One of the sexiest words in design thinking is prototyping. It sounds edgy and just feels innovative when you say it. And within the design thinking framework, it arguably has the most potential for growth and to change lives. Prototyping is an iterative process, where designers test and refine their product based on observations and feedback. But despite its potential, many classroom teachers will tell you that the prototyping stage is where the most student challenges occur, and therefore where the most teacher apprehension resides. "How do I create a culture of critique in my class? My students are just mean to each other!", "How do I teach my students to give meaningful feedback?", and the real hair-ripper: "How do I get students to actually do something with the feedback they get?"
Design thinking can be messy but explicitly teaching students how to actively participate in the prototyping process doesn't have to be. Here are five tips to help you get started:
1. Create a Classroom Culture for Critique
I highly recommend carving out time to lay the foundation for a positive classroom climate. If your school uses a schoolwide approach to culture and climate like Responsive Classroom, then revisit the norming process prior to providing peer feedback. In the popular "Austin's Butterfly" video, Ron Berger offers a model for norming "kind, specific, and helpful" feedback. You may consider adopting these feedback norms or coming up with your own. Once students understand that "we all get better together," they are more likely to care about how they provide feedback to their peers.
2. Manage the Process
Students will progress through the drafting process at different speeds, so you will want a way to track student work. A structure to visibly document student progress creates not only accountability, but also student ownership. You might consider a SCRUM board, which industries use as a project management tool, or a simple clip chart.
3. Use Protocols
Protocols help frame our feedback while ensuring equity by holding space for all students to share their ideas. Protocols also depersonalize feedback that could come across as critical. My favorite protocol is simply "warm and cool" feedback during a gallery walk. Students place one pink sticky note with "warm" or positive feedback on a piece of work, as well as one blue sticky note with "cool" or more critical feedback. Find more protocol examples here (PDF). You can also use basic sentence frames to illustrate how to give warm/cool feedback and leave them posted on your classroom wall.
4. Provide Feedback on Feedback
Giving feedback on drafts of work is hard to do! Even I sometimes get stuck on what to say when looking at student work. You can help students grow in this nuanced skill by giving them feedback on their feedback. When students provide peer feedback, they should always document and claim their comments (simply writing initials next to them is enough). During gallery walks, I always move around the room and ask students to revise unclear or unhelpful feedback. I might also coach a struggling child through specific things to look for in student work to help trigger their ideas for feedback.
5. Schedule It
It's easy to breeze through the prototyping and drafting phases of design thinking so you can get to the "building" and "testing" phases that sometimes take on lives of their own. I urge you to build in time for iteration—this process is rich in learning opportunities and will raise the overall quality of the work students produce. Give yourself a buffer of a few hours over the course of the unit/challenge/project for meaningful feedback protocols and time for students to apply the feedback they received to their work.
With these five tips in mind, your can confidently engage your students in prototyping and embrace the complexity and innovative potential of design thinking.
