Tag: Visioning

As it started a design process to improve teaching and learning, Phoenix Charter Academy Network’s design team wanted to use the process to more deeply implement the network’s unique model, which supports disconnected youth through competency-based learning and significant social-emotional supports. The vision’s clear emphasis on supporting each student’s needs (academic and beyond) reflects the network’s foundational commitment to equity. The network’s focus on adapting supports for different students’ needs reflects its foundational commitment to resiliency.

As it started a design process to improve teaching and learning, Monterey Peninsula first envisioned their ideal future classroom. The design team surfaced a compelling vision of mastery learning across every classroom in the district – one where students are empowered, engaged critical thinkers with mastery of knowledge and skills. The team’s explicit emphasis on reaching every student in every classroom keeps equity in focus. Discussion of how to measure and support each individual student’s progress toward mastery prompted the team to prioritize resiliency.

As it started a design process to improve teaching and learning, Mastery Charter Schools first described their ideal future for teaching and learning for students with a special focus on the most marginalized. They envisioned confident, independent learners supported with personalized, blended, and culturally responsive teaching and authentic relationships with adults. This vision motivated the team and anchored the design work. The emphasis on personalized and culturally responsive support for students grounded the team in a shared vision for equity. Discussion of what it would take to enable personalization and blended learning helped the team start to align on a vision for resiliency in the network.

Cedar Rapids Community School District used its existing district vision for teaching and learning as an important anchor for its process to design near-term change. This helped the district advance progress on its current plans toward a goal that already enjoyed broad buy-in among families and staff. The vision features equity at the center: it is one of the stated core beliefs. Other core beliefs (like student ownership and student learning) emphasize the importance of student empowerment and focus on ALL students’ needs. The vision also paints a picture of what resiliency looks like in practice; the core belief around innovation challenges the district to be creative, to continuously evolve to stay relevant in context of the broader world, and to adapt to different students’ needs and interests.

These discussion questions to accompany the Activity: Build a Shared Commitment to Change strategy card.

The equityXdesign Collaborative has defined a spectrum of design power dynamics to help people starting on a design process to determine how they can best make their process inclusive and equitable. The spectrum shows three different approaches to inclusive design – user-centered, co-designed, or user-created design – each with a deeper type of engagement of those who will eventually benefit from the design process’ results (e.g., students, families, teachers, classified staff).

Credit to Michelle Molitor, Caroline Hill, & Christine Ortiz; check out their organizations, 228 Accelerator, The Equity Lab, and Equity Meets Design, as well as their writing, Racism and inequity are products of design. They can be redesigned.