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*Imagining September*: Two New Reports with @jal_mehta on Using Participatory Design to Reopen Schools. #1: Principles & Design Elements for Ambitious Schools https://edarxiv.org/gqa2w #2: Guidance for Online Design w/ Students and Stakeholders https://edarxiv.org/ufr4q 1/x
Reopening schools will be an all-hands effort requiring commitment and creativity from everyone in a school community: students, families, educators, school leaders, & more. Including these voices in planning will generate better ideas and more buy-in for reopening. 2/x
In May, we held 1 student online design charrette and 3 multi-stakeholder meetings to prototype routines for doing online design. From these dialogues, we identified 7 principles and 21 design elements that could be used to reopen schools: 3/x
In our report on the charrettes, we provide slides, online workbooks, sample agenda, and other guidance for school and district leaders to facilitate these design sessions in their own communities. ( https://edarxiv.org/ufr4q ) 4/x
The most powerful experiences were listening to students. There is exactly one generation of USians with experience learning during a pandemic: the youth in our classrooms last spring. They have powerful ideas about what worked and what they need to be successful. 5/x
In a meeting in @AvashiaNeema 's classroom, one middle schooler said that "she wanted to press and button and have a teacher appear." Think about it. In schools and classrooms, raise your hand and an adult will be right there. What would that look like online? 6/x
We don't know! But listening to students' needs is the first step towards addressing them. Maybe every Chromebook comes installed with a browser link to a chat/video conf room staffed by teachers. Maybe there is a text number for a dean-on-call who can route student queries. 7/x
In our discussions, we were particularly interested in "Tent Pole" ideas-- elements for school reopening big enough to contain many other smaller ideas. 8/x
There are lots of emerging "checklists" with 148 things to consider before reopening schools, but you can't ask students and families to read about 87 new school policies. Communications and plans need to be organized around a few big tentpoles and principles. 9/x
We heard seven themes consistently in our meetings. The first was that Relationships are the Foundation of Schooling. Schools need to prioritize building connections when the academic year begins. 10x
We wrote about 4 big ideas for building & sustaining relationships. Looping--letting students stay with last year's teachers; Advisories--making sure that each student has a close connection with one adult coach, forming esports or rec leagues, and the call-a-teacher button. 11/x
For each design element, we have a short narrative, written from the perspective of a future teacher or student, about what this practice might look like in schools. 12/x
These aren't the exact right "21 things to do to open schools," but they are stories about the future that communities can discuss. What about these stories is attractive & workable? What are the problems that could emerge? Stories help make designs concrete. 13/x
Our 2nd big principle was engaging Liberatory Approaches to Equity. The profoundly inequitable effects of school closure & the largest global protests in history have focused attention on anti-Black racism and police violence. How will school re-opening plans embrace anti-racism?
Our next two principles were about making hard curriculum choices in schools under new constraints. How do we Amplify Student Agency and nurture intrinsic motivation essential to online learning? How do we "Marie Kondo the Curriculum" and focus on the essential? 15/x
Shoutout to our amazing art team ( who put this old school rotary dial iPad in. Y'all laugh, but schools use some really old stuff. 16/x
One of my ideas for next year is to let any senior in good standing opt-out of senior year, and spend the year volunteering as a teacher aide, tutor, IT support, contact-tracer, etc. 17/x
One of our favorite lines from our meetings was a district admin who said "Building Time Will be Gold." If not all schooling happens in school buildings, what do we do on campus and what do we do at home? 18/x
If not all schooling happens in school buildings, how do we prepare families and communities for their new roles and responsibilities in nurturing learning? Last spring, we foisted homeschooling on everyone... what would it look like to be more planful? 19/x
Finally, it's impossible to get the planning right this summer. There is too much uncertainty and too many things to design. Schools need to have plans and structures to keep experimenting, iterating, discarding things that don't work, and widely sharing the best ideas. 20/x
For anyone interested in what school might look like next year: Imagining September: Principles and Design Elements for Ambitious Schools During COVID-19 has ideas, principles, and stories for imagining new futures: https://edarxiv.org/gqa2w 21/x
For school/district leaders guiding reopening schools, Imagining September: Online Design Charrettes For Fall 2020 Planning with Students and Stakeholders has guides and resources for running your own student & multi-stakeholder design meetings. https://edarxiv.org/ufr4q 22/x
Tomorrow (July 8) at 3pm ET, @jal_mehta , @AvashiaNeema and me are doing a webinar with @hgse to discuss this work and other ideas for doing the best we can with remote and hybrid learning. http://hgse.me/ednow78 23/x
Big thanks to all of the participants in our online design meetings, and to our awesome art team of @kelvy_bird , Haley McDevitt ( http://haleymcdevitt.com ) and Sita Magnuson ( http://dpict.info ). 24/x
