This week in PDD class, our teacher got us into the "back to school" rhythm by giving us our first Challenge Task. This took the whole week and that is why there are no reflections on my project... we had no time to work on them. For the group I was in, our task was to redesign the room. We could either be a part of this or be a part of promoting the PDD class because we need more students to participate in the course for it to run next year. So basically we were "professional architects" and we had to redesign our room for our teacher because we have a new thing in our room called a "Smart Board". Anyways, for more info on the task itself, either go to Ms Lee's blog (link on the right of the page) or click here.
We have to do both a individual and group reflection for this task. This is my individual and the group reflection will be at the bottom of the page.
For the first step, Identifying the problem, I would give myself a 4. For this stage, I rated myself on more like understanding the problem, because our teacher already "identified" the problem. I understood the problem well but at times I would have to ask my peers or my teacher when I didn't understand something. For our second step, we brainstormed / researched or gathered information to break down the problem. I'd give myself a 2 or 1 cause cause our group (and I) didn't really do anything to break down the problem. We didn't really think of a floor plan at first, so our original model wasn't even to scale. Our third step was to redefine or clarify the problem or gather more information. We didn't really have to redesign or clarify the problem cause our teacher, as the "stakeholder" came up to us and said she wanted some things changed and added, so that basically redefined and clarified the problem. Our next task was to decide a plan of action (“Dream It” / “Design It“ Stage). At first we did pretty bad on this because our first design wasn't even to scale of the room. So we redid our design and actually measured every major thing in the room so we had a scale in our design. Then the next day we drew out the design and we made the major things out of cardboard paper to scale of what we measured. Even though I got distracted a little bit, I think I did well on this stage so I would give myself a 4. The last step was to actually carry out our plan and physically redesign the room. On this stage, I would rate myself a 4 out of 5. Honestly, I don't think it was my very best performance because during the stage where we actually moved all the furniture and things in the room, I got distracted at times and I would go off task. Otherwise, while actually designing the room and on the other stages, I was on task for the most part. I think I understood the task pretty well and I was actively engaged and participated in the task. I think I can improve next time by not getting distracted and going off task so much and maybe focusing a bit more. From this problem based challenge, I learned that designing a product that fits a problem can be very difficult. I experienced this first hand while working on this task.
For a video of the group reflection, click here.
From varied student reflections on the Problem based challenge of having to redesign our classroom - I have learned that we as a class need to spend a bit more time on how to approach a problem based inquiry rather than your own inquiry projects. They are similar but some key differences. Do you think it would have been better if I redirected you as a class to refresh your memories from the Intro activity: specifically re-watch the IDEO shopping cart re-design video or review the Crash Course in Design thinking/ Do I need to provide further structure ? a guide or check list for reference? What do you suggest?
ReplyDeleteTo continue to improve your reflections - don't forget to add examples and specifics not he "why's" not just a general summary of what you did. I love that your "voice" and personality shine through - I could read this and know that it is your reflections for sure!