Student Guide

Introduction

Since schools are continuing with distance learning for the duration of the pandemic, it is easy to become disconnected from your fellow students and the student community at large. Addressing an issue like college applications in the time of COVID, is a way that you can work with your colleagues to help students around the United States in this unprecedented time. To solve this problem, you will be using a technique called "Design Thinking," where you will work collaboratively to examine the problem, develop research questions, collect data, analyze and synthesize that data, and create a solution to the problem. You will have the opportunity to share this knowledge with your peers.

Step 1A

Empathy Creation and Introduction of the problem

Over an asynchronous video meeting, the instructors introduce the topic of college to the students and allow them to engage in discussions about their plans and what they looked forward to before COVID. Students create a list of the things they considered while looking at colleges.

Students are then asked to consider this list with COVID in mind. How is the list affected with the current conditions of COVID? Does this have a major impact on their decision process? What has changed about the application process for college? Has the swap from on campus to distance learning changed how you feel about where you want to "go" to school? The students create a new list and are asked to think of a new method of selecting which college to attend.

Step 1B

Continue the Engagement stage: Guide groups from the formulation of a problem and identify the essential research questions

Introduce students to the Design Think Model as it applies to the topic: empathize- identify how students determined colleges prior to COVID, define- analyze list and reevaluate how colleges may be determined, ideate- interview peers and collect/brainstorm possible solutions, prototype- create a class website presenting findings, test- publish website, share among peers, update information as advancements are made in the health crisis. The Design Thinking Model is used not only to solve problems in a community or an organization, but also to invent new products and strategies to move forward. The Design Thinking Model is illustrated below:

The defined problem students will research is How do you pick a college and how do you prepare to apply to that school in today's world? In separate video rooms, students break into groups of four and select 1-3 topics on the refined list to research as a team from the class shared document. Topics may include: Princeton College Review, decision by major, appeal of campus, cost, location, requirements for admission, and any other resource used by students. (This list will not be exhaustive and the students will determine what is addressed). Students will research “old methods” of the chosen topics to formulate questions that will contribute to their project on the groups individual shared document.

Step 2

Define and Ideate the Problem: Discover additional information, user research

Students organize questions from the refined lists. Groups begin interviewing other students to identify what they want to know about colleges, find out what they are looking for, and how they are thinking about making their choices. Groups will research colleges, how are they adapting to distance learning - admissions, distance learning,and costs? Students will conduct interviews recording over video or only audio. They will also have the option to include typed transcripts of interview, screenshots of college admission webpages, and questionnaires and responses. Students will collect their research to a shared group Google Drive. Students meet over the course of one week to collect information and complete their research.

Step 3

Ideate and Prototype: A compare notes activity

Students regroup as a whole class and transfer all collected information to the class drive. The drive is broken into folders for specific topics. Students will separate information by format collected video, audio, transcripts, questionnaire, or other. Over several video meetings, students will analyze similarities and differences, noting gaps in the information collected. They will then use the collected research to create thematic groupings.

Students are asked Can we create a resource to help all the other students in their community that are currently engaged in the same problem? The solution will be a website created by the students for other students. Students will again break into groups based on the websites needs focusing on content, design, and marketing. Then the entire class we plan how the website should look. Student groups will create content from interviews and research in short videos, podcast, infographics, and written format.

Step 4

Prototype and test the new system: Culmination of the unit

Students decide on a platform for the website and begin adding the content. The website will be edited by the instructors but the content and organization will be determined by the students. Deadlines will be established by the instructors and video meetings will be hosted weekly to discuss challenges and address any questions. The marketing team will work on promoting the website to other students at the school and collect individual students as test groups.

The test group will have one day to review the website and provide feedback on the content and any concerns they may have. Another video meeting will address the findings and approve the changes once completed. The website will then go live using the marketing teams plan. Students will review comments and respond to questions on the website. Information will be updated when the health crisis significantly affects colleges.

Step 5

Evaluate: The Big Think

After the website is live for a week, students will meet in a video meeting to review the decision thinking process. So What? How well did they do? Are other students finding the website helpful? Students will discuss how the problem originated and how the solution addresses the identified parts of the problem. Students will identify learning outcomes for the project based on experience, which can be applied for similar future projects. What now? If we were going to tackle some other project like this, what would we do differently? Apply this model to a new problem determined by the students.