LEADing Techquity : Empathize

The image above is a screenshot taken from the Introduction to Design Thinking Process Guide from Stanford's d.school.

Empathizing to initiate the project

The work began with focus group interviews conducted by Remi Holden in an effort to understand the perspectives of the educators we would work with in professional learning. He first led a discussion with the APS Ed Tech team, then replicated that discussion at our two participating schools with engaged stakeholders. Though we used this interview template for these focus group discussions, the conversations that resulted were free flowing and generative, and were never constrained by the template.

Afterward, we chose to transcribe a few select sections that communicated school stakeholders' noticing and aspirations about how educational technology might support more equitable teaching and learning. These excerpts later served as short texts and thinking prompts for the design teams to read and consider during the definition phase of design.

Empathizing by using an asset-focused lens

In our first design day we asked participants to make asset maps in order to identify the positive work they were already engaged in at their schools related to equity and technology. We prompted them to think about the people, the tools and the networks that they could identify as assets in the techquity work going forward. The maps below show some of the connections these school teams made between the work underway at their sites. Almost unanimously, participants noted that this positive approach to thinking about the work at sites was a refreshing way to launch the learning.

Empathizing between stakeholder groups during design work

During the design-focused professional learning, we asked the Ed Tech team to interview school stakeholders about their vision for techquity work and we asked the school stakeholders, in turn, to interview Ed Tech coaches with the goal of better understanding the viewpoints of the stakeholders we endeavored to collaborate with.

Screenshot of a slide meant to support a quick empathy interview.

Participants used sticky notes to quick-write the shifts they envisioned would result from techquity work, then used a note catcher borrowed from the Stanford d.school's Introduction to Design Thinking Process Guide to make notes during the empathy interviews.