Chicago, students were asked to listen and give feedback on solutions school teams were building. Even if the students were from different schools than the teams, their ideas dramatically impacted the ideas educators were building. Possibly the most powerful outcome of this feedback session was when students communicated the impact of being asked to give feedback. The students thanked the educators for listening to them, and for caring enough to include them in the process. The students closed by encouraging the teachers to keep up the good work. It was an incredibly moving moment, and a reminder of how much young people crave a voice, are capable of being co-designers, and how conversations can lead to connection and encouragement.
A bias to action inspires hope and agency:
In May 2022, L+D was challenged to help schools design a summer school program. The school district would fund up to $35,000 for each school that used the design studio to create their initial design. This felt like an impossibly short timeframe to design something so big. One high school leader asked, “So you are saying you want us to build a summer program and be ready to test it with students in two and a half hours?” we responded back with a simple, “We are going to try.” In total, 17 teams completed a design studio and submitted budgets and plans to serve a unique target population not being served by other programs, prioritizing a focus on those furthest from opportunity. Teams were encouraged to use the summer to first provide quality programming, and to also use the time to test new approaches to teaching and learning, continue building empathy with their student group, and to cultivate a culture of prototyping.
As we debriefed the summer and reflected, the same school leader that had raised skepticism at the beginning recalled how uneasy it felt to design something with such a bias to action. He trusted the process and reported they had made great progress in just one day. Bias to action, if informed by identified and authentic needs, can break a cycle of talking without acting and inspire hope for change in both the leaders and the communities they serve.
Closing Thoughts
While this project is still in progress, our insights drive our work with The Fund and other clients. We believe that more educators and leaders could benefit from design thinking training as teams or full schools, especially if implementation support and coaching is integrated to sustain and scale impact. While design thinking is not a new approach in education, it is easy to lose focus of who we are trying to serve and that their needs change with the changing of our times. Our students, families and communities need us to build skills in empathy and change, because the future will continue to require us to use these skills.
This partnership is headed by Esther Lee at The Fund and Leadership+Design Associate Tara Curry-Jahn (pictured above on right) along with trusted design partner and co-facilitator Ashley Smith (pictured above on left) who leads EDUDesigner.
