Craft Category: Artifacts

Mastery Charter Schools’ redesign sought to integrate blended learning and culturally-responsive teaching. Translating that model into specifics would require input from a variety of stakeholders: students, teachers, and families. The design team carefully considered who to interview, how to ensure that interviewees felt authentically heard, and what questions to ask to get specific input. The team conducted multiple rounds of interviews, intentionally seeking out the voices of disengaged students, in particular.

Cedar Rapids Community School District (CRCSD) knew the data: there were stark academic outcome gaps across demographic groups in the district. To explore the root causes of these gaps, CRCSD conducted interviews with affected students and teachers, designing an interview guide that would evoke stories and emotion from those whom the system was not working well for. These conversations not only helped shed light on the problem but also surfaced ideas about what it would take to close gaps. Given CRCSD’s existing strategic plan and annual focus on standards, assessment, and grading, the team also included targeted questions about students’ and teachers’ experiences with these systems in particular.

When designing change in a district, it is essential that leaders hear directly from students, families, teachers, and classified staff (i.e., those most impacted by teaching and learning). This guide from the Stanford d.school provides in-depth guidance about how to best plan for and conduct empathy interviews, which are powerful ways to elicit student, family, teacher, and classified staff perspectives.

When designing change in a district, it is essential that leaders hear directly from students, families, teachers, and classified staff (i.e., those most impacted by teaching and learning). This guide includes a starting set of questions you can ask to evoke stories and emotions to better understand the experiences of people in your district, and in doing so, understand where to focus redesign work. The template is meant to be used as part of Activity: Conduct Empathy Interviews with Stakeholders.