October 25, 2010

By: Cooper-Hewitt N. from New York, NY
Comments: 25

Posted By: Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
On: 7/29/2008 10:24:32 AM

The first day of Cooper-Hewitt's SDI was yesterday in Minneapolis, MN. Read about it on the Walker Art Center's blog:https://blogs.walkerart.org/ecp/2008/07/28/summer-design-institute-day-1/. Check out the blog all week to find out more about the teacher training based on Design for the Other 90%!

Posted By: Juliana James
On: 8/12/2008 9:03:50 PM

Attending the Summer Design Institute for one week at Walker Art Center totally transformed the way I want to teach my fourth grade students this year. I want them to notice how design is all around us. I want design based education to be a woven throughout the year. It was a very powerful experience. Thank you very much!

Posted By: lisa arcand
On: 8/16/2008 4:03:40 PM

The Summer Design Institute truly opened my eyes about what good design really means. A few things really stuck with me throughout the week and beyond. Most intriguing to me was the design process presented by IDEO Practice Lead, Sandy Speicher. The steps, which we know are meant to be fluid and not necessarily sequential, are : Start with empathy Leverage Build to think Fail early to succeed sooner Try and learn continuously Ask forgiveness instead of permission Using this process during our workshop week and also through lesson planning has proven quite beneficial for me. I especially like "Fail early to succeed sooner." My understanding was that the word "fail" was intentionally put into the phrase as a way to break through that heavy cloak of negativity which happens to stop many people before they even get a chance to begin. For some reason, when the word "fail" is placed in that phrase it seems to become a weaker word. I am also attracted to the notion of "ask forgiveness instead of permission." Again, this concept allows for much more freedom of thinking. If we truly want our children to be creative thinkers, then we need to allow them the opportunity to try, fail, succeed, make mistakes, try again, fail or succeed but always keep learning and reaching without the heavy weight that failure or acceptance seem to carry.

Posted By: susanne donahoe
On: 8/28/2008 3:50:11 PM

I must agree with Juliana. Attending this fabulous summer design program has totally changed my way of thinking. It has caused me to take a much deeper and wider look into the what was once only one dimensional technique of teaching. It's a fresher approach and one which has caused a renewed interest in teaching. Susanne

Posted By: Susie Jessop
On: 2/21/2009 2:36:03 PM

It is now February and I still think back to our week at The Walker. We heard so many amazing speakers, saw the "Other 90%" exhibit, designed many cool things and met many great teachers. It also changed my way of thinking and teaching. I intentionally try to set up groups of students with a problem and have them design the solution. I find it works naturally with science and social studies. My students love working in small groups and using their creativity to solve problems. I love to hear their ideas and see them try to figure something out and then to share their solution with the class. Thank you Cooper-Hewitt for the opportunity!

Posted By: Daniel Nelson
On: 2/25/2009 9:02:23 PM

Over the last few years I have used many different design processes. I also found the design process presented by IDEO Practice Lead, Sandy Speicher, informative and beneficial in planning my current design projects. With a current group of students, I made use of the design process as described in our free copy of "Why Design?", compliments of Cooper-Hewitt.