Becoming
The wicked problem of educational reform can’t be solved with easy solutions. Policy makers may have made structural changes to the “what of teaching”, but failed to pay attention to the “why.” “This policy focus on the teacher’s characteristics, not the situation in which teachers find themselves, has been a serious mistake. It has led to overestimating the influence of personal traits and underestimating the influence of the context in which teachers find themselves every day” (Cuban, p12). Policy makers see the identity of teachers as a people in complete control of what happens in the classroom, yet this isn’t entirely accurate considering the context of the classroom (e.g. external influences affecting students). Focusing on who teachers are and their credentials/training doesn’t get at the contextual problems. The current policies fail to recognize the impact of teachers’ contexts and the ways in which it isolates teachers and makes teaching a solitary experience. This oversight could be attributed to a failure to view teachers as designers. This changes the discourse because designers do not operate in isolation; they are continually working within systems and in collaboration with others.
If everyone involved, policy makers, students, and teachers, could work towards becoming designers and adopt the process of design inquiry, something like the HCD Toolkit would be helpful to facilitate collaboration and the “open[ing] their minds to new understandings and interpretations” (Nelson & Stolterman p 242). They might collectively “develop deep empathy for people they are designing for, to question assumptions, and to inspire new solutions” and potentially find a better way towards fundamental change in education (HCD Toolkit, p 32). A deeper understanding of what students bring with them to school from home and the mystery of what actually happens in the black box of the classroom might be better understood when you get at it from a human-centered approach.
Teacher Identity Crisis
A remedy to the challenges in education has been a raise in the standards of teachers. Teachers now found themselves being required to take on the identity of scholars, entering classrooms with an advanced degree in hand. For example, when looking for daycare for young children, some parents look favorably on certain daycares over others if they have credentialed personnel, especially if they have master’s degrees. Taken a step further, the spotlight on teachers has taken a turn toward training, identifying, and recruiting “highly-qualified teachers.” The role of the teacher experienced a transformation as well. Teachers that were once “guardians of civility,” wardens of the classroom, evolved into jean-wearing, coffee-drinking teachers that were typically kinder (p. 5). As a result students experienced more agency and the budding of student-teacher relationships. However, Cuban cautions against teachers taking on the identity of therapist or parent as they “cannot carry alone the total responsibility for their students’ well-being and achievement” (p. 12).Technology has also played a role in the changing roles of teachers. “Technological innovations have often been drafted into the task of altering teacher-centered practices” (Cuban, 2013, p. 5). While these innovations were meant to transform teaching practice, they made some teaches feel as though they needed to take on the identity of technology mavens, a pressure some relinquished through abandoning or ignoring technology.
The issue with the continually changing teacher identity is that it can shift as the winds of educational reform blow. The identities thrust upon teachers as a result of educational reform could change with an election or the newest fad. Flipped classrooms, the current rave in many educational communities, place the teacher as a facilitator of learning instead of the proverbial sage on the stage. This comes at the tail end of reforms that focused on teacher lesson scripts and gave teachers little choice in their classrooms. The continually changing roles of teachers confuse them about what is expected of them and how they should function in their classroom. It is possible that these identities teachers are required to adopt make them feel as though they are inadequate likely leading to feelings of defeat. Since, according to Larry Cuban, “teachers are the single most important in-school factor to students’ well-being and achievement,” (p. 11) it would seem wise to support teachers in crafting stable identities and offering authentic professional learning that allows them to “strengthen the weak or missing areas and further refine” their practice (Nelson & Stolterman, 2014, p. 214). At the higher education level, teacher education programs are tasked with preparing prospective teachers in light of these shifting identities.
Contract
One of the ideas that Nelson and Stolterman briefly discuss that stood out was the importance of maturity in design. It makes one think about what a mature design would look like compared to an immature design. We can think about this idea in the world of video games. Video games show us a range of design schemas ranging from the formulaic, the dreadful movie tie-in, the groundbreaking indie game, the high profile first person shooter, to video game that is trying to be art. There are successes and failures in each of the examples. The ones that stand out are the ones that really understand the contract they have with players. That contract could be simple, build a solid action game or a truly scary horror title, or dynamic characters in an immersive world.
When game designers are either ignorant of the contract they have with players or are too focused on a release date or are engaged in a cash grab, the games as a product are clearly flawed. The flaws may be repeated game elements (such as level design or repeat of mission types), or bland and generic game play (nothing about the game makes it feel unique) or in some cases the game is released to the public unfinished (missing character animations, large bugs in the game. In contrast, when game designers understand their contract with players, the public gets games that are well constructed, unique, and polished. The difference between a well-designed game and a poorly designed one are evident to even the most novice video game player.
This idea of contract was the foundation to how NGO workers should interact in the HDC toolkit section Hear. At several points the authors instructed workers on qualitative research techniques that allowed for the worker to get the highest degree of access possible but at the same time it sought to maintain a contract (either formal or informal) that the workers would respect the people culture and traditions of the people they are working with in return for access which will allow for a better informed design. The workers were advised against wearing branded NGO clothing, to sit at the same height as the people they are interviewing, and not to sit together but spread out amongst the group. The toolkit also told the workers to be mindful of gender relations and roles and to be respectful when conducting their interviews.
Katie Bateman says
This may not have been central to your argument, but you are the second post that brought up the “jeans-wearing, coffee-drinking” idea of a teacher. Do these people exist? I certainly have never been in a school where jeans were the norm, and I’ve worked in schools where coffee drinking in the classroom was still forbidden (granted, a nun was doing the forbidding, so it may have been slightly more old school.) I do think part of the school design should be professionalism of teachers. Students do need to find them relatable, but still authority and experts? Or is that an archaic idea?
Dean says
“The difference between a well-designed game and a poorly designed one are evident to even the most novice video game player.”
I agree, and I wonder if the difference between a well-designed class and a poorly designed one is evident to novice learners?
Brandon says
Odd, I never thought to think about design way through the lens of game design. If I had, I might have connected with it more. Oh well.
The question of mature/immature design is an interesting one. It reminds me of the Elliot quote: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”
I take this to mean, among other things, that the immature designer does things because she’s seen them work elsewhere, while the mature designer designs with intent that is evident in the work itself. Even if the pieces come from elsewhere, they make sense in the new context, and in the new context accomplish something completely different. A game can go wrong for a lot of reasons, but some of the greatest stand out for taking a tried and true mechanic or premise and doing something completely new with it.
Isaac Jason Bretz says
Are teachers the single most important in-school factor to students’ well-being and achievement? The notion that we can make education transformative, whatever that means, with blue jeans and coffee or IPads and collaborative projects really oversimplifies the problems which are structural and therefore wicked. Computer games are designed by geeks with privilege, not by the majority of users, so I am not sure that is the analogy we want to use. How about education is a salad bar where you have to bring half of your own ingredients. No, that sounds pretty awful actually, I wouldn’t go there.
Zach Lonsinger says
“This policy focus on the teacher’s characteristics, not the situation in which teachers find themselves, has been a serious mistake. It has led to overestimating the influence of personal traits and underestimating the influence of the context in which teachers find themselves every day” (Cuban, p12).
Interesting. This was one of the central quotes we talked about in our blog post write-up this week (although I don’t think we actually quoted it). I really thought your comments on teach identity crisis was spot on. “The issue with the continually changing teacher identity is that it can shift as the winds of educational reform blow. ” This is a major problem and something I never really considered before reading Black Box this week. What if we could bring the policy makers into the classroom for a week, or a day? Could we change the way they design policies for teachers and schools?
I also really liked your game design analogy in regards to mature and immature design. Like Brandon, I never considered The Design Way through the lense of gaming, but it definitely clicked with me. It immediately made me think of Assassin’s Creed. The first few games (with the exception of the first one) were amazing. And I felt the design transitioned from mature to immature as the games got more popular. It seemed they were just pumping these games out to meet quota and get an extra few bucks.
Scott P McDonald says
I want to follow up with Dean’s point about well-designed class(es). What is the contract between teachers and students? I think you could have made a connection (or a clearer one) between game designers and teachers and the people the “contract” with in their design process. I tend to think of good teaching as the ultimate HCD activity. Both game designers and teachers are attempting to develop engaging experiences, but teachers are clearly under a different set of constraints. What is the role of design in these two contexts? It seems to get at some of the discussion about the use of technology in classes and what role it should play.
Leah Bug says
here has been much discussion throughout these posts about teacher identity. I also think another identity challenge is the decay of respect for the profession. Where teachers were once held to a higher level of respect, teachers are now blamed for everything wrong with education. When there is an issue between a teacher and a student, parents now typically charge into the school ready to yell and blame the teacher and not hold their child accountable for the part they played. This new dynamic has the possibility of impacting design decisions.
pul121 says
I totally agree to recognize teachers as designers instead of guardians of civility and wardens of the classroom. If we can change the concept of what teachers’ role is, we realize teachers are important to influence students’ well-being and achievements but not the only persons to be responsible for. We need to promote the designer mindset to teachers, parents, administrators and policy makers. In this way, people in different roles and positions take part in the whole systems and collaborate with each other. They are all responsible for the future of younger generations and understand other people’s stories. Therefore, when someone fails, it would not be someone’s failure to be blame for but the whole team’s challenge to find a better solution.
Michael Sean Banales says
To follow up on Katie’s question, I’m one of those “jeans-wearing coffee drinking” people actually. I find it very easy to relate to students and they seem to feel a lot more comfortable asking me questions and just getting to the point, whereas when I used to try and be more on the professional level they seem worried about asking me questions. It’s gotten to the point where my summer teaching position includes doing a number of activities with the student so they feel more comfortable with me as per my supervisor’s request. The authority/expert just comes naturally as I teach, as I feel like I present myself well and demonstrate fairly thorough knowledge of the subject (organic chemistry/general chemistry as of late). Whether or not this is unique to me or not, I can’t be certain. That being said, I don’t dress like a slob (or so I hope) by any means, but it seems the idea of professionalism has relaxed a good bit and students respond well to it.
To tackle the question of design in a classroom vs a video game, I feel like the only difference seems to be the level of freedom each views themselves as having. When designing a game, risks are encouraged to a degree. You need to make a game fun and appeal to an audience, but you can introduce new mechanics or novel styles for fun without too much fear of repercussion. In education, design seems largely stagnant. I’m not saying it’s not occurring at all, but we have not seen any major shifts in how a classroom is run for a number of years. I am not aware of anything telling designers they can’t be more adventurous with their ideas, but it seems to just be the status quo everyone has adopted.
Koun says
I think the biggest difference between the game designers and teachers is on the contexts they situated. Besides different constraints, they are dealing with different type of stakeholders. For instance, most of times, game designers have to meet the needs of the players who usually know what they want. However, students might not sure of what they would want to learn, and teachers have to negotiate the meaning of learning itself, what the students need to learn with their students rather than teachers provide what they think the individual student wants. I think this is one of the difficult job for the teachers.