Taking Action on Cross Course Planning

I found the Design Thinking Your Action Plan process during the second F2F to be very helpful in refining my ideas and my focus of my Cohort 21 project. I left the day with the same general ideas that I had come in with, but my “How Might We” question was much more refined.

I started the day with these questions:

  • How might we create meaningful interdisciplinarity for our grade 9 students?
  • How might we ensure that skills and content that are learned in one class can be applied to and built upon in another?
  • And how might we do this without creating too much additional work?

And I left with this one:

How might we create a cross course/interdisciplinary project for Grade 9 students in Geography and Science that deepens learning while reducing student workload?How Might We…

The iterative design thinking process allowed me to really consider why I cared about my initial questions and helped me to clarify what I hoped to do by addressing them. I found the “Reflect and Validate” and “Empathize” steps to be particularly helpful, encouraging me to consider what aspects of my challenge I have control over, and what my user (Grade 9 students) need from me.

Evaluate and Reflect
Empathize

 

 

 

 

 

      I found that mapping and outlining my process to also be very useful, and I have taken several of the steps that I included in my initial map, including meeting with the other Grade 9 Geography teachers and the Grade 9 Science teachers, including @akraguljac. I still have plenty of steps to take, and I look forward to continuing to work with others in the Cohort tomorrow! 

Thanks @nblair for encouraging me to write this blog, for @mmoore for the support at the 2nd F2F, and for @mbrims for the support at school!

3 thoughts on “Taking Action on Cross Course Planning

  1. Hi Katherine! Thanks for sharing your thought process. I too found the “Empathize” portion of the protocol to be super helpful when trying to refine my HMW and my action plan. I hope we can chat more tomorrow. Would love to hear where you’ve taken this and where you plan to go since the last F2F!

  2. Hi Katherine,
    Thanks for sharing where you are at in your Action Plan process. I’m so glad to hear that the our last F2F propelled your Action Plan forward. I also find the empathize step to be incredibly insightful. Looking forward to catching up today and hearing more about your Action Plan, and how it went when you met with your colleagues.

    Cheers, Nicole

  3. Hi Katherine,

    This is great plan to continue the work you are doing in the multi-disciplinary approach to climate change in grade 9. The change for next year is that the year-long project will shift focus to look at inclusion and equity and the focus on racism, homophobia, sexism etc can link well to climate change as our social contexts and values help shape how we view global issues and respond (or not) to them.

    Thanks so much for sharing this thoughtful engagement with Alan and the others!

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