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00:00:02

[Lorna]

So as Will mentioned, I'm Lorna McGavigan, I'm a commissioning editor at Macmillan. For those of you less familiar with the educational publishing industry, a commissioning editor's role is to research emerging trends and market needs and then we work with ELT specialists to create materials that respond to those trends and needs. So a lot of development work goes into our course books, it's a long process and we work with wonderful experts to produce material.

00:00:41

Before I worked in publishing, like many of my colleagues, I taught English and I still regularly visit schools to observe classes and understand different teaching scenarios, which is one of the lovely parts of the job. And I'm based, as I've seen you all tell me where you're all based, I'm actually based in the north-east of Scotland, I don't know if anyone else, we've got anyone else in Scotland or the north-east there. It's three o'clock here and there's snow outside and it's about three degrees. So thank you, just to give you a bit of geographical context about where I am. And so I'm going to be talking about design thinking and how bringing design thinking principles into the classroom can help students build skills for the future. So I'm going to be asking you for your thoughts at various points throughout this presentation, so please do use the chat function to give your ideas, I want to hear them, even just to know you're engaged in the presentation.

00:01:43

And if you have any questions, I might not see them in the chat, if I'm looking at slides and there's a lot of input, but Will will be monitoring the chat and will pull out any questions and make a note of them so that we maybe have time to go through those at the end. Okay, so let's get started. So jobs of the future. When we're thinking about a new course, we're always trying to understand what teens need. And in five to 10 years' time, today's teens are going to be starting out on their careers. It's very difficult at the moment to escape headlines about the impact of technology on the future of jobs as we go into the fourth industrial revolution, and AI seems to have accelerated that discussion tenfold.

00:02:34

So I just want to look at a couple of headlines. So Demis Hassabis on our AI future, it'll be 10 times bigger than the industrial revolution and maybe 10 times faster. So Demis Hassabis is the CEO of Google DeepMind, which is an AI research lab. He's also a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry for his work on AI. So it's interesting to hear what he's saying about it. AI is already replacing thousands of jobs per month, report finds. Gen Z faces jobpocalypse as global firms prioritise AI over new hires, report says. AI coming for your job, it may be stopping you being hired at all. It's all quite daunting. And I imagine anyone going into the world of work at the moment may be having doubts in their mind about some of the career opportunities. So I wondered if I could ask you to think about some of the human skills that you feel technology won't be able to replace. So thinking about skills that we won't be able to fully automate.

00:03:43

And if you have any ideas, could ask you to write them in the chat. Empathy. Thank you, Ana Maria. Yeah, that's a great example. And also the first one that came to mind. Rapport. Yeah, great. Emotion and the encouragement. Empathy and nonviolent communication. Humour. Yeah, I don't know about AI's sense of humour. I've not had great experiences with it. Psychotherapy, psychology, law of values, facial expression, feelings, soft skills, social connection. I think creativity. Yes, thank you. And that's such an important one. And we're going to be talking about that. Validating emotions. So there are no right or wrong answers. I don't think we really know what AI is going to be able to do yet. But thank you for all your great ideas and contributions there.

00:04:50

I think overall, there's a sense of optimism, if you agree, that we won't be fully replaced. And I've thought about this a lot myself. And even asked AI what it thought would be a good answer to that question. And it came back with AI can simulate empathy, but it doesn't feel. I would caveat that with yet, because it gets very close sometimes to making you feel as this as though it's real. And AI generates content based on patterns and data, but it can't come up with original ideas. Again, what who knows what's going to happen in the future? And someone saying, I might take the place of teachers, but I don't fully agree. Yes, still needs advanced skills to understand whether a student has actually grasped the subject or not.

00:05:43

It's a very good point. And a good one for us as teachers. So for me, the way we support students in the future is by emphasising the human skills they bring and giving them confidence in those skills. So thank you, Jan. I don't worry about being late. Lovely to come. And yes, somebody is just saying that there was a prediction that there may be no traditional teachers in 2025. I'm glad that's not happened yet, although I have read about university courses being taught through AI modules. But there seems to be, I don't think that's been fully sort of reviewed yet. Anyway, what I want to ask you next, but what do you know about design thinking? How many of you are familiar with it? If you could read the statements, oh, you're ahead of me. And if you could read the statements and say one, two or three, I've heard of it. I've never heard of it. I've heard of it, but I don't know much about it.

00:06:46

I've heard of it. And I'd like to know more. I'm seeing a lot of ones and twos. Got three from Zana there. OK, thank you. I mean, I think I was expecting to see a lot of ones and twos. And great that there's a few threes in there as well. And I think it's a relatively new term outside of the world of product development. So let's learn a little bit more.

00:07:23

So what is design thinking? Design thinking methodology originated in top tech firms like Google and IBM and Apple. But it is now being used more widely in other industries. So leading educational institutions like MIT, Harvard, the London Business School, and many more are offering courses in design thinking. And you can pay thousands to attend one of these courses. But in its essence, it's a five-step approach to solving problems. And it puts the user at the centre of the process and focusses on solutions. There are different variations. But we developed our approach following these five stages.

00:08:06

Empathise, define, ideate, prototype, and test. And I'll talk you through each of those stages shortly. But first of all, so I think somebody's still answering the question. Thank you very much. Yes, so values such as soft skills are things which AI will lack in the future. OK, so first of all, I wanted to look at an example of design thinking in practise. So there are plenty of commercial examples of physical products and software developed using design thinking principles. But it can be applied to other areas of design and planning. These pictures are of the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow, Scotland, which is where I'm from.

00:08:54

It was redesigned in 2024. And these are just a small glimpse of the changes. Please do look up this project. It's very moving and it's a very moving and ambitious project. And it's all led by the incredible Dr. Alison Walker, who you can see pictured. So the redesign followed a process of, sorry, a user focused design process, which involved interviews with the people who use the hospital. So the children, the parents and the staff. And it was through this that the design team were able to understand what would make people feel comfortable and welcomed in an environment which is usually clinical and intimidating. I don't know if you've been to a hospital lately, but they tend not to be the most welcoming places.

00:09:46

For example, older children felt that the existing artwork on walls was a bit too babyish. So now the murals are designed for children of all ages with different types of illustrations at different eye levels. And the children can see themselves reflected in them. One child said, when I was last here, there was nothing to cheer you up. But as you can see, the seating is now much more interactive for imaginative play. There's even a toy museum in the waiting room where there used to be a blood fridge. So it's much more child focused. It was noted that the large red hand on the operating theatre door was adding to kids' anxiety. So it's a really small detail that may never have been picked up on were it not for these user focused interviews. And to cater to parents, a wee room. So wee is Scots for small. So a small room with soft lighting was added for parents to use whilst their children were in surgery, which could be a very difficult time for them.

00:10:48

And I just think this is such a lovely example of how design thinking can be used to help improve the society that we live in. So what does design thinking have to do with our students' futures and the 2030s? So as discussed, there's an increasing importance on the human skills that AI can't yet replicate, as you listed in the chat earlier. Can design thinking help develop these? Technology is advancing at a rapid pace. Graduate job markets are highly competitive. Many graduates are lacking key employability skills. So critical thinking, communication, collaboration, resilience, innovation and so on. Further education offers a lot of subject matter input, but it doesn't always prepare students holistically for the world of work. We need to be helping students build skills now to help them thrive in a rapidly changing world. And I always think language learning and life skills are so closely linked and design thinking is just one way of giving students a structure to help them approach problems with confidence now that can also be applied in further study and in work. So we're sort of changing their mindset, how they approach problems.

00:12:29

So at Macmillan, we worked with leading ELT specialists to adapt design thinking methodology for the classroom, making sure that the cognitive level was appropriate for teenagers and the staging was appropriate for and achievable in the English classroom. So this is an example of a project where students are tasked with designing a welcome pack for students, for new students at their school. And we found the staging of design thinking just really lent itself to project work in the classroom, providing a relatable goal, a real problem and a structure that supports students develop their ideas step by step and increase their confidence in their ideas. And I'd like to talk you through today the structure of a design thinking approach to this project. So we're going to be a wee bit interactive for the next couple of slides. But the first step in design thinking is always empathy with the user.

00:13:27

And I think in general, the link between empathy and language learning is just so important. You can't learn a language without empathy towards other cultures. And would you agree with that? So you can't learn a language without empathy towards other cultures. OK, I'm getting some agreement. Thank you. I'd just like to check you're still there. So the focus is on understanding the user's perspective. And you can use tools such as empathy maps to understand what users see and think and feel and do. In the project example, the situation is scenario led to help structure the lesson. So students are given an example of a school and different perspectives of the students there. They then respond to prompt questions, which are notices, annotations on the empathy map on the right. So who are they helping and empathising with? What kinds of problems do new students at the school face? What does the school do to help new students?

00:14:30

And what are the problems with the information the school gives about the local area? But that is scenario led. Today, I just wanted to hear from you. I would like you to imagine you are going to design a welcome pack for new students. And to start with, I just want you to think back to when you were new to a job or a class or a school. This could be as a child or an adult. I don't think the feelings necessarily change. How did you feel? What kind of worries or problems did you face? And what helped you? So the questions are on the slide in the yellow box. If you could have a wee think about that and share any thoughts in the chat, if you're happy to do so. You don't have to answer all the questions. And I'll give you a few minutes to think about this. Thank you. So thinking about a time you were new to a school, a job or a class. How did you feel? What kind of worries or problems did you experience?

00:15:34

And what helped you? Nervous, awkward? Scared? Overwhelmed? Nervous, a bit lost? Fitting in with teachers and scared by new programmes. I mean, that sounds like the experience of an adult. But yeah, it doesn't change, does it? Stressed? Self-conscious and uncertain? Shy? Overwhelmed? Defensive? Insecure? Butterflies? Needing a person you can rely on, ask for help? Worried? Reluctant? Bit scared? Bit of bullying? Having good friends there? Shy? Not knowing where to go? What was allowed? That's a really interesting one, I think. Being scared of what's going to happen? Lack of confidence? Frustrated? Underconfident? Not having the information that you need?

00:16:38

I mean, it's really interesting. My son has just started primary school and he was very excited to start primary school. And the older children prepared a video tour of the school with lots of information for the new starters, like what kind of lunch you could have, how to follow the safe route through the car park, and a short clip or photo, an introduction of the other new starters. That really helped. Having that knowledge just really helped him. But thank you for sharing your experiences. This is the input we need for the next stage. But before we move on, I wanted to reflect on the value of empathy as a human skill. It's one of the first ones that somebody mentioned. It was mentioned several times in the chat earlier. So the benefits of empathy. When we are empathetic, we listen and understand others' viewpoints.

00:17:26

We're able to hold multiple perspectives. Not everyone's experience is the same. Not everyone will be scared going into a new school. They might just want to know that information or have that information about what to do in different situations. It helps you be accepting of differences of opinion. So if you are able to understand where someone is coming from, it helps you advocate for others and it helps you improve cultural awareness. Thank you for those added points there. OK, so the next stage is the defined stage. So at this point, the goal is for students to summarise the problem in a short statement.

00:18:19

And to do so, they need to understand the problem to be able to express it in a way that is clear. So building on their communication oracy skills and showing that they can understand other viewpoints and clearly define and communicate a problem. Because remember, they're putting themselves into the position of someone else. So they want to understand the problem from someone else's perspective. So thinking about your answers to the last questions about how you felt in a new situation, let's try and better define the problem together. So what are we doing and why? We want to summarise this in a short statement to make sure everyone really understands the problem that we are trying to solve with our welcome pack. So how would you complete the sentence shown in yellow? We are designing a welcome pack for new students too.

00:19:05

If you can pop your thoughts in the chat and take a few minutes to do it, to feel safe to be themselves, to feel safe and comfortable, to feel like they're not alone, to help them feel more confident. To mingle together and become comfortable, to feel relaxed and safe. I mean, it's interesting that the answers were coming up here. I can see that they are very related to what you put in the chat earlier, whereas the previous group had slightly more mixed feelings. So they came up with slightly different aims for their welcome pack. For example, to be able to find their way around the school and local area, to know where to go for help settling in.

00:20:00

So a couple of the possible answers that I came up with might be to show students that they're welcome and the school wants to help them become part of the community, or to help students see what activities are available so they can make friends more easily, or make students excited about joining the school. There are lots of different directions you could take this welcome pack in. OK, so I won't ask you to do the next stage, perhaps in a longer session, but I'm sure you would have plenty of ideas here. But we would be here all day. So at this stage, we generate ideas. The stage is called ideate. And the word ideate is a term I've seen most often used in the tech industry. But it just means to generate ideas. This is the point where students will work together in groups.

00:20:54

And one of the key principles of design thinking is the value placed on diversity in groups. So getting students with different skills and perspectives to work together and lean into their strengths. So I'll give you a moment to read the quote. So in general, diverse teams generate a wider range of thinking and ideas and create better innovation outcomes than groups of people with similar mindsets and cultural backgrounds. And that's from Design Thinking for a Student project by Morgan and Jasperson. And they go on to say another advantage of diversity is the bringing together of different knowledge sets. And the resulting idea is likely to be something quite different and better than any of them could have developed individually. And this is supported by, sorry, I've just made my notes into tiny, tiny size. And so this is supported by research.

00:22:00

So there was a recent study by McKinsey, one of the big four consultancy companies. And the study showed that companies with more diversity at board level outperform those with less diversity by quite a significant amount. So I think it is really important to think about this. So once students have really defined the problem, they can then start to think of solutions in their groups. So this may include a research stage, but the focus is on the generation of ideas. There's no judgement or feedback on ideas at this stage. It's a safe space. There are a range of ideation or brainstorming techniques that you can use with your class to come up with ideas. And it's good to introduce these to students and allow them to explore them.

00:22:50

For example, you might want to focus on how to create a safe space for ideas or different ways of using sticky notes or explore different collaborative apps or different brainstorming strategies like plussing, for example, which is where you enhance someone else's idea with a response beginning with yes and rather than yes but. So a supportive development of an idea. Students will then debate and agree on which ideas to further develop. And the next stage is to select and prototype an idea, which is your sort of typical project output. So we normally think of a prototype as a 3D model or a basic software, but this is quite ambitious for the English classroom. So in our scenario, it could take any form.

00:23:42

It might be a sketch or a poster presentation, a physical prototype, an outline or a group presentation. It doesn't need to be perfect. And the emphasis needs to be that this is a first attempt and that students will get feedback and the opportunity to improve. And finally, to the last stage, the test stage, which I think is one of the most useful in terms of skills development. So Google's CEO of DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, this is the person I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. He stated this year that the key skill for the future is going to be learning how to learn as the only constant is going to be change. And the test stage is where students present their solution for feedback. It's really important that they go in with the knowledge that they may still be able to improve their proposal, perhaps by adding something to it or adapting it. That's a positive.

00:24:37

We want students to develop a growth mindset and an openness to learning how to learn. To do that, it's very important that feedback skills are developed too. Feedback needs to be given and received constructively to allow students to reflect on their work and want to improve. So in a typical classroom, peer feedback would be ideal here, provided everyone understands how to give that feedback in a positive way. And I just want to conclude this slide with a quote by Henry Ford. And there are a lot of people saying similar things, but this is just one I picked out that seemed to summarise it.

00:25:16

But failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, and this time more intelligently. And I think that helping students build that mindset from a young age will help them become resilient young adults. So just to some final thoughts on human skills. Design thinking can offer a structure to project work. So a structure that can be used in industry and to improve society as an example of the children's hospital that I showed you earlier. It relies on human skills to be successful. Human skills like seeing the world through other perspectives, being able to interpret and communicate ideas, work collaboratively in diverse groups, see feedback as a way to improve, and see challenges as things that can be overcome and develop a growth mindset. So thank you so much for listening today and contributing your ideas. You've been a very engaged group and I've really appreciated it.

00:25:55

I hope you found it interesting and you feel like you know a little bit more about design thinking and how you might use it in the classroom. I'll be here I think for another five minutes if we've got time with Will. So if you have any questions and you'd like to discuss further, please do stick around. But I'm sure you'll want to stick around anyway because Claire and Anna have some really fantastic talks coming up that are so relevant to anyone working with teenagers. So yes, thank you. Thank you very much.

00:26:52

[Will]

Thank you so much, Lorna. Thanks for putting the talk together a lot. And thanks for being here with us as well. I know it's not kind of what you were hired for and it's really great that you're able to do this for us. So thank you very much. If you have got, we haven't got any questions actually, Lorna. I think everyone's entirely clear on design thinking. And yeah, if you have got a question for Lorna, I didn't catch it, so please do pop it back. But I think we're good for now. And there will be a PDF of the webinar, if you don't mind, Lorna. We'll be giving the PDF to the audience for this so they can go through it again. Okay, any other key texts other than the Morgan Jasperson one that you recommend, that you would recommend?

00:27:43

[Lorna]

Yeah, there was another book that I found very useful. It was called Design Thinking in the Classroom by David Lee, which is perhaps the Morgan Jasperson one is maybe more targeted at those working in further education. But it is a very interesting because it has some sort of case studies and interviews with people from industry. So if you want to get a sense of what skills industry are looking for at the moment, then it's a good one. Design Thinking in the Classroom is more for the team scenario and teaching the classroom, but it covers, it's not ELT specific. It covers sort of general secondary.

[Will]

Education. Do you think there's going to be a huge difference? Do you think there'll be a large difference between the two?

00:28:25

The two books? Well, between teaching Design Thinking in a secondary environment specifically, or generally, or in an ELT environment?

[Lorna]

I think so, yeah. I mean, I think, I actually think Design Thinking really lends itself to language learning because those skills are so important. And we have this great opportunity to teach life skills in English in a way that other subjects might not always be able to. So yeah, for me, I do think there's a difference, yeah. I see Dave's also recommending Design Thinking.

[Will]

He has, he has. Dave, you are recommending it, but you're still, you're recommending it to hosts and panellists only. If you wouldn't mind resharing that to everyone so everyone can see your last comment. And how can we support, Cheng is, Dem is asking, how can we support learners who struggle with open-ended tasks or creative confidence during Design Thinking process?

00:29:27

[Lorna]

I mean, I think Design Thinking is really supportive for those who struggle with creative confidence because the emphasis is absolutely not on the output. It is on the process. So it is about speaking to users and finding out what they want. So you've got something to base your creative output on. It can really structure a project. And sometimes that is lacking in projects. So I think that is really a lovely structure to bring to projects.

[Will]

Brilliant, thank you, Lorna. I hope this answers your question, Malika. Brilliant, thank you. All right, thanks so much, Lorna. I think… hold on… One more in the Q&A, they're all coming in now.

[Lorna]

Okay.

[Will]

What's the difference between design thinking and differentiated instruction?

00:30:09

[Lorna]

Um, could you just define what you mean by differentiated instruction? Do you mean, sort of. Um, a universal design for learning approach.

[Will]

Yeah, there's confusion between these two concepts, isn't there? Oh, yeah, we had that. This is not the first time we've heard of it.

[Lorna]

Yes. Um, so I think with differentiated instruction, that's maybe to appeal to, um, learner variability in the classroom, if understood correctly. I'm sorry, I can't see who raised the.

[Will]

Mm-hmm. Yes, Malika, yeah, yeah.

[Lorna]

Question for the chat. But, um, uh, yeah, I mean, I would say, um, it's… quite, um, different. I mean, design thinking. With its emphasis on, um, inclusion and diversity can really help students with different strengths work together, and I think that is, um… something that's really important, and whereas differentiated instruction maybe has a. Um… if I've understood it correctly, um, is maybe about, um… Giving different, um… And… Well, sorry, I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, different, different tasks, whereas I think design thinking is about working.

00:31:17

[Will]

Instruction, tasks, and activities, and…

[Lorna]

Together. And taking advantage of variabilities and diversity.

[Will]

Mm-hmm. Brilliant. Thank you, Lorna. I hope this answers your question, Malika.

[Lorna]

Okay. Bye.

[Will]

Um, alright, well, I'll let you go. You've got a bit of a break now between the last… between this and the last one, so have a nice break, and we'll see you in a while.

[Lorna]

Thanks, again everyone. Bye bye.