Journal Entry 8, LCE Summer Forum: Design Thinking Learning: asking the right questions makes us…

Journal Entry 8, LCE Summer Forum: Design Thinking Learning: asking the right questions makes us better learners & educators

The Lincoln Center Education’s framework for capacities for Imaginative Thinking are a wonderful resource for designing learning experiences that are geared at igniting curiosity and innovative or Imaginative thinking. The use of the word capacity rather than skill or knowledge indicates that what can be learned is inexhaustible. Although the capacities are focused on aesthetic education, much of the framework is geared at designing inquiry based learning.

Design Thinking

In a nutshell Design Thinking in learning settings is aimed at developing experiences that do not eradicate children’s natural inclination to experiment and create. It’s a never ending cycle of reflection and iteration, failures are learning experiences and the goal is to improve with every iteration. At the core of each step in the design thinking process, is a line of inquiry and reflection. Feedback loops lead to growth.

Capacities for Imaginative Thinking

The capacities outlined by the LCE are applicable to learning in all areas. The first is Noticing Deeply which is described as “To identify and articulate layers of detail in a work of art other object of study through interaction with it over time.”

The second capacity is Pose Questions, “To use questions persistently to reposition thinking and generate curiosity beyond conclusions. To ask the question “What if…?”, only then do we start to Make Connections “To relate what you notice to your knowledge, experience , and other people’s perspectives. To make comparisons with details and ideas in other art works, texts, and subjects.”. We can then start to Identify Patterns which is the capacity “To find and analyze relationships among the detail that you notice within a work of art or object of study.”

One capacity in particular, that appeals to my interest in resilience is fostering the capacity to Live with Ambiguity, “To understand that issue have more than one interpretation and that not all problems have immediate or clear-cut solutions. To be patient with complexity and divergence in your search for resolution.”

Only then can we Create Meaning “To synthesize ideas based on previous capacities to form your own interpretation and see it in light of others in the community.” This capacity then enables us to Take Action in other words “ To realize what you imagine, in the world and in your community, based on what you have learned”. It is critical to to learning that we make time to develop our capacity to Reflect/Assess, meaning “To pause and examine what you have done , analyze what you have learned, identified challenges, and renew curiosity.

-Lincoln Center Education, 2014.

Asking the Right Questions

Wether we’re talking about Imaginative Thinking or Design Learning, being able to ask the right questions at the right time are integral to yielding results in taking steps towards ones goals. In order to progress one needs to be learning. We explored the way in which questions are used in learning settings, and came to realise that far to often questions are asked as fillers, a way to determine those who know from those who don’t and that educators ask questions that they aren’t necessarily prepare to receive the answers.

There is definitely a greater need to understand what the purpose of your questions are, why you ask them and when. So let’s take a look at some useful ways to pose questions in learning settings.

Question Types:

Describe: Open questions that elicit pure noticing. Encourages the learner to refrain from trying to extrapolate meaning or make connections but rather is aimed at using language to explain what they observe in simple language. In trying to not ascribe meaning, we are forced to use our senses to “capture” stimuli and allow the brain to process this stimuli from the outside world to the inside world, thus putting sensory experience and abstract constructs into language.

examples include:

• What do you notice?
• How would you describe?

Analyze: Open questions that asks students to go deeper and beyond their initial observations. It requires students to notice patterns, make connections, identify relationships in an attempt to further understanding what they observe. Still meaning making is not yet in action.

examples include:

• What relationships exist amongst the elements?
• How has the object been composed.
• What is similar?
• What is different?
• What patterns do you notice?

Interpretive: Open questions that help students to find their own meaning after considering responses to the prior descriptions and analyses. Students are required to cite evidence for their interpretations in the subject of study. This should be the last part of authentic question, and only after the other lines of questioning have been pursued should meaning making and interpretation take place.

examples include:

• What does it mean?
• What connections do you make?
• What is the purpose of the art work/ object of study?
• What is being conveyed?
• Does it represent something? If so, then what?
• What might the metaphor be?
• What emotions/reactions does it evoke?

Although it goes by a different name the LCE’s Capacities for Imaginative Thinking and Design Thinking learning are similar in many ways. Both follow cyclic formulae that aim to be learner centric and focused on inquiry and iterative processes. The primary purpose of questions is to promote discovery and ignite curiosity, which I think is at the heart of both. When learners feel in charge of their own learning, self-determined to explore they develop a willingness to experiment and take action based on their line of inquiry.