1. Design Thinking in Education
Milpitas Unified School District
Cary Matsuoka, Superintendent
Marsha Grilli, Board President
March 10, 2014

2. Why Change our Model?
Create a more student-centered learning environment
Close the achievement gap, help all students succeed
Help teachers differentiate instruction, customize learning for every student
Integrate the 4 C’s into our classrooms

3. What we Accomplished?
February 2012 – “if you could design a school from scratch, what would it look like?”
Spring 2012 – incubated design teams at schools, best plans emerged in April 2012
May 2012 – two schools voted to implement a full blended-learning school in August 2012
Today – Weller and Randall Elementary Schools are 20 months into their blended learning experience

4. Images of Blended Learning

5. “Where are your earbuds?”

6. Student-Centered Learning

7. Student Engagement

8. “Learning Centers”

9. Small Group Instruction

10. More Small Group Instruction

11. Role of the Board of Trustees
Encourage innovation and taking risks
Prepare children for the world of the future, not the world of the past
Today’s kinders will graduate from HS in 2026!
Provide enough autonomy and space for staff
Expect results that are measured and documented

12. Perspective of a Board Member (and a grandparent!)

13. Our Experience as a Board
Uneasiness with the change process
Doubt
Needed to extend trust in our superintendent as the educational leader
Faith in our staff
We need to support our 21st Century students, but change is challenging for our staff

14. Design Thinking - Learning by Doing
Empathy - Define - Ideate - Prototype - Test
A bias towards action, faster planning cycles

15. Empathy Empathy for students Empathy for teachers
Recognizing that our students will enter a very different world in the 2020’s and we need to prepare them for their future lives and not the world of our past

16. Ideate – Prototype
Typical strategic plans – big committees, binders, too many goals, months of meetings
Design thinking – come up with a prototype that you can implement quickly

17. Test Learn from your mistakes, struggles, challenges
Do not get overly attached to your first draft
Figure out when to “pivot or persevere”
sometimes you need to stay the course
sometimes you need to pivot
Keep iterating towards higher quality solutions

18. Weller’s Experience
Year 1 – rough first 6 weeks, minor pivots with their plan, frustrations with instructional software
Year 2 – changed software platforms, using iReady, smooth routines
Year 3 ( ) – major re-design of their blended learning model

19. Influence of Design Thinking
Broad blended learning at four other elementary schools
New elementary report card, created in 6 weeks
High school integrated curriculum, 10th grade English, World History, Chemistry
School furniture, finding the right tools for 21st Century learning

20. Design Thinking as One Tool
We still do traditional timeline and planning
Budgets, staffing, hiring, facilities
We have a Local Educational Agency Plan (LEAP)
We are working on our LCAP
Design thinking is a tool and a mindset