How might I have my English for Engineering students involved in the design of a typical vocabulary lesson so that it meets their needs and stimulates them to want to learn new vocabulary? (Discovery to Focus steps only)
Summary of Discover Phase
I started with thinking that I would invite all of my current EAP students to review and revise the digital lesson plan that I typically give to them at the start of each class. This is something that I have designed over the years to support my student learning. Over the years, I've received feedback on it through anecdotal comments from students but I have never had any sort of formalized student input or review of it. This seemed a good occasion to do so.I organized two group interviews, one for each of my two course sections, each with three students. I introduced the digital lesson plan and how I was seeking their opinion on it, how useful it was to them, it what ways was it useful to them, and how it could be improved. I was accutely aware of the need to make them feel comfortable with expressing their views - both negative and postive - on it.
Students informed me about how useful the digital lesson plan is ... much of it repeating what I have heard anecdotally over the years (which was comforting) and what I had expected them to say. What was new was being able to ask them to discuss their current language learning needs and once that was done, discussing possible resources that could be added to the digital lesson plan to address these. Ideas that emerged here were practicing new vocabulary outside of class, and reviewing key grammar. They made it clear to me their appreciation of having immediate 24/7 access to websites that have been curated by their instructor. They were keen to learn with the help of these additional resources. But through these discovery phase interviews, I learned ways in which it was being used that I had never realized were possible before. The majority of students (end users) noted how they refer back to it when at home to "replicate a sequence of activities" that they claim help them to learn something again. Students offered suggestions on ways to improve this "replication of learning sequences". What I have done is incorporate these suggestions into the digital lesson plan almost immediately.
But a review of the Unit 2 Design Thinking Steps, especially at Step 5, pointed out to me that I may have been denying myself a chance to learn more about how to really invite students to practice applying the design thinking process much more. This led me to brainstorm on ways this might be possible, and ultimately led me to the idea of inviting students to actually help design their own learning (with the help of the digital lesson plan concept). So I set to work on this, only to see that the scope of the project was now much too broad and thus potentially too complex and unattainable for my students.
(original example)
The compromise? To narrow my focus to a group of students who might benefit the most from learning the design thinking process - my Engineering English students - and to further narrow it down to one aspect of language learning - vocabulary acquisition. Then I brainstormed on how the design thinking process could be both learned and applied here.
The result? A relatively simple introduction to the design thinking concept to make clear its relevance to engineering and to education. Then an invitation to learn the concept through direct application to something that is currently very important to them - vocabulary acquisition. A bit of a struggle here. How not to have them immersed in reading about vocabulary acquisition theory (something that any language instructor would have some knowledge of) when the language used there would be inaccessible to them. Instead, I concluded that many of the answers would lie with finding out what students find most effective AND then finding out what various other language instructors find effective. Thus a "discovery" stage emerged. I surmised that students would need to learn about how to interview. This would mean coming up with a set of common but useful questions as well as the best ways to ethically record this information (a quick introduction to statistics) before they could set to work on collecting that information.
Prototype
The original prototype is as follows (a pdf file)Link to document
Partial screen shot
A more storyboard type description of the prototype incorporates more detailed review of how this process might work ... with focus only on the introduction of the Design Thinking process and the execution of the Discovery phase.
Unfortunately I was not able to realize a "try" with any of this because of the current state in the Center's semester - last week of classes before final exams.
I appreciate the flow plan for breaking it down in a systematic way .. but prefer the storyboard method for making the process more transparent .. even messy ... so I can add notes to it. It just seems more organic and open to revision. It makes me much more conscious of all of the design decisions and what would be required to scaffold these for students.
Reflections on this design cycle?
Even with only a close examination of one step in the design cycle I find that it never seems to end. I find myself reviewing and revising this constantly as I ask myself "will students understand the concept, is it modeled enough for them to understand and apply it, and is it clearly sequenced?" The ultimate test will be in the "try " phrase.Unexpected finding?
Just how challenging this can be to present not just aa a concept - design thinking - but the process to implementing it to students whose second language is English and thus the need to carefully granualarize and reconceptualize it so that it can be understood by intermediate English as a second language learners. I expect just accomplishing this alone will prove to be an iterative process.
Interview Tips 