Human Centered Design
Yesterday, I started The Course for Human-Centered Design by @IDEOorg & @plusacumen #AcumenHCD. Just as I was about to start my course readings at Starbucks, I chatted up one of the folks I had previously sat next to (during one of my many work sessions) at this location. Come to find out, (and because I'm always mistaken for a college student, too, and I thought he was studying for school all along) -- he was actually a high school math teacher at Rialto High School. I was pleasantly surprised and delighted. I just recently started tutoring at my Alma Mater and I, now more than ever, knew the patience and dedication it took to teach math--or any other subject on that level, and I wanted him to know how much I appreciated him.
My HCD course teammate (s/o Kristine!) and I had our sights set to focus on education for the next few weeks, so I thought I'd practice my interviewing skills with my new comrade, Vinh. I asked him how he tackled the challenge of making Algebra (quite essentially the building block of further learning and applications for math and science courses) appealing and engaging in a time of high tech usage and diminishing attention levels - like, how do you make it fun now???? (side inquiry: what were our distractions in high school?). My new friend, Vinh, cracked a smile and pulled out a deck of custom Pokemon cards, but these weren't just any Pokemon cards--
This young man created his own version of the Pokemon trading card game for his math classes. I didn't collect Pokemon cards growing up (a different generation I think), but I did download the Pokemon Go app a year ago -- so I knew the premise of the game. During one of his classes, he would hand out a card to each student and they had to solve the problem on the accompanying card-- but the overall goal was to catch all the Pokemon, engage with their classmates and answer all of the problems on the individual cards by the end of the period. Cool, huh?
And what an interesting display of synchronicity! A few moments later, after his demonstration, I dove into my course reading and was introduced to the definition of Human-Centered Design:
Bam! It hit me as I was reading -- Vinh's Pokemon card game was a clear example of Human-Centered Design, without him or anyone else pursuing it, (but I am claiming it for him and for all teachers and practitioners who are applying this creativity in the classroom every day!). He kept his students at the center of this design -- applying what they already knew or practiced in the playground or at home -- directly into the classroom. It was as simple as that. Human Centered Design isn't something new-- it surrounds us every day, and it ultimately, puts others above everything else. To discover its magic, all I had to do was strike up a conversation with my neighbor and recognize the brilliance of a thoughtful design. I was-- am pumped! And now I'm thinking of other ways (help me!) to find similar solutions to other disciplines and issues (and I'm sure I will, we will, and talk them into detail as time passes in this course and because, social innovation *ahem*). So, if you'll excuse me- and until then, I'm out--because I GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL! (muhaahaha)