Design for Skills: A Collaborative Model

for Design-Based Learning

as a Supplemental Teaching Method for K-12 Education

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graphic Design Department

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design

at

Savannah College of Art and Design

Kirk D. Rhodes

eLearning

© May 2015

Jason Fox, Committee Chair

Patrick Hogan, Committee Member

Mariah Hay, Committee Member

to Brandi Michelle, London, and Charlie. Your turn.
 Acknowledgements

This journey would not have been possible without these lovers of design

and education, to whom I found the source of my life’s passion.

Professor Jason Fox

Professor Patrick Hogan

Professor Mariah Hay

Professor Trudie Abadi

Dr. Karen Tilstra

Dr. Angela Griner

Dr. Ron Large

Nathan Smith

Ben Hoyer

Russ Rhodes

Carol Rhodes
 Table of Contents

List of Figures 1

Abstract 2

I. Introduction: Common Ground, Common Goal 3

II. Part I: Lineage of Design Skills Pedagogy 14

III. Part II: Finding the Beat 29

IV. Part III: Findings, Insights, and Opportunities for Design 36

V. Part IV: Challenges to Integration 44

VI. Part V: Concluding Thoughts 46

Appendix A: Research Field Guide 47

Appendix B: Research Images, Charts, and Tables 65

Appendix C: Presentation 71

Works Cited 72
 Rhodes 1

List of Figures

I. Figure 1-1 Anderson and Krathwohl, et al. Summary of the Structural Changes 17

from [Bloom’s] Original Framework to the Revision

II. Figure 2-1 Duarte’s Vinn Diagram. Communicating From the Overlap 30

III. Figure 3-1 Common Ground Model. Initiating Collaboration 41

IV. Figure 3-2 Common Ground Model: Goal, Value, and Experience Alignment 43

V. Figure 3-3 Trust Building Subject, Question, and Emphasis 43

 Rhodes 2

Abstract

Design for Skills: A Collaborative Model

for Design-Based Learning
as a Supplemental Teaching Method for K-12 Education

Kirk D. Rhodes

May 2015

Written to both educators and designers, this paper advocates the use of design-based learning to

developing lifelong skills and key competencies in US primary and secondary schools. It provides

historical support and scholarship for the viability of design-based learning strategies, including

project-based learning, design thinking, and collaborative learning (among others). It argues aspects

of design-based learning may be utilized supplementary with other teaching methodologies in the

classroom, and offers a model for interdisciplinary collaboration between educators and members of

the design community.

Keywords: 21st Century skills, 21st Century learning, design-based learning, design thinking, Florida,

interdisciplinary, K-12 design education, key competencies, learning methods, project-based learning
 Rhodes 3

Introduction

Common Ground, Common Goal

The whole of education can be reduced to one central purpose, even a word: preparation.

Preparation for the multi-faceted, complex, personal and communal issues and choices of the future.

Preparation for employment in the workforce and culture of the future. There are undoubtedly many

other factors and motivations that determine the aim of educational systems — pedagogical, philo-

sophical, financial, social, political — but the global, common ground lies in preparation. This prepa-

ration is fulfilled through the ability to apply the knowledge and skills attained within the school

system; an ability that allows the learner to participate as an educated member of society in the new

contexts adulthood brings. Yet educational movements are rampant; apparently, our students are not

as prepared as we would like.

Since the early 80’s, education reforms have claimed increased rigor and accountability will

cure the apparent lack of preparation (Gardner et al. 1983). Modern reformers declaim our school

systems and teachers have failed us, and the solution lies with targeted funding and a student-cen-

tered mentality (Rhee 2012; Gates 2011). For other scholars, innovative learning methods will herald

student achievement. Proponents of blended learning or flipped classroom models believe teach-

ing with technology builds modern skills, personalizes education, and provides more meaningful

instruction (Christensen, Horn, and Johnson 29–39; Horn and Staker 11–12; Khan 115–118). Others

seek not to reform, but to transform the system. Educational theorist Sir Ken Robinson espouses

schools where a student’s innate talents are the focus; where creativity breeds self-motivated, lifelong

learning (Robinson 88–89). For psychologist and contrarian Alphie Kohn, the catalyst is shifting
 Rhodes 4

away from a culture of standardized testing and competition (Kohn 45–78). For educator and histo-

rian Diane Ravitch, dispelling the myth of public school failure versus privatized (charter and private)

school success is essential to any progress with the American school system (Ravitch 3–9, 55–73).

Meanwhile, such privatized schools like the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) Network raise the

bar of achievement by requiring longer days and rigorous curriculum (Rotherham 2011); and on the

other side of the spectrum, BPL (Big Picture Learning) provides alternative, competency education,

where the learning is self-paced, self-assessed, and somewhat self-directed (Priest, Rudenstine and

Weisstein 10–15). The critical focus on preparation our students receive from their schooling, and the

diversity of methods by which they are trained, has only been exacerbated by technological advances

and the growing world mindset. It is clear the student of today has a broader picture of the world

than the student of even last decade, and by reform, or getting back into form, our schools must pro-

vide broader experiences within the classroom to engender a broader skill set. This paper suggests

design-based learning in a scalable framework, enhanced by an interdisciplinary network, can assist

educators in accomplishing both.

Multiple countries have realized the value of teaching design skills to children and have

adopted design into their national curriculum, beginning with Great Britain in the 80’s (Davis et al.

9–11). Interdisciplinary methods such as design thinking have come into vogue, and, at the moment

I write this, researchers at IDEO and the Stanford d.school have listed 179 schools and school sys-

tems around the world that define themselves as design thinking schools (designthinkinginschools.

org). Recent strides in global K-12 assessment programs such as PISA have begun testing for skills

deemed necessary for the 21st Century; skills often deemed creative and essential to the design pro-

cess. Even during the interviews conducted for this study, principals and curriculum decision-makers

alike seemed interested if not already strategically aligning their teachers with more creative ped-

agogy. The ball appears to be moving in the direction of K-12 design education becoming a main-

stream learning strategy, or at least recognized by all as a viable strategy.

 Rhodes 5

Yet many obstacles stand in the way of widespread adoption, as detailed in Part 3: Challenges

to Integration. Hierarchal school structures make it difficult for educators to apply new teaching

methods to their classrooms and schools. Political pressure from the district or federal level may

keep their head buried in the sand of another established teaching method, and keeping up with

the paperwork and assessments take up all of their time. For some schools, the influence of factors

outside the classroom require low tolerance, direct instruction with an emphasis on classroom man-

agement; altering into a more collaborative or participatory approach would lead to distraction and

chaos. In others, the varied directions of or time required for mandatory professional development

programs keep educators wary of learning new methods. A lack of interdisciplinary support from the

educational design and professional design community also leaves schools and educators to apply

theory to practice in isolation, making it difficult to establish confidence and best practices. And look-

ing to history, programs based on the instruction of members of the design community rarely last

due to their inability to transfer instruction to teachers before losing momentum. One of the primary

findings of this paper is the need for educator support in a field most are accustomed to describing

as ‘art’.

This paper will define and introduce the key ideas surrounding design-based learning. It will

speak to both educators and the designers in an interdisciplinary fashion. It will introduce or reac-

quaint familiar readers to the benefits and lineage of design-based learning, and to offer a framework

for implementing the methods within existing pedagogical climates. Lastly, it will purpose directions

where design-based learning could expand.

Twenty-First Century Skills

Twenty-first century skills (C21S) are primary elements in President Obama’s Race To the

Top reform policy and the Common Core State Standards. A primary motive for teaching with design-

based learning is the natural progression of these core skills within learners. The process of creating
 Rhodes 6

a structure or solving a problem through design develops multiple skills simultaneously. And with

each additional skill learned and competency earned, the learner becomes more valuable to the work-

force. As detailed in Design as a Catalyst for Learning, designing improves “flexible thinking skills,

promot[es] self-directed learning and assessment, develop[s] students’ interpersonal and communica-

tion skills, and cultivat[es] responsible citizens” (Davis et al. 19). The learner will continue developing

and combining these skills and competences to facilitate greater capacity and deeper understanding

throughout life. Most importantly, the design skills she has learned will increase her ability to share

her experiences and insights through visual means, allowing her to contribute to society in a more

expressive and meaningful way.

In the U.S. the popular term for these lifelong skills is twenty-first century skills (C21S), or

occasionally, while in Canada they’re often referenced in terms of the national Skills Agenda program

(Brink 2003). However, in most other places in the world they’re known as key competencies or core

competencies, mostly due to the framework determined by the Organization for Economic Coopera-

tion and Development’s Definition and Selection of Competencies Project (DeSeCo) and the subsequent,

globally sensationalized impact of OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test

results and country rankings (Rychen and Salganik 37). That said, DeSeCo does distinguish between

skills, competencies, and personal qualities, as all participating countries desired them to varying

degrees, yet the use and definition of these terms varied greatly (Rychen and Salganik 51).

The categorical systems outlining these skills are diverse. In 1992, the Secretary’s Com-

mission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) released a report for President Bush’s educational

reform program entitled America 2000. It listed 20 competencies and 17 foundational skills needed

in the workplace (“Skills and Tasks for Jobs” 26–32). A decade later, the aforementioned DeSeCo

project gathered skill lists from all participating OECD countries, classifying them according to

frequency into 10 categories. Grouped into columns of frequency, the highest mentioned can all be

further developed by design: Social competencies/cooperation, Literacies/intelligent and applicable

 Rhodes 7

knowledge, Learning competencies/lifelong learning, and Communication competencies (Rychen

and Salganik 37). Since then, other organizations have been formed and responsible for categorizing

new skills frameworks. The largest in America, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) just

rebranded itself to The Partnership for 21st Century Learning. There was no explicit rationale, but

it appears the buzzword C21S is wearing itself out; perhaps due to the past tense nature of learned

‘skills,’ versus the active present tense or ongoing nature of ‘learning’ (www.p21.org).

The newest major player is ATC21S, the Assessment and Teaching of Twenty-First Century Skills

Program. Founded in 2008 by a partnership between Intel and two of the original P21 founding

companies, Microsoft and Cisco, the ATC21S international research team developed and tested a new

framework that overcomes the short-sightedness of current skills assessments; their gripe centered

on the amount of problem solving strategies and assessment tools being utilized successfully in

other industries, yet educators were stuck with enforced old-school methods (Kozma and Roth v).

While in line with other international competency-based frameworks, by comparison, the ATC21S

team appears to have put a great emphasis on clarity by simplification — as opposed to clarity

through comprehensive, exhaustive detail — making it easier for any teacher to follow and imple-

ment. Called the KSAVE Model, it’s ten skills are grouped into four categories: ‘Ways of Thinking,’

‘Ways of Working,’ ‘Tools for Working,’ and ‘Living in the World.’ Each of the ten skills is expanded

into categories of ‘Knowledge’ (understanding requirements), ‘Skills’ (abilities), and ‘Attitudes, Val-

ues, and Ethics’ (behaviors and aptitudes). Like the others, design-based learning naturally supports

the development of the first seven; the remaining three would require more specificity within the

lesson (Binkley et al 36–37).

In 2014, educator and author Tony Wagner, the first innovation education fellow at the Tech-

nology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard, goes as far as calling them survival skills; without

which learners are crippled for life, and on a grander scale, if they are not successfully taught in

schools, America will be at risk of losing its competitive advantage (Wagner, Generation Gap 13). He
 Rhodes 8

lists (1) critical thinking and problem solving; (2) collaboration across networks and leading by influ-

ence; (3) agility and adaptability; (4) initiative and entrepreneurialism; (5) effective oral and written

communication; (6) accessing and analyzing information; and (7) curiosity and imagination (ibid.

14–41). Once again, all of these skills can be further developed through design-based learning.

Defining Design-Based Learning

Our definition borrows from the first paragraph of Davis, Hawley, McMullan, and Spilka’s

groundbreaking work, Design as a Catalyst for Learning: design-based learning is “the study of design

as a subject of investigation and a mode of inquiry that engages a variety of student learning styles

and makes direct connections between school subjects and problem solving in daily life” (1). It

is a pedagogical method that can entail collaborative learning, community/place-based learning,

design-thinking, maker education, and project-based learning methods, as all of these either have

roots in design or deep connections when practiced.

But to understand design-based learning, and to avoid confusion, one must first understand

the definition of design and its diversity within education. Instructional Design is the field concerned

primarily with improving curriculum. In the [Fine] Art classroom, design represents an under-

standing of design principles that guide aesthetically pleasing arrangements of 2D and 3D objects.

It is tied to many professions which offer different forms of technical training for secondary school

students: graphic design, interior design, industrial design, architecture, engineering, etc. And most

recently, for a little over a decade, design has been introduced to K-12 schools through the practice

of design thinking. Tim Brown developed the brand of design thinking now synonymous with his

company, IDEO. He uses the term “as a way of describing a set of principles that can be applied

by diverse people to a wide range of problems” (Brown 7). This last context is most similar to how

design will be used in this paper: as a problem-solving, process-based discipline which can shape

physical objects, environments, non-physical processes, and communication.

 Rhodes 9

Design Skills as Lifelong Skills

Design education scholars have written at length about the benefits of teaching our chil-

dren to think like designers — Bruce Archer, Ken Baynes, Charles Burnette, and Meredith Davis,

and Richard Kimbell, to name a few of the ‘founding fathers’ initiating this line of thought (Archer,

Baynes, and Roberts 1992; Baynes, Langdon, and Myers 1977; Burnette and Norman 1997; Davis et

al. 1997; Kimbell et al. 1993) — and now, with over fifty years of modern integration between the two

fields (more on this in Part I: Lineage of Design Skills Pedagogy), researchers have had ample time to

observe and evaluate the resulting skills through different methods of assessment.

Since the 70’s, British scholars have wrestled with defining and justifying design as a tertiary

curriculum domain to general education. Nigel Cross was one of many who called for further design

research into how designers work and think, an better understanding of which could lead to easier

developmental comparisons to other subjects. He believed, as did many of his colleagues, that design

must be interpreted “in terms of its intrinsic educational value, and not in the instrumental terms

that are associated with traditional, vocational design education” (Cross 29). He went on to list five

such aspects:

• Designers tackle ‘ill-defined’ problems.

• Their mode of problem-solving is ‘solution-focused’.

• Their mode of thinking is ‘constructive’.

• They use ‘codes’ that translate abstract requirements into concrete objects.

• They use these codes to both ‘read’ and ‘write’ in ‘object languages’.

From these ways of knowing I drew three main areas of justification for design in general

education:

• Design develops innate abilities in solving real-world, ill-defined problems.

• Design sustains cognitive development in the concrete/iconic modes of cognition.

 Rhodes 10

• Design offers opportunities for development of a wide range of abilities in non-ver-

bal thought and communication (Cross 29–30).

From this list we can see how design as a practice could easily support the development of critical

thinking and skills for the workforce. In his treatise Knowledge as Design, theorist and educator David

Perkins defends teaching knowledge as design for the higher order thinking and creative skills it

instills, which allow for connections between disciplines by “making salient commonalities and con-

trasts in the kinds of purposes, structures, model cases, and arguments employed” (Perkins 18-19,

221-224). He describes the process by which design concepts are portable to other subjects in detail.

Interdisciplinary Purpose

This paper is for educators and designers, together. Or rather, through the intermingling of

designer-directed and teacher-directed statements, moving towards common ground conclusions.

One of the greatest stumbling blocks of collaboration between the two fields — and yet easiest to

overcome — is a desire and willingness to speak the other’s language (more on this in Part 2: Find-

ing a Beat). For that reason, a portion of the terms and their context may be outside of the reader’s

‘normal channels.’ Finding common ground beyond terminology might involve shared goals, skills,

or experiences, which become a positive, motivating factors in collaboration. A theme throughout

Nancy Duarte’s work is the importance of “communicat[ing] from the overlap” of these dimensions

(Duarte 70), and has become an anthem for this study’s ethnographic research. This form of overlap

communication comes naturally to the designer. There is always a lens on the client, or end user of

the product or process at hand. A designer must look outside his walls to be successful, gathering

information and meaning wherever inspiration and creativity lead. Collaboration comes naturally to

the designer.

It is no wonder then, when the Secretary of State for Education and Science in Great Brit-

ain commissioned the Royal College of Art to investigate and survey the pockets of existing design
 Rhodes 11

education at grade schools around the country, the assumption of interdisciplinary benefits were

already present. Bruce Archer and Ken Baynes led the effort, which was published in 1976. Besides

suggesting, for the first time, that ‘Design’ be considered the third domain of general education, next

to ‘Science’ and ‘Humanities,’ as it categorically contains activities outside of the range of the others,

the report offered this concise explanation of design’s interdisciplinary nature:

The Design area of education embraces all those activities and disciplines which are charac-

terised by being anthropocentric, aspirational and operational; that is, that are man-related,

that have a value-seeking, feeling or judging aspect, and that have a planning, making or

doing aspect. Disciplines such as art, handicraft, home economics and technical studies tend

to form the broad middle ground of the Design area in schools (qtd in Archer, Baynes, and

Roberts 24).

The results of this report won over the Secretary, and two years later Parliament passed the Education

Reform Act, decreeing ‘Design and Technology’ become a course of instruction for all students ages

5–16. It was inducted into the national curriculum in 1980.

In his cumulative work, Visual Learning, John Hattie synthesized over 800 meta-analyses

on the effectiveness of different teaching methods according to achievement. He synthesized tests

for ‘Integrated Curricula’ programs, which came back as highly effective in the area of achievement.

Unlike many of his predecessors, his success criteria was not based off a balanced 0.00 standard

deviation scale, where virtually any improvement would qualify the method as effective. His ‘hinge

point’ was 0.40, the average of all the standard deviation of improvement. ‘Integrated Curricula’ in

Elementary Schools scored 0.56 and in Middle Schools 0.57, but not so for High Schools 0.29. It was

successful, however, for lower achieving students, ethnically diverse students, and when the methods

were utilized by more experienced teachers (Hattie, Visual Learning 2009). Note, the study involved

the average of all ‘Integrated Curricula’ programs in general; not specific to design as a bridge for

content to travel. The subjects involved in the study might have included design, but most certainly
 Rhodes 12

included other sciences and humanities. Yet a decade before Hattie published his book, Meredith

Davis offers four reasons to utilize design as the modus operandi of integrated curricula:

1. Design problems are situated; they have a context from which students can derive infor-

mation that relates to a variety of disciplines and that is critical to successful solutions...

2. Design problems require both analysis and synthesis. Students must engage in the artic-

ulation of a meaningful problem within a context, gather and make sense of relevant

information, synthesize material from many sources in generating multiple solutions,

and critically evaluate outcomes against rubrics that are negotiated among students

and public in the classroom...

3. Design problems are systems-oriented. Solutions must be viewed as nested in a web of

interactions among physical, social, cultural, technological, and economic factors...

4. Design problems frequently require the work of interdisciplinary teams of experts. They

demonstrate to children the value of collective creativity in which each participant

contributes a point of view and set of skills that may differ from those of others. Through

design activities, students learn about planning, collaborating, and building a common

vision of success (Davis, “Design’s Inherent Interdisciplinarity: 1999).

Acknowledging Bias

John Hattie taught me “education is never neutral, and its fundamental purpose is interven-

tion or behavior change” (254). Everyone has a position. I come to the field as teachers come, looking

for ways to defend my position (Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon 141–156). I’m a current professional

designer and future educator. I experience on a daily basis the creative benefits of design-thinking,

the innovation that stems from collaboration with a solutions-focused, interdisciplinary team. And

I am fascinated with the possibilities of design-based learning being adopted in more schools and

classrooms across America.

 Rhodes 13

I did not have the privilege of being introduced to design-based learning methods while in

grade school. Most of my learning experience alternated between “stand and deliver” lectures, ques-

tioning and recall, direct instruction, and self-directed practice. As a designer, I came to this project

with the assumption that creative methods would always win the learning proficiency battle. While

I was delighted almost every school from which I surveyed or interviewed an educator regularly

used some form of collaborative, [design] skill-building methods, I was equally shocked upon read-

ing Hattie’s meta-analyses work, in which his evidence-based methods led me to understand not all

creative methods are beneficial when it comes to achievement; some of the teaching methods I grew

up with — direct instruction — still rank among the highest methods for achievement (200–236). It

also started me down the path of inquiring what else would educators value outside of achievement?

My interviews with private and charter schools revealed character education, a safe school environ-

ment, and a holistic emphasis on non-Common Core subjects or extra-curricular activities as equally

legitimate concerns for these administrators.

 Rhodes 14

Part I

Lineage of Design Skills Pedagogy

A distinct value of design skills is the ability and natural inclination towards interdisciplinary

application. As the first nation to adopt design and technology as part of its national curriculum in

1990, the United Kingdom considers the subject unique in that it “attempts to bring together craft,

art and design, domestic science and business studies into one unified subject area” (Harris and

Wilson v). While advocates of design-based learning typically promote the resulting design skills as

essential for the twenty-first century, this line of reasoning is rather recent. Design skills have been

taught in developed nations for centuries. One cannot claim a good engineering or science education

without having developed skills of identifying patterns, modeling, or synthesizing disparate content

elements into cohesive meaning. More specifically, design as a mode of inquiry within K-12 schools

has been implemented in America for half a century, since the post-Sputnik era.

This section will trace the primary themes influencing or determining the confluence of

design and K-12 education over the past 100 years. The purpose of which is to position design-based

learning as neither modern nor tied to pedagogical trends, as modern ‘brands’ of it certainly appear

to be topical. Roughly in chronological order, the majority of key players, theories, and events listed

here stem from either the United States or Great Britain. Since everyone has the at least some form

of design ability, understanding why so little K-12 design pedagogy has surfaced elsewhere would be a

fascinating opportunity for future study.

 Rhodes 15

Constructivist Theory

Generally speaking, teaching methods that highlight learning through experience, empha-

size holistic aims or the production of skills necessary after graduation are rooted in Constructivist

theory. In the late 19th Century, educational reformer, psychologist, and philosopher John Dewey

wrote about the process in which we learn through social interaction of the subject matter. Dewey

believed the school was a place for social reform, and that content should be presented to students

in a method through which they can interact or relate it to prior experiences and cementing it into

memory with meaning (Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed” 1987). This theory was later developed by Jean

Piaget into what is now known as Constructivism.

Many of Dewey’s theories stood in opposition to the widespread industrialized mechanics of

the schoolhouse, a bi-product of the efficient desires of the Industrial Age. Dewey advocated for mul-

tiple learning methods and hands-on-learning, so students might learn through a visual language

of impressions. This line of thinking would become the primary influence for the establishment

of project-based learning. As he states in Democracy and Education, “if knowledge comes from the

impressions made upon us by natural objects, it is impossible to procure knowledge without the use

of objects which impress the mind” (Dewey 217–218). John Dewey’s influence on education cannot

be overstated. He brought awareness to the act of learning as an experience, where the student has

an active role in building his own understanding. From his Pedagogic Creed in 1897, Dewey contends

one cannot adequately prepare a student with curriculum or a pre-determined skill set, but most also

educate him on how to educate himself:

To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to

train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear

and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgment may be capable of grasping

the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act econom-

ically and efficiently (Dewey 1897).

 Rhodes 16

Design is a connection between science and art. In this creed he also stated, “I believe that when

science and art thus join hands the most commanding motive for human action will be reached; the

most genuine springs of human conduct aroused and the best service that human nature is capable

of guaranteed” (ibid).

Dewey’s passion for experiential education and influence led to educational reform, and

enacted numerous learning methods in practice today, including problem-based learning, experi-

ential learning, Social Constructivist Theory, and inquisitive learning. Lev Vygotsky developed his

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) in 1932 under Constructivist philosophy, giving educators a new

model to conceive how to gauge and engage a student’s learning. Vygotsky’s ZPD is synonymous

with the idea of scaffolding, the visual metaphor for the support an instructor provides a learner to

aide the building of new knowledge on existing knowledge. Then in 1956, Benjamin Bloom pub-

lished Bloom’s Taxonomy, giving educators, for the first time, a developmental rubric to better under-

stand students’ learning levels. It quickly became one of the most influential educational models and

books of the twentieth century — especially to educators focused on skills over content (Anderson

and Krathwohl xxi). In Blooms taxonomy, he categorizes six primary thinking skills according to

depth, with (in increasing order) ‘Analysis,’ ‘Synthesis,’ and ‘Evaluation’ — all integral skills to the

design process — involving the most complex cognitive process, or higher order skills (see Figure

1-1). In 2002, almost fifty years later, Anderson and Krathwhol published A Taxonomy for Learning,

Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives with a few modifica-

tions to the original design: replaced by ‘Remember,’ ‘Knowledge’ was moved to it’s own ‘Knowledge

dimension.’ And most important to this study, ‘Synthesis’ was changed to ‘Create’ and bumped to the

most complex, highest order skill (at the bottom of Figure 1-1). Therefore, according to the original

and revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, the capacity and ability to synthesize information and create is one of

the best cognitive activities one can do to achieve Twenty-first Century Skills.
 Rhodes 17

Separate Knowledge
dimension dimension

Noun aspect
Knowledge Remember
Verb aspect

Comprehension Understand

Application Apply
Cognitive
Process
Dimension
Analysis Analyze

Synthesis Evaluate

Evaluation Create

Figure 1-1: Anderson and Krathwohl, et al. Summary of the Structural Changes
from [Bloom’s] Original Framework to the Revision

The Methods Movement

The 60’s gave birth to the Design Methods Movement, which evolved initially through UK

designers, architects, and engineer’s increasing dissatisfaction for the common design-centric—as

opposed to human-centric—products and attitudes of their industry. John Chris Jones and Peter

Slann organized the Conference for Design Methods in 1962, which, along with the influences of

design theorist Horst Rittel (brought together science and design, coined ‘wicked problem’) and

architect Christopher Alexander (later published Pattern Language, reasoning the users know more
 Rhodes 18

than the architects about the buildings they need), gave guidance and fuel to developing methods

that meet the challenges of the post-industrial world. As Jones would later articulate in the introduc-

tion to the 1980 edition of his seminal work Design Methods (originally published in 1970), “the shift

from the idea of ‘progress’ (towards a goal, a product) to the idea of ‘process’ (as all there is) is surely

a main event of the twentieth century, in all fields of endeavor” (Jones, Design Methods xxxiv). Partici-

patory design and human-design or user-centered design are also bi-products of this line of thinking.

Their effectiveness has been rediscovered within the last decade as the digital age and design think-

ing have brought on a resurgence in human-centered design.

A year after the conference, the pervasive consumerist culture in the UK led to the First

Things First Manifesto, signed by Ken Garland and 20 other designers, photographers, and students

in 1963 and published a year later in it’s entirety in the Guardian. They declaimed the mode in

which the design industry was being used, pressured to advertise innocuous and inconsequential

products, listing “cat food, stomach powders…” and a dozen other trivial items (Garland et al. 1963).

The signers demanded to be taken more seriously and given projects of consequence. This Human-

ist approach echoed many other designers of the time, attempting to redirect design efforts to be

human-centric in nature.

The 60’s became a decade of dismantling and distrust in the design and education world,

echoing civil unrest elsewhere. Anti-feelings grew everywhere: anti-government, anti-corporations,

anti-consumerism, anti-wealth, anti-minimalist. Pockets of teachers began developing their own

design lessons, which would be studied in the early 70’s and instrumental to the eventual adoption of

design and technology as a subject matter in the national curriculum. Other professional designers

were becoming weary of the increasingly complex processes for design, claiming they were too rigid

— including John Chris Jones himself (Jones, “How My Thoughts” 1977).

These sentiments of confusion over the complexity of models arose again in the 80’s and

90’s, when British design and technology teachers began utilizing various standardized models for
 Rhodes 19

understanding and assessing designs in their classrooms. The solution in both cases, and the one

proposed originally by the Department of Education and Science in 1987, was to develop a loose

framework that guided the teacher or user, as opposed to offer so much detail and direction as to

restrict the them (Atkinson 1999). Design educator Bryan Lawson, author of How Designers Think:

The Design Process Demystified, agreed and teaches design worked best when the process and proce-

dures are flexible (287-301).

The U.K. Journey into Design & Technology

There are two paths to this story, and one is considerably longer than the other. Suffice it to

say the British government first initiated design education in schools when Martin Van Buren was

Commander-in-Chief. This was also the first time — the year was 1837 — the State directly inter-

vened in Education affairs. Yet by interjecting design into the community, the quality of goods, the

quality of life, and England’s economy all increased (Baynes, Langdon, and Myers 1977). The design

education mentioned here refers to the type of manufacturing trades or fine art practices common

in the mid 1800’s. But for the rest of this paper, design education refers to the professional practices

outlined in the introduction.

Modern interest in design education began growing in the 1950’s for both the United King-

dom and the United States, due to the large role science and engineering played in WWII. In 1974,

dissatisfied with the results of two previously conducted studies into the possibilities of modifying

existing school curriculum to inject design and technology (Project Technology and the Design and

Craft Education Project), the Secretary of Education and Science commissioned the Royal College of

Art to conduct a study of inquiry into the opportunity of design becoming a nationally endorsed [sep-

arate] subject for all students. Bruce Archer and Ken Baynes led the research team and a lively debate

amongst interested teachers, mostly surrounding definitions and defense of design as a primary

subject. They were charged to “analyz[e] the characteristics of designing in an attempt to describe
 Rhodes 20

a category of human endeavor analogous to the sciences and the humanities” (Davis 11; Baynes,

Langdon, and Myers 17–18). Their findings, “Design in General Education, Part One” were published

in 1976 by the Royal College of Art with a collection of research supporting the subject of design as

the 3rd area of education, providing experiences and understanding beyond the scope of the Sciences

or Humanities. In recounting this effort, Nigel Cross quotes a passage from the report defending this

unique quality: “‘There are things to know, ways of knowing them, and ways to find out about them’

that are specific to the design area” (Cross, Designerly Ways of Knowing 22). The strategy worked, and

Great Britain opened its doors to the option for secondary and primary schools.

The next decade was full of tests and anticipation. Despite government approval on the

direction, proponents were not prepared for the curriculum and training needs of thousands of new

design and technology educators. Not to mention, further testing and validating needed to be done to

dispel critics and pass the inevitable bill through Parliament. A few notable events from this period:

the government hired Richard Kimbell in 1981 to establish assessment techniques; the report was

published in 1985, after which they commissioned multiple other studies; in 1991 they once again

charged Richard Kimbell and his Assessment Performance Team to evaluate the national design and

technology curriculum. His research reports challenged the traditional notion of curriculum knowl-

edge as knowing, and emphasized more Constructivist viewpoints of knowledge as doing (Kimbell

1993); much of the assessment methods used today are due this work. Also of note is Bryan Lawson’s

1979 test of students on scientist and architecture tracks at the beginning and end of their schooling.

While there was no clear difference during their year test, Lawson found dramatic differences in their

thinking and problem-solving skills during the latter test. His findings led him to posit scientists are

“problem-based” thinkers, and architects are “solution-based” thinkers. Lawson would later refer to

this study in his book “How Designers Think”, published in 1990 (Davis et al. 3). Throughout this

process the Design Council raised public awareness of and promoted design in schools.
 Rhodes 21

Parliament passed The Education Reform Act in 1988, and in 1990, Design and Technology

became an official part of the national curriculum for all students ages 5–16 in England and Wales.

But, as with all educational innovations, the process wasn’t entirely smooth. National curriculum

was updated six times within the first ten years; teaching methods had to be improved to effectively

instruct all demographics of students (as opposed to the minority groups that were tested); and con-

fusion persisted with educators between ‘Programmes of Study’ and ‘Attainment Targets’: the first

of which dealing with instruction, the second with assessment (Harris and Wilson 4–5). Yet despite

the early troubles, Design and Technology in the UK has expanded to meet the breadth of curriculum

and training demands of the teachers. Sometimes it shrinks slightly, as when Information Technol-

ogy was made into its own class in 1995, but come September 2016, Cooking and Nutrition will be

taught in the class along with design, and will surely provide a new spin on interdisciplinary curricu-

lum (“New GSCE in Cooking” 2014).

American Designers Take Up the Charge

After WWII, having just ‘witnessed’ a war victory through feats of science and engineering,

Americans grew a deep interest and respect for their power and capabilities. A decade later, the

post-Sputnik era brought with it a nationalistic desire to modify the current educational system to

incorporate technology and innovation, with an emphasis on science and math.

Individual, philanthropic professionals were the first to answer the cultural call. Architects

and engineers began visiting classes or developing their own programs between their firms and

schools. Most of these programs were geared towards secondary education and more technical in

nature. They developed customized activities for the teachers and trained them in best practices for

introducing the design concepts to the students. These programs also established professional net-

works between designers and educators to support their interest in design. Some even published and

produced their own curriculum and learning materials (Davis et al. 5).
 Rhodes 22

In 1966, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) began working with elementary and

secondary schools to “develop methods and materials for raising public consciousness” (Sandler 13).

Like other organizations, their primary efforts involved sending their own into the classrooms to

galvanize interest in architecture and design, and in producing informational materials for teachers

to support the students’ interest in the field. As Sandler later wrote after AIA’s first published cur-

riculum, “very little was written in 1980 and before that; the architects-in-the-schools were as the

artists-in-residence, giving short but intense experiences in architectural education” (13). This new

initiative was called Learning by Design, and was lauded by Meredith Davis as the largest stimulator of

“grass-roots collaboration between teachers and designers through small grants” (Davis et al. 7).

By the 1970’s, evidence of the improvements and direction the U.K. was taking design edu-

cation spurned American government partners into action. In 1972 the National Endowment for

the Arts partnered with the government to establish the Federal Design Improvement Program, which

allowed thousands of professional designers — architects, graphic, interior and landscape design-

ers — to collaborate and suggest design revisions federal buildings, branding, and other instances

of design. Then a few years later, the Worldesign Foundation was founded by the Industrial Design

Society of America. It adopted K-12 Design Education as one of it’s 3 priorities, its focus being to “fos-

ter the power and application of design thinking as an essential tool in education and the learning

process” (“American Design Council” 2015).

During the 80’s and early 90’s America shifted from a product-based to service-based work-

force. The ‘Industrial Arts’ education transformed into ‘Technology’ education. Computers became

accessible to the average consumer. In schools, sponsors would offer low-cost software and hardware

to encourage long-term contracts (Davis et al. 6). This gave schools the opportunity to integrate tech-

nology into their curriculum in a variety of disciplines. “Subjects that traditionally had little visual

content gain a design dimension through software that produces charts and graphs, models and

structures, and opens up opportunities for typographic experimentation” (ibid).

 Rhodes 23

The Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York began collecting and developing

resources for teachers in the early eighties; a collection, which includes many K-12 design resources,

they still maintain to this day. They also began sponsoring a number of neighborhood-based design

education programs. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) began offering seed grants for

architectural curriculum development, and launched the NEA Design Program with a special funding

category to support design within the K-12 environment (Davis et al. 8). Most notably, the NEA also

commissioned a 2-yr study with the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning in Philadelphia from

1993–1994; the results of this research evolved into Meredith Davis’ Design as a Catalyst for Learning,

published in 1997 (ibid).

The 90’s became galvanizing years for K-12 design educators, as the fire was spreading but

the oxygen was so low. Meredith Davis and Dr. Charles Burnette became the two leading figureheads,

both from their respective universities. Besides publishing the largest collection of research ever

collected regarding American K-12 design education — the aforementioned Design as a Catalyst for

Learning — Davis created the Education through Design program with Robin Moore in 1997 from

her NC State University School of Design, focusing on educating teachers in design and creativity

instead of merely packaged curricula or relying on other designers (Davis et al. 7). Meanwhile Bur-

nette had created the Design-Based Education Program in 1989 at the University of the Arts in Phil-

adelphia, highlighted by the Design with Kids course (2005). This was one of the first design-based

education K-12 programs to be developed within an academic institution; previously they were largely

due the efforts of philanthropic professionals. He worked with Dr. Janis Norman, the Director of

Art Education at University of the Arts, to develop a curriculum for using design in art and science

instruction. They initiated a national pilot program with Burnette’s early model of design thinking,

which they published in 1997 as “DK-12: Design for Thinking” (Burnette and Norman 1997). The

paper detailed how the design process can be integrated into K-12 classrooms and curriculum, and
 Rhodes 24

was adopted by four local Philadelphia schools in 1998. The work of Meredith Davis and Dr. Charles

Burnette became the foundation and inspiration for all subsequent K-12 design educators. But in

1997, the most prolific year of publication for Davis up to that point, she concludes:

Despite this level of innovation during the last 30 years, the use of design activities in U.S.

schools remains an isolated practice that has its strongest support at the level of the indi-

vidual teacher. Documentation of teacher work is spotty and many educators labor with

little more than moral support for their efforts at district and state levels. The individual

initiative required to establish and sustain these programs within a somewhat indifferent

administrative culture leaves little time and few resources for the systematic and rigorous

assessment that would present convincing evidence for broader adoption” (Davis et al. 8).

The American public just didn’t see the value in a design-based education. They couldn’t see it,

because they were blinded by another national education agenda.

The Standards Movement

In America, we have been undergoing an era of educational reform for over three decades.

In 1983, the Secretary of Education commissioned an interdisciplinary committee to ascertain the

state of American schools. The conclusive report titled “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educa-

tional Reform” became a watershed event (Gardner et al. 1983), launching a wave of outcomes-based

plans for reform, now deemed the Standards Movement. Since Reagan’s Presidency, each President

and Secretary of Education have declared ‘fixing education’ to be a national priority, if not a national

emergency. Pres. George Bush held a bipartisan Education Summit with the Nation’s Governors and

developed a plan or reform entitled America 2000. Pres. Bill Clinton stated on multiple occasions he

wanted to become known as the ‘educational president,’ but his Goals 2000 (originally the America

2000 plan) reform plan faltered. Pres. George W. Bush launched No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in

2001, the most progressive standards-based reform to date, placing the majority of the power in State
 Rhodes 25

and Federal hands. Yet the amount of tax dollars spent on testing and competitive programs — more

than $800B (Harrington 2011) — and the lack of academic gains caused Pres. Barack Obama to

repeal it, enacting the Common Core State Standards in 2008 and the Race To the Top (RTT) program

for competitive, achievement-based Federal funding in 2009.

The Standards Movement has earned sweeping gains with public support since the cre-

ation of PISA in 1996 and the international tables of assessment scores, which put America much

lower than its citizens had hoped. After the U.S. performance on the 2012 test was published, U.S.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared, “the big picture... is straightforward and stark: it is a

picture of educational stagnation” (qtd in Robinson and Aronica 7). These comparison charts have

politically charged the conversation regarding the importance of America’s innovative or competi-

tive edge, although some deny America has fallen behind at all (Ravitch 63–73). Proponents of the

Standards movement typically want both to get ‘back to basics,’ focusing on literacy, mathematics,

and the STEM disciplines; all of which appear on standardized tests and have direct connections to

skills. Each aforementioned educational program — America 2000, Goals 2000, NCLB, and RTT

— was that respective cabinet’s solution for motivating the educational workforce with competition,

resources, and funding. Critics claim that “although all the rhetoric of the standards movement is

about employability, the emphasis has not been on courses that prepare people directly for the work

but on raising standards in academic programs” (ibid. 16). These programs have merely increased

the already rampant tendency to ‘teach for the test’.

The Standards Movement also provided additional money for charter schools; the reasoning

being, families will likely select a school based on how they want to be educated, which will increase

their motivation to achieve higher. Educator and Historian Diane Ravitch lays her opinion out a little

more starkly: “CLAIM: Charter schools will revolutionize American education by their freedom to

innovate and produce dramatically better results. REALITY: Charter schools run the gamut from

excellent to awful and are, on average, no more innovative or successful than public schools” (156).
 Rhodes 26

Proponents of charter schools are typically those who want a different type of education that might

not focus on assessment but on character or life skills after school. Critics of charter schools show

the research seems inconclusive that the average charter school holds any gains on public schools,

and that, on average, charter schools are one of the less-effective forms of schooling in America

(Hattie 75–76). Ravitch offers a solution for this as well: ban for-profit charter schools and networks

and require they collaborate with public schools (247). However, the looseness of charter school

standards allow them to be more willing to experiment with new forms of pedagogy, such as design-

based learning and design thinking.

The Advent of Design Thinking

Design Thinking — the 5 step process, the business buzzword, the creative problem-solving

and problem-finding technique synonymous with IDEO, Tim Brown, and the d.school — was created

in the minds of many when Brown’s Design By Change was first published (2009). Yet if one traces

the history, design thinking (DT) got its roots in the 1960’s with the methods movement. In the 80’s

and 90’s, numerous academic studies were conducted around learning how designers think (Cross,

Designerly Ways 22; ibid., Design Thinking 67), or how creatives think in general (De Bono 9–14).

It first moved into the public eye in the 2000’s, when noted authors Richard Florida, Daniel Pink,

Roger Martin, Malcolm Gladwell and Thomas Lockwood all published books proclaiming the impor-

tance of creativity in the modern workplace.

In education, the Design Thinking movement currently has 179 K-12 schools under its ban-

ner site, DesignThinkingInSchools.org. They’ve also published a handy guide, Design Thinking for

Educators, with scenarios common to schools and blank worksheets to develop a strategy plan with

others. All Saints Academy, one of the schools visited for this study, is under this moniker, yet they

are quick to point out they implement many teaching and learning strategies, and would be unable to

offer solely DT curriculum. However, it is important to note design thinking has become a household
 Rhodes 27

strategy, recognized in dozens of industries and around the world for its effectiveness, skill building

and problem solving capabilities. And because design thinking is a design-based learning method,

anything good for design thinking is good for design-based learning.

Khan Academy and the Flipped Classroom

Sal Khan represents some of the most progressive, yet still popular, ideas in education. Khan

Academy, the ‘school’ he unknowingly founded eight years ago while tutoring his cousin in math,

has over 26 million registered learners as of May 2015 (“You Can Learn” 2015). These learners con-

tinue to come back because of the simplicity of the user experience with no-frills video lessons (one

person), or the parent that can grasp the big picture of the student’s understanding in a subject mat-

ter with the click of a button (two people), or the teacher that is able to offer a completely differenti-

ated classroom environment, yet still retain a group dynamic with shared goals and reports (many

people). Each of these instances demonstrate users in active learning situations, where they are able

to customize the experience to their liking, yet still interact on the same platform together. Design in

practice is also individual and collaborative, and often switches back and forth repeatedly while prob-

lem-solving around others. Collaborative learning, design thinking, project-based and design-based

learning are at their best when participants feel responsible for their learning, yet have the freedom

to explore and direct their own path to the intended goal. This is the definition of active learning.

Many K-12 classrooms across America have flipped with Khan Academy; the instruction

is done via the YouTube video lesson, and the homework is practiced in the classroom where the

teacher can permit peer to peer coaching and offer more personalized attention herself. By changing

the delivery of instruction, the students are able to enjoy a new perspective on learning; they become

aware of choice and intentionality in learning. The classroom environment can be the place of active

practice and active questioning (instead of passive lecture listening).

 Rhodes 28

In the author’s opinion, the biggest success driver of the Khan Academy model is the ‘easy’

factor. The ease in which one can trial the service, or engage with one’s preferred digital medium

(e.g. smart phone, home computer). It is much easier for a teacher to adopt or even experiment with

a Khan flipped classroom than integrating design thinking: with the former, she can preview the

exact instruction experience every student will receive, save herself some preparation time and spend

it on coaching. If adopting the latter, especially if she is unfamiliar with the design thinking process,

will most likely need to attend a workshop to see it in practice, and planning for collaborative experi-

ences and exercises will require additional research and set up. It is also easy to not think about pay-

ing for a Khan class while taking it. Could learning design be this easy? Or could learning through

design be this easy?

 Rhodes 29

Part II

Finding the Beat

To understand the research methodology behind this study, one must first understand the

aims of ethnographic research. From book 1 of LeCompte an Schensul’s Ethnographer’s Toolkit, “Eth-

nography takes the position that human behavior and the ways in which people construct and make

meaning of their worlds and their lives are highly variable and locally specific,” emphasis on local (1).

As a professional graphic designer by trade, working with teachers during lunch breaks proved the

importance of speaking fluent ‘teacher,’ as nothing grinds depth of knowledge to a halt faster than

vocabulary queries from a foreigner to the tongue. Hence, the exploratory interview strategy was

conceived: a series of open-ended, informal, ask anything interviews, to bring the author up to speed

in the vernacular and issues; in short, to help him in ‘finding the beat.’ Interdisciplinary studies are

difficult if one is not already adept at each domain of the study. LeCompte and Schensul go on to say

that “ethnography as science... assumes that researches must first understand what people actually

do and the reasons they give for doing it before trying to interpret their actions through filters from

their own personal experience or theories derived from personal or academic disciplines” (2). Back

to the percussion motif, one cannot make music with another without finding and sticking to the

beat. Getting a grasp of the vernacular and a historical context for education culture proved to be the

common ground and entry ticket for most of the interviews conducted.

A theme throughout Nancy Duarte’s work — and anthem for this study — is the importance

of “communicat[ing] from the overlap,” the common ground, when presenting a new idea to others

(Duarte 70). Her internationally renowned firm, Duarte Design Inc., helps clients craft presentations
 Rhodes 30

that resonate through the power of storytelling by combining techniques from writers, filmmakers,

musicians, designers, and other creative fields. In describing her approach, Duarte explains “people

are wired to absorb information and transform it into personal meaning that shapes their perspec-

tives. It’s the presenter’s job to know and tune into the audience’s frequency. Your message should

resonate with what’s already inside them” (ibid.). As illustrated in her Vinn diagram below (Figure

2-1), the goal of her firm is to increase the amount of connections they can have with their clients by

GOAL
Increase
SOURCE the amount RECEIVER
(PRESENTER) of common (AUDIENCE)
ground they
have with
you.

= Fact
= Emotion
= Overlap

Figure 2-1: Duarte’s Vinn Diagram. Communicating From the Overlap

aligning facts and emotions during the presentation, ensuring more common ground for buy-in and

trust. This is certainly the experience we hope to engender during DBL pitch presentations to educa-

tors (see Appendix E: DBL Presentation to Educators).

Research Methodology

The purpose of the research was to understand the pedagogical climate of Central Florida

in order to assess the viability of introducing design-based learning. The approach to the research
 Rhodes 31

is based on abductive logic. Early attempts to pursue working through curriculum issues fell on

deaf ears — the common response was akin to “it’s out of our hands.” The more feasible approach

seemed to be shifting the focus from the ‘thing’ in the hands to the hands themselves. Research

questions shifted from curriculum to teaching methods and skills. Because of the number of inter-

pretations of design-based pedagogy, as well as the diversity of applied pedagogy represented in the

sample, multiple research methods were utilized to review pertinent literature, existing practices,

identify current issues and develop speculations concerning the future adoption of design-based

learning:

• Exploratory, open-ended interviews were conducted to get a sense of the vocabulary

and culture of working with educators.

• A five minute, primarily qualitative survey was distributed via email and text, estab-

lishing a baseline and connection for a subsequent interview request.

• 15-45 minute interviews were conducted to allow the participants time to explain pain

points, reasons for adopting certain methodologies, etc.

• A two hour design thinking workshop was conducted, creating an environment

where the facilitator could observe designers and educators collaborating.

• Findings and Insights were developed through a design thinking process.

• The Common Ground Model was developed through the findings and insights.

Field research was conducted with curriculum stakeholders within the K-12 school environment,

including teachers, principals, school administrative staff, superintendents, and district staff. All field

research was conducted between January 1 and June 1, 2015. Primary research questions included:

• What learning methods are being taught at schools, and how are they being defined

by those educators?

• What were the decisions/circumstances during the transition from former learning

methods to the currently implemented methods?

 Rhodes 32

• What resources and decisions are required to sustain support for the current learning

method amongst staff and parents?

• What pain-points exist concerning the current learning method, and how are they

being addressed?

• What would be required to adopt a new learning method? To switch completely? To

merely add it to the educator’s tool bag?

A criterion-based sample of stakeholders were identified, surveyed, and interviewed, during

which the snowball-sampling method was applied to discover and introduce additional actors. The

surveys and interviews were conducted with Central Florida educators. If the actor showed enthusi-

astic response and genuine interest in the subject matter, the actor was invited to a two hour design

thinking workshop with designers and educators working in collaboration.

After conducting open-ended, exploratory interviews with a public school art teacher, special

ed teacher, and a District Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, it became clear that,

in order to maximize the resources available and increase the likelihood of adoption post-study, the

actors must be selected from charter and private schools. When compared to public schools, these

would provide a more diverse sample in terms of teaching methods and perspectives. Private school

and charter staff also proved to be the most welcoming to interviews and in sharing best practices.

In Disrupting Class, authors Christensen, Horn and Johnson reflect on first classifying charters as dis-

ruptive innovations, due to their lack of restrictions when it comes to methods and environment, but

later modified that assessment to one of “sustaining innovations, in that their intent is to do a bet-

ter job educating the same students that districts educate” (218). The schools could create what the

authors refer to as a heavyweight teams; an interdisciplinary group that has the influence to create

“new architectures of learning.” The authors then describe this heavyweight model as the most likely

to affect change in public schools (ibid).

 Rhodes 33

Field Research

A 5-min survey was developed and distributed via the snowball method to curriculum stake-

holders. It’s primary purpose was to be introduced to stakeholders and generate quantitative data.

Participants were asked to select their role as an educator and in regards to their influence over the

selection of teaching methods. They were then asked to select or enter all the teaching methods they

practice, followed by the opportunity to select all the teaching methods they would like to practice but

currently do not. These questions were multiple choice, followed by two brief form field questions

regarding why they would like to adopt the new learning method(s) and if there are currently any

barriers to their adoption.

A total of 21 surveys were completed, taking an average of 4 minutes, 29 seconds to com-

plete. The sample consisted of 9 teachers, 7 principals, 4 administrative staff members (not prin-

cipal), and a district staff member (assistant-superintendent). These 21 survey participants came

from 10 schools and 4 districts, covering a wide gamut of the Central Florida educational system: 3

public schools, 5 private schools, 2 charter schools, covering PK–5, middle and high schools, ranging

from high-achieving to failing; 76% of the participants agreed they had either ‘strong’ or ‘complete’

authority over what teaching methods were used. The top five methods implemented were, begin-

ning with the most-selected, Project-Based Learning (71%), Active Learning (62%), Collaborative

Learning (62%), Direct Instruction (57%), and Cooperative Learning (43%). The top five methods the

stakeholders would like to adopt were, beginning with the most-selected, Community/Place-Based

Learning (43%), Design-Based Learning (38%), and a three-way tie for Flipped Classroom (19%),

Problem-Based Learning (19%), and Project-Based Learning (19%). To view a sample of the survey as

originally distributed, see Appendix B; for a summary report of the survey, see Appendix C.

Eighteen interviews were conducted, ranging from 15min to an hour in length. Six inter-

views were exploratory, informal, and very early in the research process (2014). The experiences and
 Rhodes 34

opinions they shared helped shape the study in many ways: moving the research direction from cur-

riculum reform to teacher methodology; updating best practice research with boots-on-the-ground

insights and experiences; questioning and removing assumptions originally built into research ques-

tions; and giving me fly-on-the-wall observation time to experience their teaching style.

The other twelve interviews were divided amongst seven principals, three administrative staff

over curriculum, and two teachers with an interdisciplinary bent (HS and primary). These interviews

were conducted on site at two charter schools: Lake Eola Charter School (K–8) and Acclaim Acad-

emy (9–12); and five private schools: StarChild Academy (P–5), The Human Experience Orlando (7),

and the three schools of All Saints Academy (HS, MS, and primary). They offered insights across

the spectrum of pedagogy. All Saints Academy schools practice interdisciplinary curriculum in most

subjects, forms of design thinking and inquisitive learning in all grade levels, and have a highly influ-

enced Montessori-an elementary school with mixed age classrooms and peer instruction. Meanwhile,

The Human Experience Orlando is currently finishing its first year and is still determining best

practices; however, innovative and passionate leadership with an ear for differentiated instruction,

has given the students character education, game-based learning, and social & emotional learning.

The interview questions were built on the participant’s survey answers, as detailed in the

field guide (Appendix A). But the field guide was created with the notion that researching in public

schools would be an extremely time-sensitive ordeal, hence, a 5-10 minute interview that gave the

participant more time to detail their teaching style and strategy. In reality, all the participants sched-

uled at least a half hour for the interview, and all but two insisted on a tour to observe the teaching

methods in practice. The extra time allotted for additional rounds of questions, which alleviated the

need for the long form interview entirely.

Collaboration Workshop

Educators who participated in the survey and/or interview were invited to collaborate with
 Rhodes 35

designers in a two hour workshop; the goal of which was to build an environment of ‘actual’ collab-

oration between an educator and designer in order to observe the natural process. Scenario-based

exercises are solved in isolation, only bringing the creative constraints imposed by the facilitator;

they retain a ‘for example’ tone, and there is no personal concept of buy-in or real dynamics of other

actors. Actual collaborations typically begin at the understanding of constraints: the ideas, experi-

ences, resources, external agents and factors color the decisions and judgements of all participants.

The benefit is, when actors are playing themselves, they don’t have to ‘think’ about what they care

about or what they should feel; they just do. Understanding those motives and feelings in context is a

great asset to any effective model development.

Before the primary collaboration, a warm-up exercise introduced the participants to each

other, the themes of design and education overlapping, of working with the typical design thinking

tools — post-it notes, Sharpies®, and white boards — and allowed them to begin talking and think-

ing creatively almost immediately, a necessary precursor if maximum engagement is desired. After-

ward, the facilitator split the group into two teams of equal educators and designers, and led them

through brainstorming resources and pain points for the respective roles. The primary question for

them to uncover, which was verbalized in another brainstorm, was “what motivates collaboration?”...

for your role?... for the other role?

Going into the primary collaboration, the teams were able to look at a wall of overlapping

themes between educators and designers, of motivating factors, paint points, and resources. They

were then asked to legitimately begin collaborating with each other. To use existing resources,

connections, identifying what one could do at that moment within their job’s purview, as opposed to

ideas requiring massive sign-offs and accountability. During this time, the facilitator was observing

the order of decisions and responses. When the time ran out, each team presented their ideas to the

rest; then the facilitator would describe the “process” of decisions that just occurred and ask for con-

firmation from the team.

 Rhodes 36

Part III

Findings, Insights, and Opportunities for Design

As the field of education continues to envelop design best practices, what can the design

community specifically offer? Up to this point, the crossover has been primarily scholars connected

to self-produced university programs and individual design industry leaders with short-lived agendas

for their business (Davis et al. 8–9). Educators are bombarded with teaching methodologies, and are

often indoctrinated early on in their careers, holding tightly to that which they have (any) positive

experience (Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon 141–156). If there was ever a field meant to be cross-dis-

ciplinary, empathetic to the core and excited to re-purpose itself — with an emphasis on purpose —

it is design.

The field research for this study began with exploratory interviews, learning how to speak the

language of an educator. If put into question purpose format, this phase would be described as what

do they mean? Following, the survey would be described as what do they teach?, and the interviews as

why do they teach that? The workshop allowed the facilitator to observe and break down the choices

involved in the collaboration, hence, the question purpose would be how might they teach together? or

how might they collaborate? These questions served as relevance checkpoints for findings and insights.

Yes to Time Savers

The inability to allocate time as a resource to develop proficiency in a new teaching method

was a primary finding that affected nearly all interviewed educators. While this may seem common

sense, discovering what factors keep educator’s plates full revealed insights into how a solution may
 Rhodes 37

be generated. On a daily basis, most of a teacher’s schedule is dictated by mandated responsibilities

at the federal and state level. These include fully developed lesson plans and extensive assessment

documentation that may vary state to state. Marzano curriculum was adopted in Florida four years

ago, and required additional work on the teacher’s behalf to classify all documented actions into the

new framework for future teacher assessment. On a district level, certain schools had unique func-

tions, such as serving as a part of the IB (International Baccalaureate) program, or as a magnet for

the sciences or arts; both of which factored into requirements. Few schools have built in planning

periods within the daily schedule, leaving big-picture planning to off-the-clock time, the few in-ser-

vice days each semester, or up to the administration.

There is opportunity to provide design-based learning in a delivery that fits into existing

plans and captures assessment instead of requiring time-intensive documentation. Utilizing different

mediums, such as video or the portfolio assessment method developed and used by design thinking

schools, would offer a more holistic assessment and in the end, save time for the teacher.

Self-Directed Over Binary Training

Teacher training workshops and planning days are reserved for in-service days or a set

amount of required hours over a given semester. The traditional training regime brings in outside

consultants and provides a one or two-day intensive workshop experience. The training structure

has a natural bent towards classifying each action as correct or incorrect; in the right direction or the

wrong direction. This is usually the case when introducing a new learning method with a new frame-

work and grading rubric. Charter and Private schools are more flexible when it comes to training,

but the pattern of the day-to-day, or even year-to-year activities can easily overwhelm the daunting

thought of learning a new method; especially if the existing ones are perceived as successful. Hattie

reports teacher training as one of the least effective contributions from a teacher on achievement

(0.11); his data favors professional development (0.62) (Hattie 109). One of the reasons for this dis-
 Rhodes 38

parity of numbers may be the concentrated, protocol-driven nature of training, and the more open,

conceptual nature of professional development.

There is opportunity for design-based learning to have greater impact if training were based

on more conceptual, applicable methods, than training with an emphasis on the correct and incor-

rect actions of achieving a specified goal. Innovation within online education delivery, such as the

Khan Academy’s model utilizing YouTube videos, or the presentation of content within commu-

nity-monitored and organization-sponsored WIKI’s or PLC’s (professional learning communities),

would provide training through a combination of self-directed instruction and peer to peer feedback.

Administration Adoption by Alignment

The interviewed principals and administrative staff over curriculum tended to emphasis

unique school functions, not to differentiate, but to demonstrate alignment to larger communities,

networks, methods, or values. The presence of a greater purpose was evident during their explana-

tions and descriptions of the activities within their school, especially while administering a tour of

the facility and classroom culture.

There is an opportunity for design-based learning to be positioned in terms of the adminis-

trations’ vision, written into existing school culture. This is not as hard as it sounds, as design offers

many variations in method. One school might adopt the project-based learning model because it can

be assessed traditionally and remains an easier change for parents to comprehend. Another school

might experiment with peer to peer teaching, feedback, and assessment, as a way of adding 21st Cen-

tury learning without having to alter another already well-functioning learning method.

Teacher Adoption by Innovation

Innovative teachers typically think in interdisciplinary terms and are initially critical of new

ideas. They are unlikely to adopt methods or practices because they are new, but will research and
 Rhodes 39

experiment over a trial period before officially endorsing them. They often think comparatively and

in systems, aware of the larger context of each decision. The innovative teachers do not have to be

creative in the traditional sense. And as demonstrated by Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon’s research

(144), the response to experimenting with a previously um-attempted teaching method would most

likely have the best adoption curve with new teachers.

There is an opportunity to build on the open-mindedness of innovative teachers, allowing

them to become won-over by design-based learning practices and presented internally to the rest of

the school via existing structures and networks. Partnering with other innovative educators through

COINs (collaborative innovation networks) or Bioteams, even external to the school, is another way

to build support despite the existing school culture (Gloor 11–17; Thompson 4–9).

Collaboration through Overlap

The power of Duarte’s model [Figure 2-1] became evident as unfamiliar educators and teach-

ers began the process of collaborating with each other during the workshop. Beyond the typical pleas-

antries, there was a desire to know and understand the other person’s circumstances, pain points,

feelings and stories about the culture of their role. The act of collaboration is a willful commitment

to the other person, to work out a method and share resources. But the actual process of collabora-

tion, the motive behind and before the actions have been determined, is in the sharing of personal

values, goals, and experiences (see the Common Ground Model in the next section). This was evi-

denced by a shared experience two team members had in working with an apathetic personality: you

“can’t convince someone to care.” Upon reflection, this led the group down the alternate path, where

sharing what one cares about is a first step towards collaboration, a very active method of caring.

There is an opportunity for design-based learning to be adopted through relationship and col-

laboration between designers and educators. Perhaps the lack of this common ground is what caused

many of the early K-12 design programs to lose momentum after a year or two (Davis et al. 5–8).
 Rhodes 40

Common Ground Model

If there’s a common lament in Meredith Davis’ work, it’s the “overall fragmentation of the

design-based education movement, in which individual teachers labor in isolation without colleagues

who understand the benefits of such teaching, resources to support their needs, or a larger commu-

nity that shares best practices” (Davis, “Education by Design” 16; Davis, “A+DEN Conference” 2006;

Davis et al. 8). If the support hasn’t evolved in the last fifty years of K-12 design education, where

innovative teachers and professionals aren’t able to sustain their design-based learning initiatives,

then perhaps we need to look elsewhere for the necessary support.

While field research and scholarship provided supporting evidence for Davis’ claims of the

lack of a support structure, there was also considerable evidence of the intent to ‘make it work’ and

‘adapt’, as I heard often from educators at the design thinking practicing All Saints Academy. After

conducting the workshop and observing the process of collaboration between designers and educa-

tors, and reflecting on Duarte’s Vinn diagram for “Communicating through the Overlap” to promote

buy-in of ideas (Figure 2-1), it became clear there needed to be a model to express both the forwards

and backwards relationship of collaboration between the educator and designer. Online searches

found numerous models for business collaboration in detail, but they missed the cognitive process

behind the sharing or overlapping of resources; a few interpersonal models were found, but they

didn’t allow for the iterative trust-building movements and displayed a snapshot of an ideal, fully-

committed collaboration. And there was also something refreshing about the simplicity of Duarte’s

Vinn diagram: in the majority of other models, large arrows and quantities of text filled garish

objects, but in hers the main point of collaboration, the overlap, still held the visual weight. The

model below is the author’s attempt (Figure 3-1).

First, it became clear that one entity must move first, in that they adjust their own position to

better understand the position of the other. In the diagram, and in the case of adoption, the overlap

and motion will always be biased towards the educator, who resides in the context of a teacher and
 Rhodes 41

Educator Designer

Figure 3-1: Common Ground Model. Initiating Collaboration.

learner environment and is the resident education expert in the relationship. While the action of

collaboration will involve a physical sharing of resources, time and expertise, the initial collaboration

occurs within an iterative cycle between cognitive decisions to trust, increasing the common ground,

and emotional decisions to share, or look for alignment of values, goals, and experiences (Figure 3-2).

OPPORTUNITY COMMON
GROUND
Decision
to Trust
Decision to and Share
return Trust
and Share

= Values
= Goals
= Experiences
= Common Ground

Figure 3-2: Common Ground Model. Goal, Value, and Experience Alignment
 Rhodes 42

The content of what is shared in the emotional space are the values, goals, and experiences

that, when in common the other person, provide adequate motive to build a little more trust, opening

up the overlap to envelop more personal content (see Figure 3-3). The movement between the two

domains creating the overlapping area could also be seen as a indicator of increasing or decreasing

capacity for collaboration.

For example, if a 6th grade language arts teacher and a local interior designer wanted to

collaborate, this is how they might go through the model. The interior designer and teacher would

find common ground surrounding their preferences for learning methods (i.e. project-based learn-

ing, a dislike of didactic instruction delivery) and shared motives or agendas (i.e. to grow creative

confidence and opportunities within children because of a similar childhood experience with a cre-

ative teacher, to experiment with a cross-disciplinary partnership out of curiosity). Any design-based

learning would be initiated in that overlapping, relational space. It’s not physically carried out there,

but the collaboration is the result of that relational space. As the designer builds trust and experience

with the teacher, her understanding of the teacher’s other methods and motives will enable her to

enlarge the overlapping area to begin design-based learning over a greater portion of the classroom

experience. And if their commitment levels were to decrease due to life circumstances, the opposite

movement would occur in the model and their experiences, goals, and values begin dis-aligning,

As the collaboration progresses, the subjects they chose to share and the emphasis they

put on them, as well as the questions they ask, reflects their interests for common ground. Figure

3-3 connects the subject content to the trust question, leading to a trust emphasis. For instance, an

educator sharing an anecdote from vacation is also offering the common ground of what the other

person has done. Tacitly, the question and emphasis is placed on what one has done, and therefore

can do again, which brings up the notion of skills. Matching skills or desired skills to the other expe-

rience would build trust and movement towards collaboration between this educator and designer.
 Rhodes 43

Trust Subject Trust Building Question Trust Emphasis

Experiences What have you done? What can you do? (skills)

Goals What do you want to do? Why do you do? (motives)

Values What do you care about? How do you do? (priorities)

Figure 3-3: Trust Building Subject, Question, and Emphasis

The overlapping area could also be seen as the amount of collaboration that can take place

over the common ground. This is an accurate picture of the type of collaboration that would occur

— as an example — between a 6th grade language arts teacher and a local graphic designer. The

graphic designer and teacher would connect over a few preferred learning method (i.e. project-based

learning, a dislike of didactic instruction delivery) and shared motives or agendas (i.e. to grow cre-

ative confidence and opportunities within children because of a similar childhood experience with

a creative teacher, to experiment with a cross-disciplinary partnership out of curiosity). Any design-

based learning would be initiated in that overlapping space. As the designer builds trust and experi-

ence with the teacher, her understanding of the teacher’s other methods and motives will enable her

to grow the overlapping area to begin design-based learning over a greater portion of the classroom

experience.
 Rhodes 44

Part IV

Challenges to Integration

Teacher Methods and Mentalities

The biggest moderator affecting student achievement is the teacher. Poor presentation and

interaction will spoil even the most perfectly structured curricula. The transference of knowledge

and the alchemy of cognitive synthesis and meta-cognitive processes into applicable content takes

place because of the teacher; in-class casual assessments, instructional pace, classroom management

and a safe environment for feedback are essential… summarize model for good teaching < use Bish-

op’s model of teaching here? > But what happens when the teacher is not successful in presenting

the content? Or prefers a less effective teaching style that allows too little time to adequately chal-

lenge the student’s skill set?

Changing or Switching a teacher’s instruction style is a difficult task. Hattie reports teachers

are generally not swayed by research (p. 2-3). When describing the perspective of a typical first year

American teacher, Widen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon describes a dedicated woman already on a peda-

gogical bent, “aim[ing] to become more skillful at defending the perspective she already possesses”

(Widen, et al, 1998, via Hattie, 2009). Teacher training programs rank among the lowest in terms of

effectiveness on his student achievement index (Hattie 109). Professional Development, while effec-

tive in improving the teacher’s overall knowledge and style, also proved to be one of the less-effective

strategies regarding student learning (Hattie 119-120).

The purpose of this paper is not to promote design-based learning as a panacea, replacing

all other methods. It is not the only method to procure C21S. Other learning methods are effective.
 Rhodes 45

But as Hattie has illustrated in his synthesis of meta-analyses, it’s not a matter of whether a learning

method is effective or not; they all promote student achievement. The question is which learning

methods are most effective? “When teachers claim that they are having a positive effect on achieve-

ment or when a policy improves achievement this is almost a trivial claim: virtually everything works.

One only needs a pulse and we can improve achievement” (16). Yet there is something to be said

for the power of interventions. Innovative teachers create innovative learners. Whatever teaching

method used, when a teacher implements an intervention, the positive effects can increase dramati-

cally (Hattie 251). Perhaps this is the right time to dip your toe in the waters of design-based learning.

Standing Strong

For those educators looking for support in design-based education, or for materials to convince oth-

ers of its benefits, remember this:

Adopting any innovation means discontinuing the use of a familiar practice... New and rev-

olutionary ideas in teaching will tend to be “resisted rather than welcomed with open arms,

because every successful teacher has a vested intellectual, social, and even financial interest

in maintaining the status quo. If every revolutionary new idea were welcomed with open

arms, utter chaos would be the result” (Cohen, 1985, p. 35). We have an uphill task (qtd in

Hattie 252).
 Rhodes 46

Part V

Concluding Thoughts

For educators, utilizing design-based learning as a supplementary teaching method is pos-

sible. This might be done through collaboration with a local designer, or through an online network

or COIN to discover best practices, receive feedback, and get the support necessary to sustain the

method. Teaching with DBL will deliver rich, interdisciplinary-focused content for learners, promot-

ing the growth of lifelong skills and key competencies.

For designers, teaching design-principles and learning methods can be a form of professional

maturation, giving credence to the old saying, ‘you don’t really understand something until you teach

it.’ The more children are taught design principles early on the more will want to continue pursuing

it as a career. It’s also an opportunity to demonstrate care and interest in one’s community, and that

design is meaningful and has value in understanding the world beyond products and advertising.

This emphasis on design will drive more studies on design and promote faster adoption of design-

based learning strategies.

Teaching design-based learning is an opportunity for designers and educators to inspire chil-

dren to engage in learning. To open their eyes to seeing world with a new lens, not just critically, but

with a proactive lens for adapting to and designing in the new world.
 Rhodes 47

Appendix A

Research Field Guide

An ethnographic strategy prepared February 22, 2015 for SCAD Thesis Committee.

Overview ......................................................................................................................... 48

Introduction ................................................................................................................... 48

Primary Research Question .......................................................................................... 49

Project Goals & Objectives ............................................................................................ 50

Research Method ........................................................................................................... 50

5 Minute Survey ........................................................................................................... 52

5-10 Minute Interview ................................................................................................ 55

45-75 Minute Interview ............................................................................................. 57

3 Hour Workshop ......................................................................................................... 60

Consent Form ................................................................................................................ 63

 Rhodes 48

Overview

INTRODUCTION

Around the world, governments have acknowledged the importance of realigning school
curriculum to meet the needs of the 21st Century, such as the United States’ Common
Core adoption. The public education system in America was largely built on the needs
of a newly industrialized society from the 1900’s: a time when memorization and the
comprehension of knowledge were paramount. A century later, it is the accessibility and
application of such knowledge that is required. The Partnership for 21st Century skills
and the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills Program have identified skill sets
students need to succeed this century, and design-based pedagogy instills many of them.

To borrow from Meredith Davis’ work, design—or more specifically, Design-Based

Learning—is a “mode of inquiry that engages a variety of student learning styles and
makes direct connections between school subjects and problem solving in daily life”
(Davis 1). Some of the aforementioned learning styles are direct adaptations of design-
thinking; others are descendants of John Dewey’s experiential, constructivist work.
Whether reactions to current circumstances, as with the Maker Movement, or the
discovery of the flipped classroom through blended learning, design has proven it’s
viability and versatility in developing students for the 21st century.

However, most K-12 schools still retain the trappings of old pedagogy, including the
majority of Central Florida schools. But the decision-makers over curriculum adoption
can not be forced into a quick shift of focus without a government mandate. Similar to
Vygotski’s Zone of Temperamental Development and the scaffolding practices commonly
built into K-12 curriculum, only limited amounts of cognitive dissonance are tolerable
when developing a new skill. If one extrapolated this to the stakeholder’s decision
to adopt new curricula, only incremental movements towards the new direction are
successful. The research in this study will illustrate the factors and biases involved in a
stakeholder’s decision to adopt design-based curriculum.
 Rhodes 49

PRIMARY RESEARCH QUESTION

What are the obstacles K-12 schools face to adopting design-based curricula, and how
might they be mitigated or circumvented?

or placing the emphasis on the stakeholders:

What are the obstacles K-12 curriculum stakeholders face to adopting design-based
curricula, and how might they be mitigated or circumvented?

DEFINITIONS

design-based pedagogy — the term I am using to represent various pedagogical methods

utilizing collaborative, multi-disciplinary, layered processes to solve problems with
an emphasis on reflection and feedback. This includes Collaborative Learning, Design
Thinking, Maker Education, Project-Based Learning, and some applications of Active
Learning, Flipped Classroom, Game-Based Learning, Inquiry-Based Learning, and
Service Learning.

design-based curriculum — the term I am using to represent any curriculum created to be

utilized with design-based pedagogy.

stakeholders — those with influence and/or decision power to adopt or deny K-12
curriculum.

HYPOTHESIS

Design-based curricula could be introduced through various “part-time” methods—i.e.

design thinking 0.5—whereby the tenets are inserted into curriculum via half-measures
and extensions developed by “full-time” practitioners, circumventing current obstacles to
their adoption within an individual school or greater system.
 Rhodes 50

PROJECT GOALS & OBJECTIVES

The various forms of design-based pedagogy are excellent methods to instill and develop
many 21st Century skills. Their adoption into school curricula is determined by various
stakeholders with various perspectives and influences.

The objective of the research is to understand stakeholder behaviors, pain-points and

un-met needs, and identify influencing factors within the K-12 curriculum adoption
process. Procured through ethnographic research methods, this information will be
transferred to actionable insights that guide the creation of proposals and resource
guides to aid stakeholders desiring to adopt design-based curricula.

The sample will cover a gamut of school classifications (traditional public/charter/

magnet/private/title I), age ranges (elementary/middle/high), and perspectives towards
design-based curricula (practitioner/non-practitioner, open to exploring curricula shift/
non-practitioner, not open to exploring curricula shift).

Ideally, 30+ surveys and 15+ interviews from curricula decision-makers (principals/
asst-principals or other staff member in charge of curriculum/superintendent/other
staff member in charge of curriculum) will be synthesized. All surveyed and interviewed
educators will be from the Central Florida region.

RESEARCH METHOD

The approach to the research is based on abductive logic. It involves an investigation of

the activities and influencing factors of K-12 curriculum exploration and adoption.

Because of the lack of published scholarship surrounding obstacles to the adoption of

design-based curriculum, the number of interpretations of design-based pedagogy, as
well as the diversity of applied pedagogy represented in the sample, multiple research
methods will be utilized to review pertinent literature, existing practices, identify
current issues and develop speculations concerning the future adoption of design-based
curriculum.

A criterion-based sample of K-12 curriculum decision-makers (stakeholders) will be

identified, surveyed, and interviewed, during which the snowball-sampling method will
be applied to discover and introduce additional actors.
 Rhodes 51

A five minute, quantitative online survey will be emailed to stakeholders; the notes from
which are synthesized into initial insights. The stakeholders are then asked to participate
in a 5–10 minute, qualitative phone interview. Combined with the survey results, interim
findings and proposals will be generated, and a final 45–75 minute ethnographic, in-
office interview and 3 hour facilitated creative workshop will be designed and offered to
the stakeholders.

Advising the project, and giving feedback throughout the process, will be a thesis
committee comprised of SCAD faculty and advising experts in the fields of education
and design thinking (referenced in the appendices). Interview notes, research notes, and
work-in-progress will be shared via a digital drive.
 Rhodes 52

5 Minute Survey

INTENT

To be introduced to stakeholders. The brevity and quantitative format of questions will

engender a large sample from which to pursue further interviews.

INTRODUCTORY EMAIL

Subject: Hi [stakeholder], [snowball actor] said I should contact you.

Hi [stakeholder],
I’m working on my thesis with the Savannah College of Art & Design regarding
instruction-design in the K-12 environment. As a future teacher, parent, and professional
designer for over a decade, I was hoping you’d be willing to take a quick, 5 minute survey
regarding your role and perspective with [school name]’s curricula planning.

< surveyMonkey link >

Thanks for your time,

Kirk

SURVEY QUESTIONS

1 What is your role within Education?

[ ] teacher
[ ] school principal
[ ] school administration staff (not principle)
[ ] district superintendent
[ ] district staff (not superintendent)
 Rhodes 53

2 To what extent are you able to determine what teaching methods are used in the
classroom(s)?
[ ] I have no influence in determining what teaching methods are used
[ ] I have some influence in determining what teaching methods are used
[ ] I have strong influence in determining what teaching methods are used
[ ] I have complete authority to determine what teaching methods are used

3 Which learning and teaching methods do you currently practice/endorse: (check all
that apply)
[ ] Active Learning
Through methods of participation, students become responsible for their learning.
[ ] Blended Learning
Learning occurs through a combination of traditional and digital mediums.
[ ] Character Education
Students are prepared for life via the development of desired character traits.
[ ] Collaborative Learning
Teacher-facilitated learning within the social interplay of students sharing skills and resources.
[ ] Community/Place-Based Learning
Learning via understanding and solving local community problems.
[ ] Constructivist Learning
Students are actively engaged in building meaning and knowledge as they experience teaching.
[ ] Cooperative Learning
Teacher-directed interactions between students sharing skills and resources.
[ ] Design-Thinking
Problem-solving process emphasizing empathy, prototyping, and iteration.
[ ] Design-Based Learning
Using design methods to make connections between school subjects and problem solving in daily life.
[ ] Differentiated Learning
Offering different students different instruction to fit their learning needs.
[ ] Direct Instruction
Teacher directs learning by communicating succes criteria, modeling, practice, evaluations, and closure.
[ ] Flipped Classroom
Instruction occurs at home, typically through video; classrooms are for practical work and tutoring.
[ ] Game-Based Learning
Instruction via educational games that reinforce concepts and teach skills.
[ ] Inquiry-Based Learning
Observing and questioning phenomena, developing explanations and experiments to understand material.
[ ] Maker Education
Learning via construction projects within sharing, social environments.
[ ] Montessori Method
Lessons are planned around Montessori’s developmental model and materials.
[ ] Problem-Based Learning
Teacher-facilitaed lessons surrounding investigating and solving a problem.
 Rhodes 54

[ ] Project-Based Learning
Learning by working on projects, often long-term and in small groups.
[ ] Social & Emotional Learning
Learning by emphasizing positive, supportive, empathetic relationships, and developing responsibility.
[ ] Other : ______________________________

4 Which learning and teaching methods would you like to practice/endorse in the
classroom(s) that are not currently adopted? (check all that apply)
[ ] Active Learning
[ ] Blended Learning
[ ] Character Education
[ ] Collaborative Learning
[ ] Community/Place-Based Learning
[ ] Constructivist Learning
[ ] Cooperative Learning
[ ] Design Thinking
[ ] Design-Based Learning
[ ] Differentiated Learning
[ ] Direct Instruction
[ ] Flipped Classroom
[ ] Game-Based Learning
[ ] Inquiry-Based Learning
[ ] Maker Education
[ ] Montessori Method
[ ] Problem-Based Learning
[ ] Project-Based Learning
[ ] Social & Emotional Learning
[ ] Other : ______________________________

5 Why would you like to practice/adopt these teaching methods?

6 Do you see any barriers to practicing/adopting them?

 Rhodes 55

5–10 Minute Interview

Contact Form

[Name]
[Title]
[School/Organization]

* Your name will not be published in any way, and is for research purposes only. Your title
and your school or organization will remain unrelated to each other and only generally
referenced in summary statistics.

AUTO-COMPLETION MESSAGE

Thank you!

To allow me to use your results in my study, would you kindly sign and return this
consent form?

<download link>

It can be emailed to kirk.rhodes@gmail.com, or if you prefer, I’d be happy to stop by and

pick it up. Your contribution means a great deal to me!

Kirk

INTENT

To continue a relationship with the stakeholders, and increasing their willingness to

participate in additional research. The brevity of the interview will demonstrate my
concern for protecting their time, as well as help me gather a larger sample than a 15-20
minute time request would have. The qualitative format of questions will demonstrate
my personal interest in their experience. Combined with the survey results, interim
findings and proposals will be generated.
 Rhodes 56

EMAIL THANK YOU AND REQUEST

Subject: Thanks again [stakeholder], your scores are ready...

Hi [stakeholder],
I really appreciate the time you took to complete my survey, and I’m totally kidding
about the scores! The information you provided will be very helpful to my research, and
it sounded like you had more experiences than space I provided. Would you be willing to
have a quick 5-10 min. phone interview with me? I’d love to find out a little more about
[barrier mentioned in survey question 6]. My schedule is pretty flexible, so I should be
able to talk whenever you’re available.

Thanks,
Kirk

SHORT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1 In the survey, you identified [method(s) chosen in survey question 3] as the

learning method [name of school or district] practices. How do you define
that method?
2 Tell me the story of how [method] entered [school/district]... Who was involved
in that decision? What were the factors that led to the decision? Were you a
part of it? What factors influenced you? What method existed before?

3 What resources are required to initiate, motivate, and train those unfamiliar
with [method]? What obstacles have you encountered? How have you
handled them?

4 You mentioned you would like to practice/adopt [method(s) identified in

survey question 4] within [school/district]. Could you expound on that a bit?
What are your motivating factors?

5 What would have to change to give you the freedom to make that decision (to
adopt the desired method)?
 Rhodes 57

45–75 Minute Interview

THANK YOU MESSAGE AND INVITE

Thank you so much for your time [stakeholder]!

Would you be interested in workshopping with a few other principals and district-level
staff to discover some potential in-roads to curriculum transitions?

-or-

Would you be interested in sharing a little more of your story? I felt like we didn’t have
enough time to get in to [scenario mentioned in interview]. Would you open to another
conversation?

-or-

I’m fascinated by [scenario mentioned in interview]. Would you be willing to let me come
by and observe a class, and maybe ask you a few follow-up questions?

Kirk

INTENT

To understand the unique circumstances, responsibilities, authority, and function each

stakeholder has within their organization, and the Central Florida educational system
as a whole. To gather detailed accounts of pedagogical transitions with which to fuel the
workshop and potential/proposed solutions. These ethnographic interviews will be given
in the stakeholder’s office or work environment.
 Rhodes 58

SORTING BY SURVEY RESULTS

To provide deeper insights, the long-form interview questions will be determined by

the pedagogical experience the subjects identified in survey question #3. If the subject
selected one or more of the following methods, she is interviewed with the Design-
Practicing set of questions:
— Collaborative Learning
— Design Thinking
— Maker Education
— Project-Based Learning

If the subject selected one or more of the following methods, but none of those
mentioned as requirements for the Design-Practicing set above, she is interviewed with
the Design-Familiar set of questions:
— Active Learning
— Flipped Classroom
— Game-Based Learning
— Inquiry-Based Learning
— Service Learning

If the subject selected none of the methods required for either the Design-Practicing or
Design-Familiar question sets, she is interviewed with the Design-Unfamiliar question
set.

DESIGN-PRACTICING QUESTION SET

These questions will be created once I have determined who among the Design-
Practicing group is going to be interviewed. I am looking for stories and processes
regarding the overcoming of obstacles to approving, preparing, introducing, adopting,
and training those involved in the design-based pedagogy. I will also focus on the
stakeholder’s relationship to other schools in their network, district, and county.
 Rhodes 59

DESIGN-FAMILIAR QUESTION SET

These questions will be created once I have determined who among the Design-Familiar
group is going to be interviewed. I am looking for stories and processes regarding the
discovery, sequence of decisions, and transition of these potentially design-based
pedagogies. I will also focus on the stakeholder’s relationship to other schools in their
network, district, and county.

DESIGN-UNFAMILIAR QUESTION SET

These questions will be created once I have determined who among the Design-
Unfamiliar group is going to be interviewed. I am looking for stories and best practices
regarding stakeholders wielding their influence and power as curriculum decision-
makers, and the motives that drive this set of leaders that has—for whatever reason—
elected not to pursue design-based pedagogy. I will also focus on the stakeholder’s
relationship to other schools in their network, district,
and county.
 Rhodes 60

3 Hour Workshop

Motivating Collaboration between

Educators and Designers

Kirk Rhodes, Facilitator

The Warehouse | 1700 Brookhaven Ln. 32803
2:00–4:00pm

Warm-Up Activity (25 min)

“Role Playing”

This warm-up activity begins to open the box for lateral thinking, finding themes in common between
the fields of education and design. By self-identifying as something other than a name or job title/role,
the participants provide insight into the differing perspectives brought to the table.

2:00 pm The Facilitator briefly explains the benefits of creative workshops, assessing who
has experienced design thinking workshops or educator/designer collaboration, and
asking if anyone would offer any expectations in a few words.

2:05 pm Facilitator asks participants to think of themes or elements in common between

education and design. The group determines the most basic or primary of the
themes and establishes an icon to express it visually.

2:09 pm Facilitator gives each participants a sticky note of the same color, and asks them
to, without showing anyone else, sketch a visual representation of their role,
implementing the agreed upon icon in some way.
 Rhodes 61

2:12 pm The facilitator collects the sticky notes, posts them on a white board, and selects
a participant to chose a sticky — not their own — and describe what they think
it means to the rest of the group and guess who drew it. The facilitator then asks
the actual author of the sketch to reveal themselves and respond to the other
participant’s explanation, filling in any gaps of meaning. This will continue with the
other participants until all “roles’ have been explained through the common theme.

Emphathetic Listening Activity (45 min)

“Motivations, Pain Points, & Resources”

This brainstorming and listening activity provides the participants an opportunity to quickly gather
empathy for the other role (educator/designer) and begin thinking of collaboration opportunities.

2:25 pm The facilitator asks the participants to select their own color of sticky notes and
pen to identify their thoughts and comments. The facilitator then leads the group in
brainstorming motivations each role would have for collaborating with others. Upon
completition, there will be four lists of motives answering the following questions:
(1) Why would a teacher collaborate with another teacher? (2) Why would a teacher
collaborate with a designer? (3) Why would a designer collaborate with another
designer? (4) Why would a designer collaborate with a teacher?

2:40 pm The facilitator asks the teachers to express ‘pain points’ they have within their
profession, allowing them to explain or answer questions from others in the group.
The facilitator then does the same for the designers, finishing with two lists.

2:55 pm The facilitator leads the participants in identifying possible resources educators
have, including access to others. The facilitator does the same in a separate list for
designers. Upon completion, there will be an inventory of resources for each role.
The facilitator then takes the lists generated from each portion of the emphathetic
listening activity and posts them in an area visible to everyone in the group.
 Rhodes 62

Collaborative Planning Activity (25 min)

“Let’s Do This!”

Building on the motivations, pain points, and resources discovered by the group, this activity invites
actual collaboration from the participants. As opposed to imagining the collaboration, or what might
work out between a given school and creative agency in the future, the participants will plan on what is
possible at that moment between the two of them; with existing motivations, pain points, and resources.

3:10 pm The facilitator pairs each educator with a designer, and explains the purpose of the
exercise, emphasizing actual collaboration in the moment with whatever resources
are currently at the participants disposal (not potential). The participant gives each
pair a poster-sized sticky note to record their thoughts and plans.

During the activity, the facilitator moves from group to group, observing and taking
notes on the process of discovery and response between the participants.

Wrap-Up Activity (25 min)

“Presentation & Feedback”

Presenting the plan between each educator and designer requires the participants to establish a hierarchy
of information, identifying main points and action steps, and perhaps discarding unuseful information.
By allowing them to hear immediate feedback from their peers gives them a chanceto re-evaluate their
plan and respond. The process is a summary execution, which will have the participants leaving with a
sense of clarity and energy towards the purpose of the workshop.

3:35 pm The facilitator directs each pair in turn to present their plan in 5 minutes or less.
Afterwards, the other members will provide their feedback.

4:00 pm Workshop end.

 Rhodes 63

Design-Based Learning Strategies:

What We Can Learn From Florida K-12 Schools.
The following information provides an introduction to field research that will be conducted with curriculum determining
stakeholders within the K-12 school environment, including principals, school administrative staff, superintendents, and
district staff. All field research will be conducted between January 1 and June 1, 2015, by Kirk Rhodes, Graphic Design graduate
student at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

RESEARCHER BIO
Kirk Rhodes is a art director and graphic designer, and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design with the
expected completion of June 2015.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to understand the pedagogical climate of Central Florida in order to assess the viability of
introducing design-based curriculum. The information collected will be shared with SCAD students and professors and
potentially published in design publications.

PRIMARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• What learning methods are being taught at schools, and how are they being defined by those educators?
• What were the decisions/circumstances during the transition from former learning methods to the currently
implemented methods?
• What resources and decisions are required to sustain support for the current learning method amongst staff and
parents?
• What pain-points exist concerning the current learning method, and how are they being addressed?
• What would be required to adopt a new learning method? To switch completely? To merely add it to the
educator’s toolbag?

METHODOLOGY
Uncovering the context of pedagogical decisions and the support necessary for these learning methods will require qualitative
research using ethnographic methods. The secondary and primary research gathered from the methods will be used to
assess the viability of introducing design-based curriculum within Central Florida schools.

DATA MANAGEMENT
• Participants will have the option for the researcher to anonymize their data prior to sharing the body of work.
• Data will be stored securely for no more than one year.

CONTACT INFORMATION
This project is being conducted through the Graphic Design program at the Savannah College of Art and Design. For
additional information please contact Jason Fox., Program Chair at jfox@scad.edu.

Kirk D. Rhodes 407-267-4340 krhode20@student.scad.edu or kirk.rhodes@gmail.com

 Rhodes 64

Design-Based Learning Strategies:

What We Can Learn From Florida K-12 Schools.

INFORMED CONSENT FORM

I voluntarily agree to participate in an interview/inquiry performed by Kirk D. Rhodes, a student at
the Savannah College of Art and Design. I understand that this interview/inquiry is being conducted
in order to to understand the pedagogical climate of Central Florida in order to assess the viability of
introducing design-based curriculum.

I understand that the evaluation methods may include:
1 Recorded (audio, video and/or photographic) observations
2 My completion of an evaluation questionnaire(s)
3 My participation in a 45–75 minute interview and/or
4 My participation in a 3 hour creative workshop

I am open to corresponding with Kirk D. Rhodes—via email or telephone—if he should have any
questions concerning the submittal.

I grant permission for the interview/inquiry to be recorded and transcribed, and to be used only by Kirk
D. Rhodes for analysis of interview data. I grant permission for this data—generated from the above
methods—to be used in an educational setting.

You may check here for anonymity in the project’s reportings. Your name will be
altered, and your title and school will not be referenced together, but generally to
demonstrate sample size.

____________________________________ _____________________________________
Printed Name Signature

_______________________________________
Date
 Rhodes 65

Appendix B

List of Research Images, Charts, and Tables

I. Figure B-1 Devices vs Unique visits from Learning Methods Survey. 66

II. Figure B-2 Summary report from Learning Methods Survey. 66

III. Figure B-3 Detailed report from Learning Methods Survey. 67

IV. Figure B-4 A designer and educator collaborate during the “Let’s Do This!” portion 69

of the workshop.

V. Figure B-5 A new school principal and designer discuss ways to bring new creative 69

opportunities to the students.

VI. Figure B-6 Participants used the walls to brainstorm, iterating ideas and lists as fast as 70

possible to give the others in the room a lot of content to draw on.

VII. Figure B-7 The results of the workshop. 70

 Rhodes 66

Charts and Reports from Survey, 1 March—21 May 2015.

Fig. B-1: Devices vs Unique visits from Learning Methods Survey. Source: Rhodes, Kirk. “Learning Methods
Survey”. Typeform. Web. 21 May 2015. <www.typeform.com>

Fig. B-2: Summary report from Learning Methods Survey. Note: a few of the surveys were conducted during
the interview, where the author entered the answers on his computer. Hence, there are fewer unique users than
the total number of responses. Source: Rhodes, Kirk. “Learning Methods Survey”. Typeform. Web. 21 May 2015.
<www.typeform.com>
 Rhodes 67

5/23/2015 General Report - Learning Method Survey

What is your role within education?
13 out of 13 people answered this question

1 Teacher 7 / 54%

2 Principal 4 / 31%

3 District Staff (not Superintendent) 1 / 8%

4 Staff (not Teacher or Principal) 1 / 8%

5 District Superintendent 0 / 0%

To what extent are you able to determine what teaching methods are used in the classroom?
13 out of 13 people answered this question

1 I have strong influence in determining what teaching methods are used. 7 / 54%

2 I have complete authority to determine what teaching methods are used. 4 / 31%

3 I have no influence in determining what teaching methods are used. 2 / 15%

4 I have some influence in determining what teaching methods are used. 0 / 0%

Which learning and teaching methods do you currently practice/endorse?
13 out of 13 people answered this question

1 Direct Instruction 11 / 85%

2 Active Learning 9 / 69%

3 Collaborative Learning 9 / 69%

4 Cooperative Learning 8 / 62%

5 Differentiated Learning 8 / 62%

6 Project­Based Learning 8 / 62%

7 Flipped Classroom 6 / 46%

8 Blended Learning 5 / 38%

9 Character Education 5 / 38%

https://kirk13.typeform.com/report/YijysW/VZmM?typeform-print=1&typeform-cache=0 1/2
Fig. B-3: Detailed Report from Learning Methods Survey. Source: Rhodes, Kirk. “Learning Methods
Survey”. Typeform. Web. 23 May 2015. <www.typeform.com>
 Rhodes 68

5/23/2015 General Report - Learning Method Survey

10 Game­Based Learning 5 / 38%

11 Inquiry­Based Learning 3 / 23%

12 Community / Place­Based Learning 2 / 15%

13 Constructivist Learning 2 / 15%

14 Problem­Based Learning 2 / 15%

●●● Other 4 / 31%

Which learning and teaching methods would you like to practice/endorse that are not currently adopted?
13 out of 13 people answered this question

1 Community / Place­Based Learning 5 / 38%

2 Problem­Based Learning 4 / 31%

3 Character Education 3 / 23%

4 Flipped Classroom 3 / 23%

5 Project­Based Learning 3 / 23%

6 Blended Learning 2 / 15%

7 Collaborative Learning 2 / 15%

8 Constructivist Learning 2 / 15%

9 Design­Thinking 2 / 15%

10 Inquiry­Based Learning 2 / 15%

11 Maker Education 2 / 15%

12 Active Learning 1 / 8%

13 Cooperative Learning 1 / 8%

14 Design­Based Learning 1 / 8%

●●● Other 6 / 46%

https://kirk13.typeform.com/report/YijysW/VZmM?typeform-print=1&typeform-cache=0 2/2
Fig. B-3 cont’d: Detailed Report from Learning Methods Survey. Source: Rhodes, Kirk. “Learning Methods
Survey”. Typeform. Web. 23 May 2015. <www.typeform.com>
 Rhodes 69

Photos from Workshop, 23 May 2015.

Fig. B-4: A designer and educator collaborate during the “Let’s Do This!” portion of the workshop. Source:
Rhodes, Kirk. Photo. 23 May 2015.

Fig. B-5: A new school principal and designer discuss ways to bring new creative opportunities to the
students. Source: Rhodes, Kirk. Photo. 23 May 2015.
 Rhodes 70

Photos from Workshop, 23 May 2015.

Fig. B-6: Participants used the walls to brainstorm, iterating ideas and lists as fast as possible to give the
others in the room a lot of content to draw on. Source: Rhodes, Kirk. Photo. 23 May 2015.

Fig. B-7: The results of the workshop. Source: Rhodes, Kirk. Photo. 23 May 2015.
 Rhodes 71

Appendix C

Design-Based Learning Presentation

A slideshare presentation, advocating for the adoption of design-based learning in K-12 schools.

Why
every school
should offer
design-based
education.

Kirk Rhodes
M AY 2 3 , 2 0 1 5

slideshare.net/KirkRhodes/offer-designbasededucation
 Rhodes 72

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