Fostering System-Level Perspective Taking when Designing for Change in Educational Systems
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Fostering System-Level Perspective Taking when Designing for Change in Educational Systems Steven Weiner 1 & Melissa Warr 2
&
Punya Mishra 2
# Association for Educational Communications & Technology 2020
Abstract A core element of systems thinking is perspective taking. Perspectives help people distinguish between salient and irrelevant information, take particular types of actions, and make sense of the world. In this article, we consider what systems thinking and perspective taking means for designers in education. First, we present a framework, the five spaces for design in education, to illustrate design work in education. The framework presents five spaces for design: artifacts, processes, experiences, systems, and culture. We claim that most—if not all—educators participate in design work; however, the design spaces they work in vary. Consequently, educational designers often fail to consider the perspectives of those working in different spaces, resulting in failed reform efforts. We illustrate this concept through the technology integration attempts of the Los Angeles Unified School District. We argue more effective design in education occurs when designers both recognize their own design perspective and are aware of other perspectives. Keywords Design theory . Systems thinking . Perspective-taking . Complex social systems
In Spring 2012, then-superintendent John Deasy started to plan an ambitious, $1.3 billion transformation of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The goal was to provide all of the district’s roughly 500,000 students with iPads pre-loaded with educational software geared towards mastering Common Core standards (Gilbertson 2014). Yet, after its first-phase rollout, the LAUSD Common Core Technology Project received harsh criticism from the press (Lapowsky 2015; Molnar 2017), independent program evaluators (Margolin et al. 2015), and even from high-ranking district administrators (Lucas 2015). Technical issues,
* Steven Weiner [email protected] Melissa Warr [email protected] Punya Mishra [email protected] 1
School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University, Interdisciplinary B 352, 1120 South Cady Mall, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
2
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University, Farmer Building, Mail Code 1811, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
improprieties in the bidding process, and content inaccuracies in the software led to a firestorm of public disapproval, eventually resulting in the resignation of Superintendent Deasy. Under the guidance of a new superintendent, the program was redesigned with a more intentional focus on teacher instruction and student needs (with the intent to integrate as much of the $100 million worth of hardware and software already purchased as possible!) (Snelling 2018). Although the LAUSD project has become a poster child for how not to integrate technology into a large educational system, it is most certainly not the only example (the much vaunted One Laptop Per Child initiative is another high-pr
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