Assignment 2a: Design Thinking Project (Team)

Value: 15%

A gentle reminder that as with all LRNT courses, you are expected to incorporate APA standards for citations, formatting, and references and to back up your writing with evidence and appropriate academic literature as necessary. You are required to pay attention to grammar and clarity and to avoid colloquialisms. References are not included in the assignment word count. Also, don’t forget the numerous resources available to you as you build your competence and fluency with APA formatting and writing style. In particular, check out the RRU APA 7 formatting checklists as well as RRU WriteAnswers where you can ask your APA questions.

Purpose

The purpose of assignment two, part ‘A’ is to provide you with the opportunity to participate in a design thinking process and experience the ideation of an innovative design model in practice.

Instructions

Working with a partner of your choosing, you will identify a design challenge situated in a real-world context, this could be a challenge or problem anchored in one or both of your settings, or that you have encountered in the literature and other sources through your journey in the program. You will negotiate and agree on one design challenge to work with for the process.

You and your partner will document your design thinking process and will iterate and share a possible way forward that addresses the identified design challenge. Upon completion of the design thinking process, you and your partner will share your work with your peers for constructive feedback.

Your shared synthesis should draw from your previous learning in the program, the literature, and other sources that support your rationale for your design decisions. You will produce a recorded Pecha Kucha to share with your peers that capture your partnered design thinking process, and your team’s proposed approach to the design challenge. A Pecha Kucha presentation format will require you to concisely articulate your synthesized thinking to your classmates. Your peers will benefit from the presentation being recorded as it allows space to reflect and construct useful feedback.

Consider as you synthesize and create your Pecha Kucha:

What impact might your proposal have on learners in this setting? Why?
What role does technology play in your proposed way forward? Will this use of technology help to address the challenge? or could it create new challenges in this context?
What assumptions did you and your partner make before engaging in this process? Have these assumptions been verified or disproven? How?
What new considerations have you come away with? Why?

You will follow the steps outlined in the Assignment 3: Design Thinking Challenge (PDF) and you can use (or adapt) the Assignment 3: Design Thinking Challenge Worksheet (PDF) or the Assignment 3: Design Thinking Challenge Worksheet (Google Doc) to help document your process, or you are welcome to use any additional tools or methods to capture your process.

Format

You and your partner will participate in the steps of the d.School design thinking process together, either asynchronously or synchronously, to address the following design challenge:

How might a real-life design challenge be addressed through partnered ideation of an innovative design model in practice and subsequent peer feedback? (Identified through partner process)

Submission

Deliverable (1) documentation of the process

You could do this in a few ways, and we are not prescribing that for you. The template provided in the assignment description could be used, or alternatively, you could also choose to document your partner process in another medium (for example, OneDrive, Google Docs, a template you have discovered through design thinking process examples etc.) as long as the result is a document that captures the process being submitted into the Assignment 2A dropbox.

Deliverable (2) Pecha Kucha

your team will reflect on the process and possible way(s) forward; and articulate your synthesized thinking in a recorded Pecha Kucha presentation. Pecha Kucha Inc (2022) shares that a “PechaKucha 20×20 presentation format is a slide show of 20 images, each auto-advancing after 20 seconds. It’s non-stop and you’ve got 400 seconds to tell your story, with visuals guiding the way”. A copy of your presentation will be submitted to the Assignment 2A dropbox. The Pecha Kucha will additionally be screened and discussed in our week 10 Zoom session scheduled for Monday, Jan 9, at 6 pm PST.

Dropbox link in Moodle: Assignment 2A | Design thinking project (Team)

Grading

This assignment will be marked according to the following rubric:

Assessment Criteria	Excellent (A+ to A)	Proficient (A- to B+)	Satisfactory (B to B-)	Unsatisfactory (F)
Adheres to Academic Standards – APA, spelling grammar	APA, spelling and Grammar are error-free	APA, spelling and grammar have less than 3 errors	APA, spelling and grammar have less than 5 errors	APA, spelling and grammar errors throughout the work
Presentation – creativity, flow, image selection	The presentation is clear and effective for potential audiences. Adheres to Pecha Kucha criteria, telling the story of the design thinking process. Multimedia is well organized and adhere to proper media design best practices. Images are cognitively aligned to ideas. Ideas are well supported, and literature or traditional knowledge is well synthesized.	The presentation is clear and effective for potential audiences. Adheres to majority of Pecha Kucha criteria, telling most of the story of the design thinking process. Multimedia is fairly well organized and mostly adhere to media design best practices. Most images align nicely to ideas. Ideas are supported and literature or traditional knowledge is synthesized.	The presentation is somewhat unclear or ineffective for potential audiences, making it difficult to follow ideas. Adheres partially to Pecha Kucha criteria, telling some of the story of the design thinking process. Multimedia is inconsistently adhered to media design best practices. Ideas are inconsistently supported by literature or traditional knowledge, or synthesis is lacking.	The presentation is unclear and ineffective for potential audiences. Does not Adhere to Pecha Kucha criteria, inadequately describing the story of the design thinking process. Multimedia does not adhere to media design best practices. Literature is not used in a meaningful way to support the development of ideas.
Documentation of the Design Thinking Process	Thoroughly describes the design thinking process, and provides an insightful discussion of the experience	Describes the design thinking process and a moderate discussion of the experience	Describes some elements of the design thinking process and provides a limited discussion of the experience	Inadequately describes the design thinking process and provides little to no discussion of the experience.
Design Thinking Solution	The solution is relevant, thoughtful and original and addresses the problem for the selected context. Skillful Use of ID frameworks and principles is evident.	The solution is relevant and addresses the problem for the selected context. It demonstrates adequate development of ideas but would benefit from further development and application of the ID frameworks and principles.	The solution is somewhat relevant and somewhat addresses the problem for the selected context. It is minimally developed and requires further discussion and clarity to fully apply ID frameworks and principles.	The solution is unclear and may not address the problem for the selected context. It requires details on every level and/or lacks relevance or originality.
Reflection	The response demonstrates an in-depth analysis and evaluation of the problem. Reflections are thorough, insightful and demonstrate critical thinking and connected learning.	The response demonstrates a sufficient analysis and evaluation of the problem. Reflections are present and support evidence of critical thinking and connected learning.	The response demonstrates basic analysis and evaluation of the problem. Reflections are partially present but superficially demonstrate limited evidence of critical thinking and connected learning.	The response demonstrates a limited analysis and evaluation of the problem. Reflections are inadequate to demonstrate critical thinking and connected learning.