Design Thinking for Education, Ep 9: The Lotus Blossom

[Music] [Music] today's human center design method will be the lotus blossom i'm aaron aldemas program director with the consortium for public education what is the lotus blossom brainstorming method the lotus blossom is a multi-layered brainstorming method yielding 72 unique ways to solve a problem similar to a morphological chart this is a divergent form of brainstorming meaning it encourages a lot of unique ideas you start with a 9x9 grid like this and end up with 72 ideas like this this brainstorming method gets its name from the lotus blossom flower which as you can see here has multiple layers of petals just as we're going to do multiple layers of brainstorming and if you're wondering where the lotus blossom fits within a designed cycle the lotus blossom is part of the id8 phase so here's the process step 1 start with a 9x9 grid you can draw a grid on a whiteboard or create a table in word or google docs step two place the problem that you want to solve in the very center of the grid like so step three in the eight squares surrounding the center square add possible solutions to the problem your solutions don't have to be color-coded like i have them here i've just chosen to use colors in this example to hopefully make things a little easier to understand step 4 then re-copy each solution so that it occupies the center of its own three by three grid like this here you can see each solution is now at the center of its own three by three grid step five add another layer of brainstorming for each solution consider how you might make each solution possible adding strategies ideas details tools etc to each 3x3 grid the idea here is really to get to the how of making each of these potential solutions possible this process can be confusing at first so let's try this in practice so here's our application scenario students are not engaged in class so we put our problem at the center of our nine by nine grid and then we begin to add possible solutions so perhaps we look at connecting to student interests or trying to make learning more active connecting to the real world seeking student input looking for patterns to see if there's a reason behind their disengagement we change up the room seek to learn from others who are maybe engaging students better we strive to look for ways to make learning more exciting so now that we have eight potential solutions in the center of our grid we recopy those so that they are now in the center of their own 3x3 grid like so these ideas are a good place to start but we need to go deeper we have to figure out how we could make any of these actually happen in the classroom let's start with connecting to student interests so perhaps we name some of the things that interest students in class like going outside sports fashion social media gaming current tv shows current movies and their community we then repeat this process for the other 7 solutions listed on our grid after filling the 9x9 grid you can choose just one idea to pursue or you can choose multiple ideas to consider in more detail or you can connect ideas to form a larger concept or a plan of action so let's return to our 9x9 grid we could just do surveys to get input from students and then build from there or we combine surveys with starting a student voice group perhaps doing a little rose thorn bud design thinking method to find out what students like what they don't and what they might hope to see in class we could talk to parents and get some outside input and maybe speak with some veteran teachers to see what they're doing in their classrooms and build on their knowledge perhaps one of the best things about using a lotus blossom is that you have so many ideas to choose from and you can always come back to your brainstorming grid and pull new ideas if the ones you first choose don't work now let's talk in person versus virtual if you're working in person you can draw a 9x9 grid on a whiteboard or use a large sheet of flip chart paper make sure that each box is large enough to fit a sticky note use sticky notes to place ideas in each portion of the grid you do not need to use color-coded sticky notes for this method if you're working virtually you could use jamboard and create your grid in slides or powerpoint and upload it to jamboard as an image file if you're using padlet you can add your grid as wallpaper and then use the canvas format to populate ideas however probably the simplest way to create a lotus blossom in a virtual space is to create a 9x9 table in either microsoft word or google docs just like this lastly here are a few tips and tricks this method can be done on your own or with a group of four to six people feel free to jump around from one solution to another the grid does not need to be completed in any particular order once you've determined your initial problem and eight solutions i also highly recommend this method as a personal reflection activity to encourage broader thinking when facing a particular problem or challenge to review remember use this method when you are in the early stages of problem solving as a way to explore many options for action and in general this is a great method for generating a lot of new unique ideas and if you found this video helpful please remember to like and subscribe thank you [Music] you

Channel: Consortium for Public Education

Views: 1,405

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Id: eYzjM9un2p8

Length: 7min 9sec (429 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021