The Umbrella Creation:
Steps 1-2
Step 1
Empathy: Generate interest among learners for self-directed projects, problems to solve, opportunities, and building a passion about personal interest. Here, the mentors work hard with many learners who claim no interest in anything or have little experience with self-directed learning opportunities
Example: Through discussion, videos, and reports from peers, the mentors take advantage of significant issues, events, disasters, controversies, and examples to introduce the idea of, “How can I/we make a difference in our world: personal, school, community, etc."
The learners start complaining about some of the rules and problems they have at school and a list of those problems is made, asking students to think through something they would like to do that may solve some problems on the list. In a second meeting, the list is refined and students are invited to team up or decide to work individually on a problem they are interested in.
Step 2
Introduce or remind students about tools they might use to re-invent, re-create, or solve problems
The students are introduced to some models that have been used by experts to solve problems. For example, the Design Thinking Model is used in many organizations and business 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:
Another common older model is to do systems thinking where a person or group tries to invent a new way of doing something because the old way is no longer making a difference. The mentors can show how every system tries to change something, but there are also unintended consequences that might be worse than the way things were happening before.
An example is the Flint, Michigan water engineers who were trying to save money by using river water instead of the more expensive source...and….what a disaster! Below is a think model that might be used to guide everyone through the project at hand. The learners are urged to use a model or invent one of their own that will help keep them on track during their project.
