I went to the office today after a couple of weeks away and being sick. I had so much fun the hour I got to clean up in the lab and talk to people! I also enjoyed working from the office with two screens. Tonight, I watched 30-minute sessions from the Elon Teaching and Learning Conference back in June 2021. The first session was entitled “Developing Fluency for Crucial Conversations through Design Thinking” by Tracey Thurnes, Associate Professor in the Department of Physician Assistant Studies & Director Accelerated Pathways Program, Elon University, Dianne Person, Director of Anatomical Gift Program, Elon University, and Danielle Lake, Director of Design Thinking and Associate Professor, Elon University. The presenters had the objective of talking about crucial conversations and introducing design thinking and tools to incorporate in courses and projects. Data indicated that crucial conversations are necessary when diagnoses arise and students/practitioners face challenges. The lack of training in these conversations was a challenge. Lake spoke about design thinking, defining it as a framework to frame, explore, generate, prototype, and cultivate ideas to address challenges. They wanted to apply the methods of design thinking to help train people in crucial conversations for end-of-life care.
Their methodology required students to “move beyond routine or surface” conversations. Thurnes talked about the facilitation tools they used. For frame, they had a keynote speaker. For explore, they used empathy maps and experience maps. What was my experience of this conversation or diagnosis? For generate, Thurnes suggested post its, brainstorming and braindumping. For the prototype stage, Thurnes described how they used role playing, speak to sketch, and story boards. The speak to sketch is taking ideas and putting them on paper (prototypes), and the example they shared was simple and had diagrams. For the cultivating stage, Person talked about mindfulness practices in academia and facilitating debrief sessions. One tool they used was rose-bud-thorn to share a highlight, new ideas, and challenges. They also used group share and reflections. The presenters did a breakout room session for participants to exchange ways design thinking can be used within their curricular goals to foster valuable skills. What caught my attention was the clear instructions for what participants would do in the breakout rooms and the time devoted to each task (2 min for individual brainstorms, 3 for small group share, 2 to identify takeaways to report out). The report out was a nice example of using the chat and having the facilitator summarize. The presentation slides were beautiful. The presenters summarized that using these elements of design thinking helped create a safe and supportive environment. Importantly, Thurnes spoke about how the design thinking process can help make connections to the real world and challenges we face. I like the framework followd and appreciate the examples shared. I can see several ways we could use frame, explore, generate, prototype, and cultivate to approach wicked course problems or semester-long experiments. I wonder how this can be used as an activity or even series of in-person activities in BIT 295…
