Innovation Lab!
6 week artist residency teaching design thinking to elementary aged children. Utilizing the design process to guide students towards deeper inquiry, empathy, & connection.
The Design Process:
Define the Problem
Empathy Map
Ideate & Sketch
Build a Prototype
Test & Get Feedback
Re-Design
STEP 1
Define the Problem
In the first session we breakdown the differences between Art and Design, and learn the importance of teamwork in problem solving. The students learn the various roles in a design team, watch a great video on Google X’s ‘Design Kitchen’. Each student receives a Design Journal to keep their ideas, sketches, and discoveries throughout the residency.
Our Design Challenge:
A local pet store has hired us to design a new toy for a lonely dog at home.
STEP 2
Empathy Map
Building empathy with the user, or Human Centered Design, first popularized by IDEO is now widely viewed as a critical component for products and businesses alike. But what Is empathy? Sometimes we hear a word so often it can lose its meaning. There’s a great animated short on the difference between empathy vs. sympathy by Dr. Brene Brown. She defines empathy as feeling with people. The students start by thinking about their user’s feelings (i.e. the lonely dog), and work in groups to create Empathy Maps.
STEP 3
Ideation & Sketches
The students learn the essential stage in the design process: Ideation. We start out small, and let word association build to bigger ideas. Ideation is a great way to problem solve, in design, but also in life. From the ideation stage, the students are then prompted to begin sketching out their ideas.
STEP 4 - 6
Prototype Building & Testing
On the last couple days of the residency, we build! It is so fun to watch the students’ ideas start to take shape. Before I arrive on the first day I ask the students (i.e. the parents) to save recycled materials for us to use. The materials help reinforce the idea that these are just tests, not sacred objects. We are thinking through the making, we want to build fast and break stuff! We are designers after all!
Example of the dog toy prototype I built for the Innovation Lab class.
Testimonials
“I had the pleasure of hosting Sarah Shoemaker's Teaching Artist Residency this winter called Innovation Lab. I couldn't recommend Sarah and her residency enough. She proved to be extremely professional, compassionate, and knowledgeable about her craft and teaching. She was able to build excitement around inquiry with the students in a relatively short time as well as build relationships and trust with some of my more challenging students. It was a complete joy working with her!”