Empowering Teachers through Design Thinking: Developing Learning Prototypes for Multilingual Students

This paper argues that developing teachers’ design literacy will enable them to better respond to the demands of their work in schools. Our approach involves partnering with teachers and other educators through professional development. They learn design thinking tools from us and apply them to a problem faced at their schools, while we research their progress solving the problem and putting design thinking tools into practice. We present a case of schools challenged by how to support students in the process of learning English. We ask, how might teachers learn and use design thinking to develop effective supports for their multilingual students? The research team used mixed methods to gather data. Overall, we noticed our teacher-partners shift from conceptualizing language learning as vocabulary and grammatical structures, to thinking holistically about the range of challenges multilingual students face in schools. We present two teacher cases that highlight how design thinking was used to cultivate design literacy and help their students develop academic and social language skills. Our research was with elementary and middle schools, but we believe that the principles outlined in our design thinking project could extend beyond grade level and content areas.This paper argues that developing teachers’ design literacy will enable them to better respond to the demands of their work in schools. Our approach involves partnering with teachers and other educators through professional development. They learn design thinking tools from us and apply them to a problem faced at their schools, while we research their progress solving the problem and putting design thinking tools into practice. We present a case of schools challenged by how to support students in the process of learning English. We ask, how might teachers learn and use design thinking to develop effective supports for their multilingual students? The research team used mixed methods to gather data. Overall, we noticed our teacher-partners shift from conceptualizing language learning as vocabulary and grammatical structures, to thinking holistically about the range of challenges multilingual students face in schools. We present two teacher cases that highlight how design thinking was used to cultivate design literacy and help their students develop academic and social language skills. Our research was with elementary and middle schools, but we believe that the principles outlined in our design thinking project could extend beyond grade level and content areas

Empowering Teachers through Design Thinking: Developing Learning Prototypes for Multilingual Students

This paper argues that developing teachers’ design literacy will enable them to better respond to the demands of their work in schools. Our approach involves partnering with teachers and other educators through professional development. They learn design thinking tools from us and apply them to a problem faced at their schools, while we research their progress solving the problem and putting design thinking tools into practice. We present a case of schools challenged by how to support students in the process of learning English. We ask, how might teachers learn and use design thinking to develop effective supports for their multilingual students? The research team used mixed methods to gather data. Overall, we noticed our teacher-partners shift from conceptualizing language learning as vocabulary and grammatical structures, to thinking holistically about the range of challenges multilingual students face in schools. We present two teacher cases that highlight how design thinking was used to cultivate design literacy and help their students develop academic and social language skills. Our research was with elementary and middle schools, but we believe that the principles outlined in our design thinking project could extend beyond grade level and content areas.This paper argues that developing teachers’ design literacy will enable them to better respond to the demands of their work in schools. Our approach involves partnering with teachers and other educators through professional development. They learn design thinking tools from us and apply them to a problem faced at their schools, while we research their progress solving the problem and putting design thinking tools into practice. We present a case of schools challenged by how to support students in the process of learning English. We ask, how might teachers learn and use design thinking to develop effective supports for their multilingual students? The research team used mixed methods to gather data. Overall, we noticed our teacher-partners shift from conceptualizing language learning as vocabulary and grammatical structures, to thinking holistically about the range of challenges multilingual students face in schools. We present two teacher cases that highlight how design thinking was used to cultivate design literacy and help their students develop academic and social language skills. Our research was with elementary and middle schools, but we believe that the principles outlined in our design thinking project could extend beyond grade level and content areas

“I’m Telling!”: Exploring Sources of Peer Authority During a K-2 Collaborative Mathematics Activity

This article draws from a study on the construction of authority relations among K-2 students across 20 videos of collaborative mathematics partnerships, from three classrooms in one elementary school. Drawing on positioning theory, we explore how authority relations between children affected collaborative dynamics. In particular, we trace how children drew on both adult and peer sources of authority and the effects on peer interactions during collaboration. Through three vignettes, we show how students' deployment of adult authority through the perceived threat of getting in trouble can overpower peer resistance and shut down possibilities for shared work. We also show how peer resistance was productively sustained when the threat of getting in trouble was less directly connected to the teacher, and instead students positioned themselves and one another with intellectual authority

Towards Bringing Human-Centered Design to K-12 and Post-Secondary Education

Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a growing field that has the potential to positively impact students’ learning. A general consensus on the terms, practices, scaffolds, and assessments of HCD can foster its effective implementation in K-12 and post-secondary education. This session brings together researchers whose work is focused on implementing HCD across K-16 classrooms. It aims to develop a coherent definition of HCD, its methods, practices, and assessments, to help frame the field and reduce ambiguity at a critical time in its broader adoption