I have just finished an extraordinary 5 week adventure exploring and learning at Design Thinking Action Lab by Stanford University Online.

So, I wonder if I am able to put into practice some things we worked on. I’ll take this as a challenge, and if I fail, I know I fail to get it right.

My head is boiling with the concept of learners creating content. I start to see them as writers, builders, speakers, actors …

I found this talk by Diana Laufenberg about How to Learn? By Mistakes

And slowly my minds begins to find its way, note: just begins …

How do we explore our learners’ needs, interests, likes and dislikes?

The most practical ideas: talk to them, ask them.
The easiest idea: give them a survey
The most disruptive idea: What would you like to learn about?

Discovering what our learners are interested in the direct line to motivation, however as we evolve as teachers, we need to consider that our leaners also go through different stages in life, so taking for granted that we know what they like can lead us in the wrong direction

I have collected videos, reports and assignments in this wiki: Design Thinking in Action

So, I prototyped a lesson about Vincent Van Gogh. Actually this is the second time I prototype this lesson, because after doing it with some students, and assessing with them,  I realised I had to make some changes.

By demand I also prototyped a lesson called “The Day I Met Marilyn Monroe”, and the last activity was to create an interview and to choose a song to give her as a present.

My student, a medical doctor, in his 70s, chose this song for her.

Conclusions: Students love choosing what they want to learn, but we are both learning and we have explore better, and more effective ways to deal with it. At a certain point I felt I was trying to “sell my ideas”, maybe to save time. Probably I need to time each step. The final production was hard to achieve, and I ended collecting all the material just because they were procrastinating, and losing interest as we were extending the challenge.

I see a lot of potential in letting them create their own content, and I thank you in advance for your feedback as well as ideas to figure out solutions to deal with this challenge.