Meeting with Jon (Week 10a)

Advisor Meeting

Meeting with Dr. Jon Yoshioka - Tuesday, October 24, 2017, @ 1:30pm

Jon worked with Waipahu High School design thinking workshop which just finished during fall break. (Faculty/students from Waipahu district were teaching students from the UHM Ed department (undergrad and grads mixed)

One way to present innovative design thinking to my school would be to invite guest speakers to teach a workshop at my school to engage the whole teacher community at the same time; to plant the seed, so-to-speak, and spark interest so that I'm not the only one working of this type of work.  Think about "weaving this mindset" into my school.

Whatever I choose for my project has to be something that I think is really cool. Jon has worked with graduate students who have produced traditional scientific research (traditional papers) and Plan B projects. Currently, he has no other STEMS2 students as advisees. He has other MEd and Ph.D. students he is advising.

He has worked as a science teacher for +15 years at Catholic, Christian, and other schools. He taught science but also created many opportunities for innovation design (engineering?). He has gained perspective between how different schools function: public vs. private, which makes for an interesting study.

Critical questions to ask myself:

1. What am I interested in learning?
2. What do I want to measure? What is the product goal?
3. What are my students capable of producing within the set timeframe? Do I rate success by how well the product is produced?
4. How do I measure my student's perceptions of the innovation process? I should create a pre/post assessment.
5. Do I want to create a "process" of how to structure the development of a design innovation/ innovation engineering unit for high school? Do I want to evaluate the implementation of a particular model (Stanford Design Think?)?
6. How do I measure whether my students have benefitted from this work?
7. How do I choose ONE, maybe TWO, variables to measure for my project? More than this would be very difficult to fully assess within the year.
8. Am I going to take a student-centered approach? Is the project about my "students", my "school", or "me"? Is the end-product student-centered?
9. How did my unit improve student skills for their long-term benefit?

17. What should be my method of implementation? A) Definitely designing and implementing a unit plan.

17. How much control do I give students in tackling the problem? A) I know my students the best. Keep in mind the focus of the project, do I want to it to be student-centered? It will become clear whether the project load is too light or too heavy. I could pre-define the problem for them, but that takes away from their involvement. Students [can and] will discover the "problem".

17. In your experience, what are some of the problems educators have had in embracing the design thinking attitude? A) Everything. But, teachers at the last workshop choosing to participate and wanted to learn these ideas because it's cool and interesting and good for students. Participation was high and they chose to want to learn these ideas. Getting folks in a group to trust each other, participate, and start doing things is key. Jon started STEM years ago before STEM was a "thing" because students knew they needed more from their learning to be college/career ready! Powerful stuff.

17. How much explanation should I give students about their involvement in my research process? A) 100% good to let them know what's happening.

1. Should I design a unit for my Plan B? A) Yes! ….units usually come out very well, and they are very practical. Usually, units provide a pretty clear-cut finding. If I create a unit I want to focus on whether it will benefit my students in some way. If it benefits them, then why wouldn't I do it? There are so many different things that can be done with a Plan B. This poses a challenge though, good and bad. Time is a limit. I don't have the luxury of letting the problem present itself organically. This project (Plan B) will need more structure and has to include the culture piece which is an added challenge, compared to the natural/organic nature of how real-life problems sometimes find solutions…through chance connections and meetings and over a period of long-term planning and implementation.

17. Regarding Loko I'a, how should I think about developing an innovations unit in a space where so much has already been done? I feel a little blocked. A) Nothing is truly new. We are wanting to tackle a problem from a different angle, not necessarily come up with a brand new solution. Ask yourself, is there another way to attack or approach the problem?

17. What am I going to study? And HOW and I going to do it?

17. Where should I start? A) Query what's happening in the environmental science world. Talk to scientists at the university and get ideas about what's happening right now.

Empathy…is important! But, the key is to have fun!

Examples of fun innovation:

1. Milk carton boats: Jon and his team of students made a boat out of milk cartons. Kayak, fiberglass mold, use milk cartons to fit the mold.
2. Christmas community project: students designed 12 days of Christmas in court-yard at school. Christmas train.
3. Halloween Community Haunted House: Vacant dorm building was to get remolded or torn down, Jon and his team asked to be able to use it…and they got the dorm. It was made if a complex of apartments, 2 walkways one on each side, and they made a haunted house and got food donations from the community and had a costume contest. 1,000+ people attended. They created a solution to the problem that there was nowhere for the community to trick-or-treat and have a safe Halloween (St. Louis HS).

Meeting with Dr. Jon Yoshioka - Tuesday, November 2, 2017, @ 1:30pm