Jordan Shade

A Model for Third Space LearningEngaging Youth in Education Through Design

Engaging Youth in Education Through Design

Jordan Shade

A Model for Third Space Learning

A Model for Third Space Learning: Engaging Youth in Education Through Design

Copyright © 2013 by Jordan Shade

Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Jordan ShadePhotography credits: All photography created © 2013 by Kelly Babcock, Alex Visconti & Jordan Shade unless otherwise noted.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced-mechanically, electronically or by any other means, including phtocopying-without written permission of hte publisher.

Please contact for permission:jshade@uarts.edu

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/.

Cover design by: Jordan Shade, Photo by Benjamin HeroldBook design by: Jordan Shade

Master of Industrial Design at The University of the Arts320 South Broad StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19102

First printing 2013

To Jessica Holly, Brittany Overton, Ilea Avalos and Vicki Shade, four of the best educators I know.

This book documents a project that depended on many talented individuals. To Kelly Babcock and Alex Visconti for taking me under your wings and being your genius selves, Mike McAllister, Chris Garvin and Sharon LeFevre for guiding us, and Jeremy Beaudry for directing the hell out of this program,

Thank You.

The Team, 8

The Model, 10Project Origins, 12The Model, 14

Research, 18Literature Review, 20Teens & Youth Organizations, 26

Workshop, 44Preparation, 46First Meeting, 50Interviewing Activity, 53Brainstorming, 59Making, 59Feedback, 61

Reflection, 64Workshop Feedback, 66Design & Education, 68Next Steps & Recommendations, 72

Table of Contents

The Team

Kelly Babcockcame to the University of the Arts with a background in Graphic Design. She has recently graduated with an MID with plans to travel the world designing along the way.

Alex Viscontigraduated from the University of the Arts with an MID in 2013 and lives and works in Philadelphia. Human centered design is just one of her many talents.

Jordan Shadeis a current candidate for a Master of Industrial Design at the University of the Arts. She looks forward to starting a career where design and education intersect.

THE MODEL

MODEL

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As part of a three month studio project Kelly Babcock, Jordan Shade and Alex Visconti delved into the world of after school teenage life. The results of our research into social media and experiences with youth programming led us to develop a model of third space education that focuses on the process of learning as content. Currently youth programming incorporates the interests of teenagers as well as the values of the organization running the program. Our model includes both of these elements, but also integrates methods of learning and collaboration drawn from the design process as a means to further engage teenagers in these programs. Clearly addressing the process of learning in third space environments engages teenagers and achieves more deep understanding and retention of skills. After making these assumptions

The Free Library of Philadelphia, Photo credit: Jenny Arch

Project Origins

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Many of our choices in defining this project were inspired by A New Culture of Learning by John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas. We saw the opportunity to effect change in different learning environments, and recognized challenges in moving teenage learning into the 21st century.

"We believe,[…] the context in which learning happens, the boundaries that define it, and the students, teachers, and information within it all coexist and shape each other in a mutually reinforcing way." -A New Culture of Learning, J.S. Brown, D. Thomas.

Informed by Research

based in various forms of research, we tested our theories in a workshop with seven high school art students in order to evaluate the possible success of the model.

Interest in teen engagement and this young user demographic has become prominent in our era of new and rapidly evolving technologies. The latest generations of teenagers are bombarded with very new means of digital communication ranging from mobile data and smart phones to social networking websites, with little instruction or guidance on the appropriate or most efficient ways to use these new tools. We read about teachers competing with cell phones, forcing technology into their curriculums in order to keep teenagers engaged and interested in learning. We asked how we could encourage the creation of meaningful content on the internet by teens, and sought out to understand what exactly is so seductive about sharing online.

Kelly, Alex and I were introduced to these major themes of teenage learning through work with the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Library was focusing on a large project with the goal of developing a third space for after school teen programming. The concept of a third space refers to a place of learning and play that exists apart from home (first space) and school or work (second space). Our research for this project led us to explore the interests, passions and values of teenage users as well as established youth program organizations.

MODEL

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The major elements of this model were directly influenced by the research we did exploring youth organizations and their teen programming. We created profiles for each organization, and decided on a list of relevant categories of data to pursue. These included skills learned and values or outcomes imparted on the participants by the organizations. Once we were able to study, analyze and synthesize these different qualities, we realized that the successful programs all had clear goals in terms of skills

and values that they wanted their students to come away with, and hence incorporated teen interests and the organizations' values into our model.

Informed by ResearchTeen Organization Profiles

We decided to design a model for an experience through a specific curriculum formula that would engage teenagers in learning in order to create meaningful content that could infiltrate their online activity. This model would explore a subject matter of the students' choice along with values extracted from existing youth organizations.

Engaging teenage students in learning both in traditional middle and high school settings as well as in community organizations and third space learning institutions is critical to nurturing active, productive citizens. Following a process of both qualitative and quantitative research, my team and I developed a formula for successful teen engagement combining principles of interest-based learning, design practices and the values of existing local community youth organizations. We propose that by using the interests of students as a

The Model

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medium, be they digital technologies, growing and preparing food or the fine arts, values such as empathy, collaboration and leadership can be more richly learned and understood. Additionally, exploring these interests and values in the context of design serves to encourage teens to engage and participate in this process of creating meaning.

Many youth organizations already combine teenage interests with their own specific community values. For instance, teaching teens to work in or manage an urban farm as well as how to harvest and sell the food grown activates the curiosity many teens have towards growing and entrepreneurship as well as imbuing a sense of ownership and local production. However, these programs often struggle with recruitment, outreach, and maintaining continual enrollment. The issue becomes even more pervasive in public schools, where curricula usually exists without much regard for students' interests and passions.

MODEL

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Graphic by Jordan Shade 2013.

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We wanted to test our assumptions on injecting design practices into a learning scenario in order to increase engagement levels. Our model workshop included a fine arts foundation serving as the students' interest, with a focus on collaborative design methods. We planned to work in various configurations of groups including pairs, the whole group, and small groups to explore what it means to be an artist through different design activities.

What follows is the story of our research, the workshop, its outcomes, and our analysis and findings.

RESEARCH

RESEARCH

Photo credit: Benjamin Herold

RESEARCH

20

Literature Review

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This ongoing Pew Research Project studies internet, social media and mobile data usage by a wide range of demographics. This format of interaction has deep effects on youth who are especially susceptible to this changing paradigm. When geared towards instant gratification and constrained data bites (Twitter, status updates, Instagram) engagement methods are forced to adapt and change to stay successful.

The Pew Research Center: Internet and American Life

“Young people accustomed to a diet of quick-fix information nuggets will be less likely to undertake deep, critical analysis

of issues and challenging information."

RESEARCH

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Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Sherry Turkle. Basic Books, 2011.

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Alone Togetherby Sherry Turkle

Influencing the ModelAlone Together outlines the importance of the digital world and social networking for teens. Mobile technology proves to be a difficult barrier when attempting to engage teens, especially in the traditional classroom. For our pilot workshop, we wanted to include the role of technology in defining the life of an artist, and recognize that role in the lives of our students. We hoped that by allowing time to discuss these technologies with the students, we might then be more successful in engaging them in a real life way, and we would measure our success based on the little time that the teens spent checking their smartphones during our workshop.

Sherry Turkle has a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University and is a licensed clinical psychologist. After spending a lot of her career supporting the development of artificial intelligence in the laboratories of MIT, only recently did the author change her perspective and opinions on developing technology and its role in our relationships with each other and the world around us.

"The technology has become like a phantom limb, it is so much a

part of them. "

In Alone Together, Turkle recounts the findings of deep ethnographical studies surrounding human relationships with social media, mobile technology and a variety of robots. Her focus on teens and the balancing of on- and off-line spheres informed our work in this project concerning teens engagement both digitally and in person.

RESEARCH

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Influencing the ModelThe design process can help teens define the context of their learning, and understand its value and meaning. Design methods allow the instructors or mentors to lead teens through collaborative activities - and act as co-creators in the process of learning and sense-making.

A New Culture of Learning. Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown. CreateSpace Independent

Publishing Platform, 2011.

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In this text the authors examine the need for an evolving learning environment for youth. They stress the value of collaboration in learning, as well as the power of the internet and social networking in aiding this collaboration. While focusing on the phenomena of play-based online collaboration and problem solving, many of the characteristics of this new learning paradigm correspond directly to elements of design. For example, having access to multiple points of view is critical to the designer's research at the outset of a project in order to understand context. Also, the authors call out the use of creativity to harness the power of resources at hand - i.e. the internet - in order to analyze, synthesize and create meaning; designer's use these same processes to make sense of large amounts of data. Finally, successfully being able to combine the personal and collective arenas that social networking provides speaks to the collaborative nature so important to design work, as well as the new culture of learning presented in the text.

"We believe,[…] the context in which learning happens, the boundaries that define it, and the students, teachers,

and information within it all coexist and shape each other in a mutually reinforcing way."

Collaboration leads to participation, and vice versa. Context and content matter immensely. These criteria directly effect our model of teen engagement and learning, as well as enforcing the need for successful third space learning in the area of internet skill sets.

A New Culture of Learningby John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas

RESEARCH

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Teens &YouthOrganizations

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To understand youth engagement and successful programming we cast a wide net in our research. Our process included profiling local youth organizations, generative research to discover teen interests, and asking questions such as

why is engaging youth important?

RESEARCH

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Tiny WPA teens collaboratively design and build a playscape in Center City Philadelphia after school in only a few weeks.

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Alex Gilliam illustrates the possibilities of leveraging design in teen engagement with his work for Tiny WPA. Teens can be found designing, building, and interacting with their communities through a variety of projects. Gilliam advocates for the empowerment of youth through the making process and provides third space learning while evoking our engagement model. The teens learn physical skills of their interest to design various solutions in their community while being imbued with values such as collaboration, active citizenship and empathy. As a part of our research we volunteered for a specific Tiny WPA construction project where participants designed and built a playground space in a pop-up garden lot near Rittenhouse Square.

Tiny WPAAlex Gilliam

RESEARCH

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Alex, Jordan and Kelly volunteering with Tiny WPA.

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Learning by doing, experiencing or watching is always important in our design process. To better know how teens act when they are engaged, to really understand their interests, it was critical for our team to get out of our studio and participate with actual teen programming. This way, we were able to see Alex Gilliam's work first hand, and know that a version of our model was likely to be successful.

Design Method Observation

RESEARCH

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This organizational tool allowed for us to analyze different popular teen interests as well as established teen program values and desired outcomes.

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Youth Program Profiles

Organizations Profiled:

As a part of our wide-net data gathering approach, we profiled 11 Philadelphia youth organizations using qualities such as skills learned, outcomes desired, marketing and outreach, program structure, and evaluative methods. Once gathered, we were able to analyze and synthesize this information to make sense of how successful teen programming operates.

• Best Day of My Life So Far

• The Culinary Enterprise Center

• The Franklin Institute

• The Free Library of Philadelphia

• Hacktory

• Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement

• Teens 4 Good

• Tiny WPA

• Urban Nutrition Initiative

• Village of Arts & Humanities

• WHYY

RESEARCH

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To digest these various interests and values we organized them based on affinity and gave them more general categorical names. Popular skills (the teens' interests) surfaced including: art, business, film making, food preparation, growing, and artistic performance. From the organizations' perspectives, desired outcomes, or values included: leadership, collaboration, entrepreneurship, self-confidence, literacy, problem-solving, social awareness, empathy, tolerance and community building.

Through this exercise we realized that the successful programs leveraged the teens' interests in learning a particular skill to imbue the desired outcomes. Most organizations focused in on a narrow set of skills, and then formatted the development of these skills specifically to impart values onto their participants.

For instance, The Urban Food Initiative leverages interests in growing and producing food through programs that focus on community leadership,

Kelly and Jordan sort skills and outcomes based on affinity.

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Sorting as a group using physical pieces of paper allows for common understanding of themes and patterns to be discussed and synthesized. This collaborative method allows all points of view to be included in the design.

Design MethodsAffinity Mapping

citizenship, and social awareness to teach teens how to be productive, active members in their neighborhoods. Not only do teens learn to grow and/or prepare foods, they work in urban farming areas in their communities, to create a system that provides healthy, locally sourced grocery options for their families and friends.

Urban Nutrition Initiative teens pose at farmer's market stand.

RESEARCH

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Design Methods The Five Whys

FindingsThis exercise addressed the question at the heart of our project - why we were pursuing teenagers as users and why focus on their engage-ability?

Used as a problem definition tool, The Five Whys challenges designers or stakeholders to answer a question, and then turn the answer into a new question to answer - five times. The goal is that by discovering the reasoning behind multiple questions, new issues will arise, along with assumptions to be tested by further generative research or prototypes.

Our answers to the questions we asked in this exercise were informed by the preliminary research we had done, and led to these core thoughts that would inform our model.

• Youth are at risk because digital culture is “run-away”; traditional education doesn’t teach them how to wield the power of social media to be producers of meaningful content.

• Traditional education doesn’t bridge the gap between online and offline behavior.

• They are not receiving the values we identified [tolerance, trust, empathy, authenticity, understanding, responsibility, collaboration] from traditional methods of education.

• There is a need for a model of successful teen engagement that not only engages youth to give them valuable 21st century skills, but to impart values as dictated by their communities.

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1. Why is engaging teens important?

So important skill sets can be transferred.

2. Why should important skill sets be transferred?

To empower youth to impact their communities.

3. Why should youth be empowered to impact their communities?

To build a culture of engaged citizens.

4. Why are teens not engaged?

Teens live in a new, often isolating technological age with little guidance towards

managing these technologies.

5. Why?

Teens may not be learning 21st century skills at home (first space)

or school (second space).

RESEARCH

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Graphic by Jordan Shade 2012.

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A definite quality of design and the designer's mind set, empathy also surfaced as a desired outcome and value of youth programming. To understand how a value so complex might be experienced and encouraged via teen engagement we sought out to research the process of learning this value incorporating the digital sphere. This graphic was the result of the research.

Sources:Developing Empathy in Children and Youth, Kathleen Cotton.“The Empathic Civilian” Jeffrey Jensen Arnett.“Empathy in Teenagers” Paul Salton.

How Teens Learn Empathy

RESEARCH

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Teens post their answers to "what do you wish you could to do for fun?"

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Design MethodGenerative Research refers to a design research method in which boundary objects are typically used to solicit user or stakeholder feedback. Designers ask their participants to generate content in order to express their point of view. In our work we used teen-created collages to invite other teens to vote on what a library "teen space" might look like.

Research done in direct response to the Philadelphia Free Library's assumptions of teen interests included different generative research methods. Different events with teens from the Philadelphia Youth Network led to quantitative numbers supporting a variety of areas. Teens were first and foremost interested in learning about food, not digital software as the Library staff predicted.

Teen InterestsGenerative Research

RESEARCH

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Teens4Good signage at 8th and Poplar community garden in Philadelphia.

Our initial interest for this project was to focus in on food programming for teens that incorporated the design process in some way. However, we knew that teens enjoyed working with food already, from the success of various local organizations. We decided to move towards an overarching model of teen engagement, that could potentially leverage an interest in food, but would primarily be concerned with keeping teens active in learning while exposing them to the design process and teen organization values.

We came to certain findings about food as a subject and medium for learning:

1. Food is a universal medium2. Food-focused youth programs had success with engagement and meaningful

outcomes3. They are a model for using a non-digital medium to get desirable values

From these successful programs we saw opportunity to develop a model of engagement by extracting certain qualities from food focused programming moving forward in our design.

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“Design can distill indicators from one thing, and apply it to a different context to solve a similar pattern of need.”

-Nicola Morelli. "Social Innovation and New Industrial Contexts: Can Designers

“Industrialize” Socially Responsible Solutions?"

WORKSHOP

WORKSHOP

WORKSHOP

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Action research done for the FLP to ask teens about their future space.

After working with the Philadelphia Free Library’s Teen Programming Department, Alex, Kelly and I focused our research on teen engagement in learning both formally in school and informally in “third spaces” like the library. This work led to the development of a testable theory that took the shape of a formula. We proposed that if organizations such as the Free Library used the design process as a framework to combine teen interests with their own values and desired outcomes the teens would be more fully engaged in learning, further develop their skill of interest and absorb the values of the organization.

Preparation

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A general design process includes a stage of discovery and research followed by analysis, synthesis and sense-making. Designers look for opportunities to intervene with designed services, artifacts, products, interactions, etc. Rough prototypes are used to test these ideas, then they are quickly iterated and tested again. Methods may include contextual interviewing, observation, ethnographic studies, brainstorming, affinity mapping, storyboarding and building personas.

Design Process Methods

Observation & Documentation

Analyze Findings

Create Prototype

Test Prototype with Users & Edit According to Tests

WORKSHOP

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Name tags, agendas and sharpies laid out for our workshop.

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On the first day of December 2012, my team and I set out to test our theory for teen engagement in a two hour workshop with seven high school art student participants. We had prepared for hours, gathering supplies and materials for making, laying out the small classroom with snacks, creating the day's agenda, and the various activities to take place. A large table in the center of the room had a place setting for each student: name tag, interview sheets, a sharpie marker. Neon post-its and bright bowls of candy helped to animate the drab, neutral room. As the students began to filter in, we nervously offered them pizza and drinks, and Alex played music from her laptop in the background.

WORKSHOP

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We had met the teens previously at a brief information session. They were from high schools in Philadelphia and New Jersey. Each was actively artistic in his or her high school, but many doubted the viability of transforming their passions into a career. Ryan, a senior applying to the University of the Arts for the following fall, spoke with confidence, explaining his fantasy to design and sell clothing, although he questioned the success rate of independent artists in the "real world." Rachel talked loudly about her cats, experimental photography, and the importance of internet presence as an artist, often punctuating a gripping narrative with an off the cuff joke. The group became more relaxed as they discussed what it means to be an artist, and compared high schools. Kelly, Alex and I remained mostly quiet, listening to the ideas form and pass around the room.

We used these question cards at our first meeting with the teens as a boundary object to have a conversation about sharing and technology. Popular internet memes grabbed the students' attention and gave the discussion context.

"The technology has become like a phantom limb, it is so much a part of them." - Alone Together, S.Turkle.

Informed By Research

First Meeting

Question cards asking about sharing on- and off-line were passed around in this innitial meeting to help spark conversation.

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Kelly briefly goes over the different activities on the agenda.

This initial meeting set a fun, yet serious tone for our interactions as a group on the day of the workshop. We were drawing on the passions of these teenagers, and inviting them to engage in an environment and manner outside of their usual classroom norm, but not without a serious goal. As the students gathered around the table, Alex began formal introductions and presented the plan for the day.

MemeBot Design ProjectDecember 1, 2012MiD & Saturday School Agenda

notes:

intro

HELLOmy name is

1 interview

?

2 post it

thoughts

actions

feelings

3 brainstorm4

create5 assemble6 share7 wrap up8

WORKSHOP

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Two workshop participants interviewing each other about their artistic practices.

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The worksheets designed for this activity were used to help encourage the teens to participate as interviewers and interviewees, something they probably haven't done before. There were a list of questions based on an artist's feelings, thoughts and actions, and color coordinated post-its were provided to help keep answers succinct and plentiful. The data generated from this exercise is now ready to be manipulated and rearranged based on different categorizations.

Design MethodsInterview Guides

Our first major work task: peer-to-peer interviews, tested our theory. The students were armed with colorful interview guides, and asked to question each other on the feelings, actions and thoughts of an artistic person. They were divided into pairs and given a time constraint of seven minutes per interview. What might have been a static, awkward, long seven minutes between groups of two strangers proved to be a dynamic and exciting set of conversations. The teens attacked the questions, asked their own, and replied with thoughtful answers in turn. They moved quickly, recording a multitude of answers and notes on the post-its provided.

Interviewing Activity

WORKSHOP

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Engaged teens mid interview.

They referred to art as therapeutic. They shared stories about people who inspired them. They identified and related to each other after only having known each other for a brief time. Dawn, a soft-spoken young woman, lit up when describing the thought process of an artist - the special viewpoint and the ongoing creative mind-set. Ryan eagerly recorded her descriptive words, and listened intrigued before sharing his personal story of practice.

Sammy, an outgoing athlete, and Veronica, more shy, were both interested in design and bonded quickly, their conversation coming alive as they discussed mutual interests. Stopping the group at the designated time proved difficult, and after several attempts we were able to redirect their focus to the next activity.

Here is an example of how we've utilized the model in our workshop design. All of our participants are practicing art students. They take extra classes on Saturdays at the University of the Arts in different mediums. By asking them to interview each other as artists, we're engaging them in this design activity by leveraging their specific interest in fine arts.

Using the Model

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MappingWe posted up the interview results on large boards for all to see and gave some brief instruction in clustering and brainstorming. We had considered as the facilitators clustering ourselves during a break, but the students were out of their seats, looking at the post-its from other groups, starting new conversations. In the moment we decided to each lead a small group in categorizing and organizing the interview responses based on affinity and emerging themes. An activity the students had not partaken in before, they observed our mapping at first, as we narrated our inner thought-process, and then quickly added their own groupings. Dawn talked about the emotional drive to making art with her group before drawing a sweeping arrow around a smattering of Post-its, labeling it healing.

WORKSHOP

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Three students work on the "feelings" board clustering post-it based on affinity.

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Using post-it notes to record the data from interviews allowed the same data to be manipulated during our mapping and brainstorming activities. These modular pieces of data can be sorted and re-sorted as the students collaborate on the clusters and names of categories as a group. The activity encourages conversation as these decisions are made - participants all have a shared visualization to refer to. The affinity map then exists as a baseline for brainstorming ideas based on the different themes, which is also done quickly and with post-it notes. These new ideas are layered onto the same board, and can be built upon in a similarly collaborative fashion.

Design MethodsAffinity Mapping &Brainstorming

WORKSHOP

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Results of the brainstorming session (yellow post-its).

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Students brainstorming about how to visualize the feelings of an artist.

Testing the ModelCollaborationWe identified collaboration as the youth organization value we wanted to encourage through the activities in our workshop. Design is particularly suited for this value, as collaboration is a key pillar of this sort of co-creative design process. By including activities that can be extremely collaborative in their enactment, we successfully engaged the students while demonstrating the value of this kind of group work.

As we moved into brainstorming, the inherent collaborative nature of the work began to shine through in the process. Ryan, Dawn and Kate - a student interested in creative writing who joined us after the interviews--worked in a cozy circle, visualizing the patterns they discussed, and drawing on larger themes to create a narrative surrounding the metaphor of art as medication. Ryan led the group, drawing small detailed mock-ups on the whiteboard, gently prodding Dawn and Kate to answer questions and clarify their thoughts and ideas. Together they developed a plan for a rough prototype of sequential art panels incorporating the essence of an artist's subtle inner emotional context specifically designed for the form we had given as a constraint to the project.

Next we challenged the groups to realize their artistic prototypes in only 40 minutes. The thoughtful, meditative state immediately dissolved into a flurry of activity as the teens selected making materials, grabbed their canvases and began to sketch out their ideas. Although the pace of the work had changed, all students continued in a focused state of rapt attention. No one looked at a smartphone, no one shied away into a corner, even those who had been more introverted at the beginning of the workshop. As the facilitators of the workshop we fell into observation as the teens took control of their work and stayed on task.

Brainstorming Making

WORKSHOP

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The students work on their prototypes.

Ryan continued to loosely act as leader of his three person group, acting as a scaffold to Kate, who wasn't a practicing fine artist. Dawn became engrossed in her work, sketching and painting her assigned panel. At the end of forty minutes all asked for more time, although they had accomplished more than they expected.

We finished the workshop by reviewing the steps of our process that day, and made plans to share the outcome publicly and with the students' friends. I led the students in a reflective exercise to generate a catch phrase of sorts to name the day's work. The students quickly called on Kate, the creative writer, who after a short beat rattled off a couplet describing the common thread that art plays in our everyday experiences.

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We used feedback forms as a way to measure the success of our model. We designed these questions to evaluate the different elements of our workshop i.e. the design methods and the collaborative working style. This qualitative data is crucial to the testing and informing a future iteration of a prototype.

Design MethodsMetrics

FeedbackThrough the use of feedback forms and group reflection, we were able to gain insight into the teens’ experience. Most were surprised at how well they had worked together in groups and all enjoyed this element of the experience. Dawn felt more encouraged to share her opinion due to the collaborative environment. Others spoke about how quickly they were able to work as a group, and how they kept each other on track. Several students commented that they felt they “came up with better things as a [group],” and were able to see their “different mind sets come together.”

WORKSHOP

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Our primary goal for this workshop was to engage the students in their work, as a model for more traditional school classrooms, or third space youth organizations. The teenagers were absolutely engaged in the activities of the workshop and collectively created a communal learning culture in only two hours. Our secondary goal was to make the students experience the value of working collaboratively with people whose learning styles differ. As we ourselves had watched the students successfully work together, so did their feedback reflect a surprise and new found appreciation for collaboration.

Using a design platform to structure our workshop, we successfully leveraged the interests of the students to encourage interaction and collaboration.

REFLECTION

REFLECTION

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As a way to measure the success of our workshop, beyond our observations on the day-of, we designed a feedback form to give to the students to fill out at the end of the session. Questions asked what the students would change about the experience, if they would be interested in more design projects in the future, and how they felt about the collaborative process. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and many students were surprised at how much they were able to accomplish by working together. Here are some results from the feedback forms distributed at the end of our workshop:

Workshop Feedback

Quotes from the feedback forms (above) and the forms themselves (below).

I liked seeing all different mind sets come together.

I felt encouraged to share my opinion.

[The collaborative process] worked well, I think we came up with better things as a whole.

“”

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Results of from the feedback form given to participants of the workshop at the end of the day.

enjoyed the experience

would not change anything

wanted more time

interested in working on more design projects

[The collaborative process] worked well, I think we came up with better things as a whole.

”

REFLECTION

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Protests after a meeting on March 7, 2013 in which officials in Philadelphia approved a plan under which 23 of the city’s public schools will be closed, or roughly 10 percent.

Photo Credit: AP Photo/The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tom Gralish

The issues surrounding public and private education in the United States, and in Philadelphia in particular, are political, emotionally charged, and leave a lot at stake for all involved. Standardized testing has many feeling disillusioned and disappointed with the current curriculum model. Teachers are trying to change the way their classrooms function, and what students learn as a result, but need methods to keep those students more engaged. With rapid shifts in technology and digital communication, the youth will be on the front lines as the primary users of these new resources, and must be given the tools and education to be able to use them to their best potential. A model such as the one developed in this project can serve as one piece to help education and learning progress and evolve along with the changing world.

Design &Education

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Students protesting the news that TrueBright Science Academy Charter School along with two others would not be renewed the following year in the Spring of 2012.Photo Credit: Steven M. Falk

Our model is flexible in that it allows for teachers and mentors to address specific student interests and their own needs as educators and customize its application. The underlying design approach will enforce their teaching methods and keep students more engaged by encouraging their participation and continually asking for their point of view. Activities such as group brainstorming ask teens to imagine the impossible, build off each other's ideas, and then focus in on developing one string of thought. Project based group work is not a new idea in education, but this model gives educators a path to follow in trying out a new way of working.

REFLECTION

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Participants in our workshop collaborating on their co-created art project.

Traditional classrooms have a lot to learn from third space learning environments. Where the Philadelphia School District struggles to keep schools open, our city's youth programs create a vibrant mosaic of activity, learning, creativity and self-expression. By stressing heavily the importance of interest-based learning in our model, we hope to extract this method from local youth organizations and apply it in a more formal learning context.

From our research we learned that successful third space youth programs shared many values with our design practice. Collaboration, empathy, inquiry, tolerance - these are all pillars of these programs as well as hallmarks of a modern, socially minded design process. Design also functions from a holistic stand point. Designers seek to uncover patterns, connect the dots, and then create new meaning and develop instruments for change. These qualities echo that of a 21st century education. As John Seely

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Brown and Douglas Thomas point out in A New Culture of Learning, in our modern world, we shouldn't be learning a list of facts, but how to ask questions and then find or create the best possible answers. Design and education are inherently connected. Once an apprentice learned a craft from a master. Design and education were one and the same. Now, design has been splintered off as a specialized skill, and educational institutions are slow to keep up with an open-source, do-it-yourself learning paradigm. Design and education should be united again, as the makings of a good student make a good designer, and designers never stop in their pursuit of new skills and knowledge. In our world, everyone should have the ability to think, design, and change their environment, and this starts with an engaging education.

We witnessed a flash of enthusiasm, collaboration and undeniable excitement in our workshop. No one in our team had traditional experience teaching or leading teenagers and yet we were able to facilitate a process that resonated with our participants and sparked their interest in design. This model is a prototype of a potential third space learning formula. It is the product of only a few months’ work and included in this documentation are a list of possible next steps for testing, editing and further iteration. The model should remain flexible enough to mold to new situations and specific environments. It is not meant to be a quick fix for any classroom or teen learning space.

REFLECTION

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Next Steps and RecommendationsThe success we observed with our model inspires these next steps towards a future of active, productive teenage citizens. We recommend that this model be adopted by a youth organization or third learning space interested in increasing teen engagement and incorporating 21st century skills and design processes into their curriculum. More qualitative analysis is needed to promote the success of these methods and develop the model into a more detailed step by step process that includes a wealth of resources for non-designers. We suggest small scale, local youth programming organizations that might tailor the model towards their specific needs. Funding for such research is available especially in the areas of education and design research. We recommend running the program with inputted interests and values relevant to your program while exploring and defining the process of design. Thorough evaluations of each pilot program should inform rapid iterations and follow-up testing.

Please contact us with any further interest in this projectjshade@uarts.edu

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