First experiment with un–obtrusive recording of student personal state descriptors

Follow-up to Personal state descriptors for case studies from Inspires Learning - Robert O'Toole

The method previously described has now been tested in a 3 hour session. The aim, to reiterate, is to track changes in the emotional, physical, intellectual and social states of the students (self-reported) at key points - for example, when moving from one spatial configuration to another.

My first experiment aimed simply to test whether the approach is sufficiently un-obtrusive. I haven't really considered the effectiveness of the set of decriptors that I am working with.

At three key points during the session, as we moved between different phases of the session and different seating arrangements, each student selected from a list of words plotted on an A4 sheet and organised into a quick-to-scan concept map. This worked well. The students were happy to complete the forms, despite being engaged in an interesting and challenging activity. I have now compiled the results. They are quite uniform, as the session was not very diverse. However, there are some interesting patterns to spot. The students found the location, the Teaching Grid, to be comfortable throughout.

Robert O'Toole : 27 Jul 2009 14:56 |  Tags: Implementation Methodology |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Scarcity, inventiveness, cross–pollination, design thinking & pedagogy

In chapter 3 of The Ten Faces of Innovation¹, IDEO's Tom Kelley describes an impressive case in which a Nigerian innovator, Bah Abba, had used simple local materials to create an effective evaporation-cooled food storage system. For Kelley, this is more than just a case of overcoming adversity. It demonstrates a particular character from the "design thinking" ensemble: the cross-pollinator. Bah Abba was able to combine disparate elements readily available in the local environment, into an unforeseen combination. The cross-pollinator is particularly important and effective when operating under difficult conditions. In fact, scarcity is the force that drives the cross-pollinator:

There's a principle at work here that we would all do well to respect. Sometimes a lack of resources and tools can prove to be the spark that helps you to seek out and make new connections. It goes beyond the idea that "necessity is the mother of invention." Scarcity and tough constraints force you to break new ground because the "business as usual" path is simply not available. (Kelley & Littman p.78)

What does this mean for learning space design? In his article on Design Thinking², Tim Brown (also from IDEO) describes how prototyping is an essential part of innovation. This activity takes place in what Brown calls ideation space. Following the IDEO approach, an ideation space is a controlled and safe zone for experimentation, cushioned from the complexities and immediacies of the outside world (it sits alongside two other types of space: inspiration space where the disruptive exigencies of real situations are encountered, and implementation space where we build products to be shipped out and used by real people in real situations). When constructing an ideation space, perhaps we need to embrace scarcity: start with as little as possible: just enough inspiration, just enough cross-pollination. And then add new elements only when necessity drives us back to the inspiration space.

In practical terms, there are some simple implications for pedagogy:

1. Make it clear that the students are working in a limited, constrained space.
   
2. Limit the number of ideas and example that can be thrown into the mix.
3. Keep the design teams small.
4. Use lo-fi prototyping.
5. Switch off the internet.
   
6. Use constrained formats (posters, elevator pitches, short films) within ideation processes, so as to concentrate thinking upon the key elements of a problem.
7. Allow the students to go out for inspiration when necessary, but limit what they can bring back with them.
   

When teaching e-portfolio design to the IDCM MA students, the biggest challenge is to get them to understand and operate within the constraints of the available tools: they tend to behave like hyper active cross-pollinators. Next term I will try to use these approaches to get them more focused and more realistic.

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¹Kelley, T. & Littman, J. The Ten Faces of Innovation: Strategies for Heightening Creativity, Profile Books, 2008
²Brown, T. Design Thinking, Harvard Business Review, June 2008.

Robert O'Toole : 27 Jul 2009 07:21 |  Tags: Design Methods Design Thinking Inspiration |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Do you have any phones that make phone calls?

“Do you have any phones that make phone calls?” Too often, in their eagerness to layer on additional functionality, developers lose sight of the product’s basic function—the one thing it must do extremely well. ¹

A team of marketing and business researchers from the University of Maryland have investigated the familiar phenomena of "feature fatigue": how products often become unusable as an increasing number of features are added to make them a more attractive purchase.

This is a useful concept in understanding how user-configurable learning spaces could inhibit learners. The experiments undertaken by the researchers (with undergraduate students) demonstrated how the problem, results from a deficiency in the consumer's ability to envisage the usability of the product before they purchase, combined with uncertainty about the cases in which the product will actually be used:

Before use, capability mattered more to the participants than usability, but after use, usability drove satisfaction rates. As a result, satisfaction was higher with the simpler version of the product, and in a complete reversal from the earlier studies, the high-feature model was now rejected by most participants.

The answer then is to help the consumer to understand and prioritise their needs, and to then envisage the connection between needs, features and usability. There are well tried methods:

To help consumers learn which products best suit their needs, managers should consider designing decision aids, such as recommendation agents that “interview” buyers about their requirements, or offering extended product trials—two techniques that can increase the salience of usability in the purchase decision.

Do students encounter feature fatigue when using our increasingly feature rich and configurable physcal and online learning spaces? Will the same approach significantly improve their capabilities: understanding needs, features and usability? Could a learning design patterns approach be the basis for useful decision aids?

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¹ Roland T. Rust, Debora Viana Thompson, and Rebecca W. Hamilton, Defeating Feature Fatigue, Harvard Business Review, February 2006

Robert O'Toole : 22 Jul 2009 23:57 |  Tags: Design Methods Inspiration |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem