Recap of Design Workshop 2: Big Changes Start Small
What’s Happened So Far
The Equity, Disproportionality and Design project is guiding cross-functional teams of community members through a human-centered design process to prevent disproportionality by building awareness, empowering our community with preventive tools, and scaling this work up so it can continue into the future.
On October 22, 2019 we launched our project with the first of three design workshops. We want these design workshops to bring our community together and learn to use human-centered design to prevent disproportionality in our schools. This first design workshop focused on ways to build empathy for the students, families, and school staff affected by disproportionality. We did this by mapping the special education journey from the student, teacher, and community perspectives. After the design workshop, our Awareness, Action, and Scale design teams conducted empathy interviews to learn more about the disproportionality stories we don’t always hear.
ED&D member Ryan Estrellado uses the PechaKucha format to tell the ED&D story so far.
February Design Workshop: Big Changes Start Small
Armed with empathy and community stories, our design teams gathered again on February 13, 2020. This time the focus of the design workshop was to begin prototyping five ED&D services:
A disproportionality survey
Processes & practices to share research articles
An introductory training about disproportionality in our schools
A data report of disproportionality predictions
A database of ideas schools have tried to prevent disproportionality and how well they have worked
At the design workshop we learned how prototyping can be a fast way to test many creative ideas quickly. During prototyping, we use available materials to build and discuss ways to improve our ideas. Big changes start small, so our design teams worked together to build small examples of their ideas. One team drew a map of a school-wide event where community members could take surveys in a family-friendly and fun environment. Another team described a training activity where participants stood in areas of the room to act as real-life representations of community demographics.
After developing their ideas, the design teams took turns sharing and discussing their prototypes with the rest of the group.
Parents in the ED&D community share their stories
What’s Next
Developing and testing prototypes
We value our design workshops because they give our community time and space to build preventive disproportionality tools together. But much of the work happens outside of the design workshop. On March 4, 2020, we did a virtual call to get grounded in the prototyping process. In the following weeks each team is joining us in the South County SELPA design room to continue building and testing our preventive disproportionality services. This process will continue in preparation for an upcoming opportunity for each design team to present their prototypes to a new audience.
The awareness, action, and scale teams will be meeting in the ED&D design room to continue prototyping
May Creative Design Workshop
Save the date! The third Creative Design Workshop will be held on May 13, 2019. We’ll be announcing registration by email and social media in early March. The focus of the event will be on learning from and improving our prototypes.
Collaborations
Dr. Deborah Montoya of Imperial County SELPA in San Diego training staff on supporting English Learners with disabilities
We can’t do this work without our colleagues in the California Statewide System of Support! On February 21, 2020, the ED&D team hosted Dr. Deborah Montoya, Senior Director at Imperial County SELPA (ICSELPA), for her talk, Meeting the Needs of English Learners with Moderate & Severe Disabilities. The California Department of Education (CDE) and California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) awarded Imperial County SELPA a grant to support SELPAs in their mission to improve outcomes for English learners with disabilities.
Introducing Our Network Template Prototype
We’re trying to answer a big picture question about disproportionality in our schools: "How might we establish a statewide network of collaborators to scale new bold ideas to prevent disproportionality?" When we work with people in other Special Education Local Plan Areas (SELPA), we match them with others in our network who can help students reach their full academic and social potential.
Keeping with the prototype theme, we’re testing out a new database of our partners in preventing disproportionality. This is a work in progress and we expect to improve it in the coming weeks. Feel free to check out the current version here and let us know what you think of it!
We’re Looking For More Collaborators
That’s all for now! If you’re interested in joining our efforts to prevent disproportionality, please email Adrianne so we can arrange a time to talk more! You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram.
Until next time!
Equity, Disproportionality, & Design Team