Innovate, Tinker, and Design

Final Reflection

2011-11-11T11:56:00.001-08:00

Overall i think that this interim went well. I thought that it was interesting to learn a new way to think and to put that process into effect. I think that if i were to do this interim again, i would keep the fact that we got to choose our own ideas because that made us all more motivated to actually do work. I would also keep the number of breaks we got because it did get a bit frustrating when we had to work all day long and we would get almost no where after a while. If i were to change anything about this interim it would be that we needed to solve more problems because i felt like we spent too much time on our first problems and not enough on the ones that we did later in the week. I liked how much freedom we were given and it was nice to be able to work with so many different people to solve the problems that our community has.

Wrap-up Reflection

2011-11-11T11:49:00.001-08:00

Overall, i thought this interim was a big sucess. I learned many things, worked with others, and had fun. One of the main things i really enjoyed was the freedom that we were given. We were able to do any topic we picked, work anywhere, work with any tools at our disposal, and worked at our own pace for the most part. I did not like the fact that at some points i didnt know what to work on or some points our group was ahead so we didnt have anything to work on. All in all it was a very fun experience and i would do it again

Reflection on the week

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My favorite part of this interim was the purpose it had. Even though it may not be considered a service interim I still think that the intentions were great. I thought it was a step forward to have the students recognize the problems within the school on their own and the seek out ways they could fix it.

If I could change something about this problem it would be that the work that the students put in goes towards constructing their possible solution or actually implementing it into the school. The first part of the week could be most of what we accomplished this past week but the other half would be dedicated towards completing the project by putting in the labor that it takes to finish the job.

Overall I think this interim was fun and productive. I recommend that this interim be continued.

My Reflection on Interim Week 2011

2011-11-11T11:48:00.001-08:00

This Interim week has been a very special one. It started a more than 4 days ago right here. Throughout this week we have all learned so much about ourselves, each other and the school. We learned the proper way to create a design board. We learned about how to create the why part of a presentation, which is essentially the most important part.

What was Good About Interim Week?

There were many things that were good about this Interim Week in Innovate, Tinker and Design. I could go on for hours on the many great accomplishments of innovate tinker and design interim but I will save the best ones.

One of my favorite things was going around the school and doing all the measurements. It was interesting to get this exact perspective on our idea's to know Exactly how many backpacks would fit under the tables and in the Lobby. Instead of just doing a ballpark estimate like most people would we got exactly it. For the backpack measurments we measured backpacks in the different ways that they could be put. on all of their sides. We measured backpacks of both Boys and Girls to be able to get a proper sample so we could know the exact average of a backpack. For the percentage of where students were putting their backpacks we interviewed many students. Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors. We interviewed both Boys and Girls so we could get an accurate percentage. We got more than 10% of the school in our interview. And that is quite a remarkable figure considering not many interims are currently at the school when we took the survey.

What Could be Improved?

During this week I do not think there are many things that could be improved.
However if i had to choose one thing to improve on I would change friday. On Friday we tried to change many things and we felt very rushed, We should have only focused on one of them.

3) Care and Keeping of Gathering Spaces Solutions

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We Could Get More Bins.

We could BAN FOOD but...
This will anger students.
We could provide recycling and add more bins.

Aux Possible solutions

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Let students utilize the Aux. spaces during free blocks and study halls for group work.
Let students utilize media scapes when working on group work during class
Require at least one class to be in the Aux. spaces once a week.
Students can researve media scapes for their study halls/free blocks.
Allow students to use media scapes for recreational activities.
Instead of checking out a computer cart for a class, a teacher could reserve the digital tech lab.
Allow students to use tables turned up, and stickie notes for brain storming.

Lost and Found Solutions

2011-11-11T08:07:00.001-08:00

Our Solutions:
1) Include lost and found items in Madame's weekly emails.
2) Make a lost and found that is solely for books.
3) Communicate the process for lost items.
4) Make a google doc about the lost and found and what items are in it.
5) Make an only Upper School lost and found.
6) Move the lost and found to a more centralized location.

Lost and Found

2011-11-11T07:34:00.001-08:00

Problem: There is no real lost and found in the upper school, and no one knows about the current system.

Constraints: It is not centralized, there is no knowledge of the lost and found, it is unorganized, students dont know where it is, people take stuff that is not theirs, the current system is not communicated well enough, not utilized to its fullest extent, students do not take the "lost" items to the lost and found.

Research that we need: What percentage of students know about the lost and found? What percentage of teachers know about the lost and found? Is there a dire need for a "only Upper School" lost and found? How often is the current lost and found utilized? What are the current procedures for the lost and found?

Uses of Aux. Spaces

2011-11-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

What we know

- Places: Quiet study rooms. Student commons areas. Chairs located on third floor, project spaces, conference rooms, digital learning space, collaborative learning studio, leadership lab.
-Where students like to hang out most: The V, third floor chairs, student commons areas.

Definition- How can we maximize the efficiency of the Aux. spaces.

Constraints

We don't know what kids want in these spaces
Students don't know that they can utilize these spaces.

Problem 3: The Care & Keeping of Gathering Spaces

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Question 3: The Care & Keeping of Gathering Spaces

What We Know

Common areas for gathering is the V, Commons Area, Outside Lockers, and Senior Homeroom (For Seniors Only).
Many of these area’s can get very messy from various papers, food and other supplies.
Food is banned in the V but not in all other gathering area’s.
In the commons area, V and by the Lockers there are not many trash/recycling bins.

Constraints

We do not know how many students spend time in each area.
We do not know why the students make such a mess.
We also do not know the amount of trash in each area.
Connivence: Students would like to be able to eat in the Commons Area, if we ban lunch eating there the student may get angry.

Problem

Our Problem is the fact that the area’s that students commonly gather can get very messy. These area’s can be the first thing that a visitor to the school see’s and it looks very bad.

Students Are Unaware Of The Daily Announcements

2011-11-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

Problem-

Students Do not know what the daily announcements are.

What we Know-

Cork Board outside sophomore locker room
Lunchroom tv
Tv outside Randolph's room
2nd floor hallways are cork and have a lot of open space

Constraints-

Teachers use the boards for other purposes
When announcements are post within school, they aren't always in the same place
Students don't know where to look
There isn't anyone who puts announcements up on a daily basis
Teachers underutilized the boards

Preparing the Board

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Drawing the Design-Group I

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Drawing Part of the Design

Continuning to draw the design.

Add caption

Videos of Cafeteria

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Theater Lobby Stairs Image

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Prototype Cafeteria 1

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Proposal Pictures

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Backpack Area Prototype 1

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First Follower Leadership

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We also spent time talking about the first follower principle of leadership. While the students are developing proposals to change behaviors, they need to think how they are going to motivate the first followers.

Inspiring Change - Focusing on Why

2011-11-09T12:04:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday afternoon, we watched the Simon Sinek TEDx talk on focusing on why, not what.

My goal is to make sure that since many of the solutions to our two problems deal with changing behaviors and routines, that we focus on why this is important.

Backpack Information

2011-11-09T07:39:00.000-08:00

Backpack Info
Backpacks in Upper School (any given day) - ~203
Average Dimension of Backpack - ~17.5x14.25 in²
Space Taken by One Backpack - ~249.375 in²
Total Space Taken by All Backpacks - ~50,623.125 in²

Community Gathering Space
Under Counters - 27,830 in²

Morning Ex Backpack Space
Theatre: Under Stairs - 4,284 in²
Theatre: Tables - 9,240 in²
Theatre: Corner - 9,576 in²
Art Center Entrance - 10,076 in^{2
Total Space Available - 33,176 in}²

developing solutions

2011-11-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

Tweaking schedule (MEX):
Eliminate the last 5 minutes of B-block so students could drop their personal belongings at their next class.
Monday: After MEX C-block
Wednesday: After MEX E-block
Community Gathering: Students drop backpacks in their next class.
Next Block, E-block

Eliminating Backpacks:
Buying classroom set of textbooks.
Issuing an extra copy of textbooks for students to bring home.

Relocating backpacks:
During MEX, if your previous class was in the Art/Science Center, then your backpack could be left in the lobby of theater.
If your previous class was in the Upper School, then you leave your backpack either inside or infront of your locker, or under the countertops along the V.
Build cubbies along the slanted walls in the Science Center to hold backpacks, during MEX.

Go Bears!

Video of All the Cafeteria Ideas

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Cafeteria Group

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Our use of the tables to group our ideas.

ideas for Lunchroom

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Ordering
-Pre-order in morning
-More people serving pizza
-Deli-style sandwhich bar
- Limit the lunch options
- Make space smaller and provide orders

Moving
- More tables with trays
- Add a second exit
- Trays outside door
- Move chips to side
- Move pizza to a new place
- Move salad to cafeteria
- Move extra condiments outside

Payment Options
-Bring back the raider meal
- Make flat rate for lunch
- Lessen check out time
- Self Checkout
- Credit/Debit card feature ID card
- Seperate line for faculty

Announcements
- Provide list of express users
- Announcements in all three divisions ahead of time
- Display menu on TV above

Line
- Elimanate budging
- Give numbers while in line
- Lunch monitors who monitor
- Actual lines
-Que differnt in diff lines outside

Timing
- Keep cafeteria open longer
- Stagger amount of kids let out of lunch at a certain time
- Keep cafeteria open from 12:35- 1:25

Lunch Room Project as of Tuesday at 2:30 and plans for tomorrow

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Plans for Tomorrow (Wednesday 9th)
-Record the Middle School during their lunch to capture the lunch room when it is at it's most crowded.

Solutions to Backpacks during Morning Ex and Community Gathering

2011-11-08T12:42:00.001-08:00

We put our items in three categories. Eliminating backpacks, tweaking the schedule and relocating them.

One of our major solutions that we focused on was eliminating the contents of the backpacks. To do this we tried to cut back on the items. There are many items we tried to cut back on including...

Textbooks: By far the biggest, and heaviest items that us students carry around are the textbooks. They can get very heavy. One way to cut back on them is to get Kindles. We can use the textbooks on the kindles.
Also for textbooks we want to have classroom textbooks so the students do not have to carry them around.

Also during MEX we talked about putting backpacks in the V.

For tweaking the schedule we discussed the idea of taking five minutes out of B block and give the students extra time.

Backpacks: What we need to research tomorrow

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What we need to research tomorrow:

More places where students leave personal belongings.
Contents of a backpack
Costs of textbooks/kindles

Backpack Location Graphs

2011-11-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

We surveyed 10.3% (22 Students) of the Upper School. Here are the results of where students put their backpack.

Reducing Clutter - Current Backpack Clutter Areas

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Researching (Kind of)

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Tuesday Afternoon

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Tuesday afternoon, the groups spent the time brainstorming ideas and solutions to their problems. They will begin to look for patterns and plan for their prototyping on Wednesday.

Tuesday Morning Update

2011-11-08T11:33:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday morning, we spent the morning reviewing what we had done on Monday. We then reflected on how we gain inspiration.

The rest of the morning each group spent the morning developing a game plan, dividing the work, and then going out and researching via field observations, interviews, and analyzing other data gathered.

MICHAEL

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Researching

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Measuring Backpacks

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More Research

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Idea Board

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Planning and Researching

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Students researching the clutter of backpack in common areas during community time

Planning for Research

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Students planning for research of their problem, cafeteria flow.

Cafeteria Design

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Our Plan:
Go to Cafeteria on November 8th at 12:30 to observe the lunch.
Ask the Cafeteria staff how much of each type of food is ordered.
How often fresh food is brought out.
If kids waste time before checking out and leaving the serving area.
What is the maximum comfortable capacity of the space.
Verbal Interviews with the Lunch Monitors and Cafeteria Staff
Draw pictures of the current setup.

Cluttering Backpacks

2011-11-08T07:13:00.000-08:00

Issue: One of the biggest issues that is shown to our school is the issue of what to do with personal student backpacks during Morning Ex (MEX) and Community Gathering (CG). During most MEX and CG student backpacks are cluttered in one area that may pose a serious fire code violation due to students may not be able to get out in the case of an emergency.

What we Know:

The Number of Students at NSCDS Upper School (212 Backpacks)

The Places where Students leave their bags (By Lockers, Outside theater for MEX, at top of steps for CG.)

When MEX and CG happen. (Mondays and Wednesdays for MEX, Tuesdays for CG)

What We Need to Know:

The Average Size of a Backpack

The Size of the main Areas where the Backpacks are currently being placed.

Constraints

Time (Only five minutes from end of class to start of MEX and CG)

Daily Schedule

Weather

Getting Students to Follow our Guidelines

Location, whether CG is in "The V" or theater, and MEX in the theater

Re-imagining Students as Agents of Change

2011-11-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Morning Prompt

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Where do you find inspiration?

Where are the places that you go to find inspiration?

What are the activities that you do to find inspiration?

From whom do you find inspiration from?

Lunch Room Efficiency

2011-11-07T12:45:00.000-08:00

Ease congestion, and increase flow in the lunch serving room.

Questions;

At what time is the line most clustered?
How much of people order each food?
HOw often is fresh food served?
Do kids waste any time waiting for the food they want to come out?
Could the food already be out and kids just take it then go?
Is there a way to streamline the serving of food?
Could we alter the schedule to stagger the amount of kids let out at once?
What is the maximum capacity of the lunch room but stil being able to maintain an orderly fashion?

Constraints;

The space has been build and we can not build or destroy any more walls.
Kids are in a rush and start to break order (by cutting lines, forming their own line to get ahead of people, etc.)
Lunch monitors shows up later to Upper School Lunch.

And the Design Problems Are

2011-11-07T12:17:00.000-08:00

After discussion and negotiation, we have narrowed our three choices to study for the remainder of our Innovate, Tinker, and Design :

How to reduce clutter created by personal belongings (backpacks, bags, etc.) during community events (Community Gatherings, Morning Ex)

How can enhance the flow in the cafeteria serving space to be more efficient

In our new technology rich Upper School space, how can we ensure that devices can be used throughout the day

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will be working in two small groups and then on Thursday and Friday, we will be adding the an investigation of how we can ensure devices can be used throughout the day (charging)

Just missing the grade, was what changes can be made to the library become allow it to better compliment the newly renovated Upper School.

Design Thinking Is...

2011-11-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

People - looking and listening to them

Prototyping - Quickly making things real

Stories - Not concepts

Culture- by being inspired. Spaces nave an inspirational impact on people being inspriring

from Tim Brown's talk at MIT Sloan's School of Business, May 2006

Ideas

2011-11-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

As a result of learning what Design Thinking is, we began to brainstorm ideas and concepts which we could study during the course of Interim Week. Here are the ideas we came up with, sorted after we noted which we thought were worthy of more investigation.

Top Tier
How can we reduce the amount of clutter in "the V" during community gathering? How can we make "the V" more efficient?

How can we ensure that the library stays up to date with the new Upper School?

How can we renovate the lunch serving room to keep it less clustered?

How can we communicate student-sponsored events more easily?

Tier 1
How can we make full use of the Digital Media Lab?

How can we show more people how to use printers?

How can students personal devices make it through the day? Can we develop a charging station?

How can we use the TV outside Mr. Randolph's room?

How can we reduce the use of paper?

How can we display more student work throughout the building?

How can the school enforce recycling rules?

What can we do to make the Activities Room a more useable space?

Tier 2
Is the current way we allocate the daily schedule the best? How can we improve it?

How can we reduce lunchroom traffic on Mondays and Wednesdays?

How can the Upper School utilize the Multipurpose Room?

Tier 3
How can we make better use of the lunchroom TV?

How can we expand the gardens? How can we get students to help?

How can we make nutritious but tasty lunches?

How can we make school technology easier to use?

How can we make the school more safe?

How can we make space in "the V" for the projector?

Reviewing Ideas before Lunch

2011-11-07T10:03:00.000-08:00

Here students are reviewing the collected set of ideas that they have generated.

Building Ideas

2011-11-07T09:38:00.001-08:00

Using the feature of our new VS Conference, which allows for the placing of tables at an angle, like a draftsman's table. We are collect ideas of to investigate for this week.

Student Notes from Tim Brown's Session

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Using the ample whiteboatd space we possess in our learning studios

Tim Brown - Innovation Through Design Thinking (Video)

2011-11-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

To understand the parameters of design thinking, we watched Tim Brown's presentation to MIT's Sloan School of Business. Students took notes and then we discussed way in which we already implement several of the principles of design thinking, especially in some of the science classes with labs.

Opening Prompt Reflection

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One of my favorite writers, Seth Godin, asked a profound question in his blog on Sunday, November 6th.

What do you do when you don't know the answer?

What do you do?