Designing Positive School Communities

Designing Positive School Communities — page 3 — What Is Design Thinking When you see a problem in the world around you do you want to help solve it If so then design thinking may be for you Design thinking is a process a set of steps to take you to your goal It’s also a mindset a set of attitudes a person has about something You can use design thinking to look at problems in a new way and find brilliant solutions Design thinking is a powerful people-focused way to help people of all ages and backgrounds become change makers in their communities The Focus People’s Needs Design thinkers start with empathy for the user or the person or group who is experiencing a problem They work to understand the problem from the user’s point of view Design thinkers stay focused on the user and the user’s needs as they work to develop a solution Working with a partner or a small group will help you come up with new ideas while working through the design-thinking process 4

Designing Positive School Communities — page 4 — Where Did Design Thinking Come From User focused problem solving is an approach that has been used for years under many different names Design thinking is also called public interest design because it is a way to inspire people to work together to create solutions that are in the interest or will benefit people in a community You can use design thinking to help you find solutions to all kinds of problems Meet a CHANGE MAKER Jeremiah Anthony Taking Action against Cyberbullies Jeremiah Anthony was a student at West High School in lowa City lowa when he learned about cyberbullying Cyberbullies target others on social media usually writing hurtful messages and posting them publicly or sending them privately Many teens use social media sites daily Jeremiah learned that some students at his school were being cyberbullied They felt bad about themselves every time they used social media He listened to their experiences and decided to make social media a positive place for them Jeremiah created a Twitter account westhighbros to tweet compliments to students he thought might be feeling bad that day His friends started tweeting compliments to their friends who then tweeted their friends Thousands of tweets later sending sincere compliments to other students has become a regular part of life at Jeremiah's school Jeremiah and his friends were inspired to make a difference in their school and community by reminding people of their value and strengths When I got the tweet it just really brightened up my day that someone would send a tweet like that What he is doing with complimenting people one compliment can change their entire life Jeremiah Anthony explains Cyberbullies try to focus on what's bad about a person and I try to say no you're actually really good at this and you're much more good at this than you're bad at this WEST westhighbros westhighbros HIGN You are so full of character and energy You're a great friend to anyone and can BROS find the good in everything

Designing Positive School Communities — page 5 — The Design thinking Process the design thinking process is a set of steps that guides problem solving There are a few different versions of the process but all of them focus on putting the user's needs first Loop the Loop The design thinking process we will use in this book has six steps Often you won't find the solution to a problem on your first try Empathize Develop a deep understanding of the user's needs Reflect Evaluate how well the solution met the user's needs Define Identify a point of view and define a problem to solve Test Share prototype with user and get feedback Ideate Generate many creative ideas as possible solutions Prototype Build a representation or model of the best idea Design thinking is an iterative process This means you can repeat the steps many times as you work toward a solution

Designing Positive School Communities — page 6 — Members of positive school communities respect each other’s ideas and needs Design thinkers don’t give up if their first ideas don’t work Design thinkers fail forward meaning they use mistakes and failures to improve their solution on the next try Community Connections A community can be small such as your class at school or large such as a whole country Mindset Tips Have you heard the expression Think globally act locally It means we help the whole planet when we make positive change in our own small part of the world Positive school communities make everyone feel welcome safe and included You can use design thinking to help create positive school communities at your school and around the world This book shows you how Be interested Listen to other people Learn about their lives Dig deep Be curious Explore Ask lots of questions Share Work on problems with others Value their ideas Be open New ideas can come from unexpected places Be brave Try out original ideas Don’t let fear of failing stop you 7

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