Design Thinking To Inspire Ambition
Sydney Catholic Education Office
The Challenge
Four Sydney Primary School Head Teachers were frustrated by the perception that the Australian curriculum limited their teachers.
The Objective
Co-design a fresh and creative approach to learning that at least satisfies state standards while increasing engagement.
The Outcome
A curriculum design methodology and teaching practices that outstripped state requirements and increased social mobility, self-efficacy of students, over the course of 18 months. For example, the proportion of students who had a strong understanding of how to learn something new, and who knew why they were learning the topic, rose from around 22% to 72%.
We co-designed a curriculum framework with the Head Teachers from four primary schools in the Sydney Catholic Education Office system. We then worked with their teaching staff to create units of work based on our design thinking framework. We also trained staff in approaches to learning that provide students with the language, structures and confidence to take on more thinking for themselves, and become less dependent on the teacher. This frees up the teacher to push students out of their comfort zone, and to support those students who need an extra hand.
As teachers' planning and practice developed on an individual level, the Head Teachers used NoTosh's agile approach to curriculum design - "Hexagonal Thinking" - to make connections between each classroom's work.
Hexagonal thinking allows more creative curriculum planning
Design Thinking To Inspire Ambition
Sydney Catholic Education Office
The whole staff could now see their curriculum laid out with clarity. They eliminated duplication and spotted opportunities for interdisciplinary projects.
With an emphasis now on discovering and harnessing creative space in the curriculum, rather than focussing on the limitations, teachers began to explore new opportunities for learning. They prototyped, or tested, new ideas in the classroom, and noted the impact of their changes in practice as they went.
Staff created "project nests", large noticeboards where teachers shared the different skills they had developed with NoTosh, and their own inspirations, discoveries and ideas.
Teachers are now working directly with students in an entirely new way, taking on board their ideas, tailor-making new opportunities for learning, calling on the experiences in students’ lives, and as such have created an empathy-driven educational experience.
Students are also embracing Design Thinking as their process of enquiry in everyday learning. Adopting this process gives them a new sense of freedom to voice opinions and ideas in class, giving them confidence to try out new ideas, to problem-find, prototype and work together.
The impact on learning outcomes was profound. For example, in St Mel’s Primary School, there was a clear shift in learner agency over the first two years of the change programme, according to their student surveys:
The percentage of students who understood why they were learning the topic in hand increased from 23% to 73%;
High enjoyment of learning increased from 18% to 75%;
The number of students who feel they can change the world around them rose from 45% to 98%;
The proportion of students who had a strong understanding of how to learn something new rose from 21% to 71%;
The number of students who saw value in feedback from their peers rose from only 5% to 93%;
Before, a third of students felt they had a say over the configuration of their learning space. After this process, over 90% expressed a sense of having that sense of voice.
Further research on our Design Thinking approach's impact on curriculum design in Australian schools, including these four Sydney primaries, was compiled in 2015.
