Design for Education

a collaborative approach to innovative education

Schools are unique and powerful ecosystems in which educators strive to meet the needs of the diverse learners in their classes in partnership with families. Yet, there never seems to be enough surplus funding, time in the school calendar, or energy left over to creatively address the deeper social and organizational challenges within our school communities, while also including all stakeholder voices. Perhaps you have raised questions like these:

“How will our school authentically take up DEIJ work in our school culture? In our curriculum?”

“How can we have more meaningful parent involvement and community connections?”

“How can we better support our new teachers and colleagues and prevent turnover?”

As a teacher myself, I often yearned for a facilitated process to problem solve and implement changes within my school structures beyond just a single professional development workshop. So, I developed this design practice in order to support community schools in realizing their visions for more equitable and holistic innovation.

Whether your school is well-established and seeking collaborative social innovation, or in its formative stages of becoming you will undoubtedly meet social and organizational struggles - or as I see them, opportunities for innovation and change! Each community has its own priorities and challenges as well as strengths and nuances. As a design facilitator, I walk communities through the design thinking process. The journey reveals key insights and opportunities through extensive stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and observations that we can use to generate new ideas and strategies. Over an extended scope of time, we can prototype and implement interventions informed by the expertise within the community. My goal as design facilitator is to give form and hold the process for your community to generate sustainable, feasible, and innovative interventions that move you towards your shared goals.

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