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The Design Process
Design Thinking Process.mp4
The Design Process: The concept of decolonizing space accepts that our spaces are designed for a purpose that does not optimize learning. Spencer and Juliani (2016) wrote about the Launch process to create a framework that transposes learning and teaching. Their reasoning is focusing on the need for creativity and searching inside of the box instead of outside the box. They claim that desperation can create the need, focus and creativity to make do with what is available to complete a task. Papert’s paper in 2000 further outlines the need for creativity and ideas to be at the fore of the classroom instead of skills and facts. He further illustrates the importance of promoting ideas and not letting ideas dwindle within facts and systems that are designed to discourage wayward thinking. The launch process is an acronym for Look, listen, and learn. Ask lots of questions. Understand the Problem or Process. Navigate ideas. Create. Highlight what is working and failing. It is essential to understand that this process is not sequential but an iterative flow between one step and another. Launch can be connected to Papert’s line of thinking in idea-making, given its iterative framework of finding solutions to problems. Both respect the unique idea and promote collaboration and community building while bolstering the importance of designing with purpose. The makerspace is an opportunity to allow students to solve real problems with their ideas.
Provocations to Get Started with Making
Indigenous Storytelling
Provocation #1
Listen to one of the following authentic Indigenous oral retellings and use the rocks and loose parts provided to recreate the story. Think of an imaginative way to capture your account for permanency, as you give the loose parts back.
Choose a story from the many listed here to recreate using loose parts. Remember that loose parts are meant to be returned, so plan to take apart your creation, but document uniquely (piktochart, Flip, GSlides, etc.). You can share your creation here.
Consider the following questions:
Consider your own inherent biases when re-creating this story
What inquiries do you have? Questions that surfaced?
What are you interested in further exploring?
So many critical conversations can come from this provocation (i.e., 2Spirited individuals, identity, representation, Indigeneity and culture, colonialism and the resulting marginalisation and oppression, oral storytelling, inclusivity, systemic racism, truth and reconciliation, cultural equivalence, power dynamics, and so much more.
Loose Parts Story
Provocation #2
What is your relationship with these materials?
What stories do you have?
How do these materials inspire you?
When speaking about decolonizing spaces, it is important to also promote asset thinking in terms of Indigenous ways of knowing and learning. By grounding learning in loose parts and natural objects, students will learn to think differently about things they interact with daily and gain more respect for them. As an essence to self-guided play, loose parts like these provide a platform for creativity, spontaneity and individualism. This particular activity anticipates great storytelling opportunities and classroom introductions.
Maker Challenges
This hyperdoc is an interactive lesson to guide teachers or students through the design process. This challenge reflects on water protectors and water walkers.
Water Challenge - This challenge offers learners the opportunity for students to enter the Launch framework (Spencer & Juliani, 2016), with some guidance and support. The content allows students to learn about Indigeneity through an asset lens, showcasing the power, creativity and hardwork that is put into preserving something as basic yet so vital as water. While the challenge allows students to stay inside the box and produce, iterate and re-produce ideas of their own. In the decolonized space it is important to move away from rote, eurocentric teaching methods and promote ideas, and constructivist learning methods that connect meaning to the process (Paper, 2000). With an abundance of boil water advisories across Canada, it is easy to localize this challenge
This hyperdoc is an interactive lesson to guide teachers or students through the design process. This challenge is about sustainable ways to upcycle to create innovative designs.
Upcycling allows learners to reflect on their use and families’ use of things and become more aware of the impact those things may have on the environment. By adding self-reflection, learners build the metacognition skills necessary to become critical thinkers and change agents. Upcycling can perhaps embolden the opportunity for transfer, defined by Fyfe (2018) as “learners’ ability to recognize when and how their skills, store of knowledge, or critical thinking strategies might apply in different domains.” Cross-curricular connections and integrative learning provide a better pathway to understanding and thus support the highest transfer level (Fyfe, 2018). The iterative and integrative learning opportunity also aligns with the Indigenous ways of knowing and learning as outlined in our resource and works to remove the eurocentric forms of rote learning from the classroom.
Share your Designs
Share your Designs
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