Creative Confidence: Spark

After reading the two readings, I have a lot of take aways that I think will help me with my design problem and with problems in the future. In Lupton, it emphasizes the importance of getting to know your users. An important feature of this is to observe them and to gather insight about their interests. When you want to understand someone, these are two really important ways to learn more about a person. Observation allows you to see things that they aren't telling you, or may not know how to tell you. Learning about their interests helps you create a solution that will truly work for them and that they will enjoy.

In creative confidence, I really enjoyed reading about the real life examples they provided. It gave me a better understanding of what each aspect really meant. I like how it mentioned you have to decide to be creative and take risks. Being creative doesn't always come naturally to people and so something it really does come down to making the decision to try something new.

Using the information from the readings, I have a better understanding of how to move forward with my students during my design challenge. Important aspects of problem solving for students will include interviewing them and asking them questions. I have some WHY questions as well as some imagine questions. For example, I will ask students to imagine another student was going to join our class. What would you tell them about our school and our class? What are the best parts about school? What are the challenging parts about school? What helps you overcome the challenges? Observation is also important, through observation, I can learn aspects to their personality that I wouldn't see. Limitations to observation in relation to students, is that I am only observing them during the school day. I would get a better understanding of them if I knew what it was like for them at home, but that is unrealistic.

Another important factor for me to incorporate would be to rediscover the familiar. When it comes to the school day, so many things are automatic that I don't even think about. Taking a step back to rethink about certain aspects would be a neat experience.

So, to put it all in one place, plans to facilitate empathy with students would include:

• Observations
• Rediscovering the familiar
• Asking engaging questions.