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SEED Guide

5.10. NextGen Vocational Education and Training School

While designing the university of the future is a common practice activity for initiates in design thinking, this case study involves improving teaching and learning in a vocational education and training school (VET, also known in Portuguese as a professional school). Considering the needs for learning prior to or even in preparation for university requires understanding the specific challenges of this educational context. As found by a design thinking team in this case study, strategic enhancements can significantly improve the teaching and learning experiences in school, ultimately better preparing students for successful careers in their chosen fields.

Empathizing: The team tried to better understand the key stakeholders by identifying and empathizing with students, school board members, administrators, industry partners, and alumni. They conducted interviews, observations, and surveys to gather insights into the challenges, goals, and aspirations of different stakeholders within the defined context. As they got to know the situation better, the team developed personas to represent different types of learners, teachers, and even the auxiliary staff as well as community members and potential industry collaborators to better define their needs and pain points. Some of the challenges identified were:

Maintaining relevance and innovation in the school curriculum.

Engaging students through interactive and hands-on teaching methods to develop practical and technological skills for professional success in specific fields.

Collaborating with industry partners and maintaining partnerships with industry stakeholders.

Re-defining to understand: To identify the key challenges, the team synthesized the insights gathered during the empathy phase. This examination helped to define the core challenges and opportunities for improvement in the teaching and learning processes. They re-framed the problem in two How might we…? (HMW) questions, developed to encapsulate the main issues:

(HMW1) How might we help the board and administration improve collaboration between academia and industry in their community?

(HMW2) How might we help the students and teachers enhance practical skills development at their school?

Ideating: In this design thinking phase for generating creative solutions, the team brainstormed potential solutions with this diverse group of stakeholders, including administrators, educators, students, and industry partners. They pulled together as a team, encouraged by out-of-the-box thinking, and came up with ideas that leverage technology, experiential learning (ExL, understood as learning through reflection on doing), and interdisciplinary collaboration. Some of the ideas to selected to join industry and academia beyond the classroom for HMW1 were:

1) Implement a systematic process for identification of funding calls (private or public) for enhancing technologically-based ExL, perhaps through an observatory that could help other schools with similar ambitions share and learn from each other.

2) Create a network for Virtual Research Environments and Discussion Forums that bring together representatives of school administrators, industry, teachers, students, and other stakeholders.

3) Define a clear identity for the school within the community and industrial fabric.

4) Co-design with industry and community partners for curriculum revision and reformulation.

Regarding HMW2, further ideas were generated to improve the teaching and learning processes:

5) Design ongoing teacher training programs on how to apply interactive and practical teaching strategies so that students can engage in more ExL opportunities.

6) Co-design case studies with industry professionals who are invited for this purpose.

7) Explore diverse learning processes in a growth mindset.

8) Coordinate the timelines for internships and workshops so that students can apply theoretical knowledge in real-world settings.

9) Develop Virtual Labs as a technologically-based simulation in real-world settings.

Prototyping and evaluating: Before developing their prototypes, the team continued to explore their ideas and came up with a set of target prototypes. They built tangible representations of selected ideas and concepts, including pilot programs, new learning resources, and technology-enabled solutions, such as:

1) Workshops, seminars, and field trips to join youth and teachers with industry professionals in Communities of Practice and Learning to promote green initiatives and practice design, critical, and creative thinking.

2) A rotating semester, blending theory with practical industrial training in class and in short internships to incorporate interactive and practical teaching.

3) Additional internal regulation on (a) the integration of community and industry professionals in the final juries for the evaluation of the students’ final projects and/or internships; (b) an attractive school name − NextGen − to reflect its future-forward stance; and (c) obligatory student and teacher collaborations in community activities that promote well-being and sustainability.

4) A mobility exchange program for teachers from school(s) and professionals from industry.

5) Hiring industry professionals as “specialist teachers” to share the teaching activities.

6) Integrating community stakeholders and industry managers in the NextGen Community Consulting Council.

7) Self-awareness and growth mindset training across the curriculum complemented by weekly interdisciplinary World Cafés, where the students can develop more accountability and greater pride of purpose as future international, national, and community representatives.

The team is iterating quickly so they can test the most promising prototypes in controlled environments within the school, where they are gathering feedback from the stakeholders and making improvements based on these insights. Rolling out their refined prototypes in real-world teaching and learning settings, the teams feel more confidence in monitoring their effectiveness and gathering quantitative and qualitative data on their impact. In collecting the feedback, the team is engaging the stakeholders in ongoing feedback loops, which will serve to assess the usability, relevance, and impact of the solutions to be implemented.

Implementing: An important aspect of implementation is iterating and scaling, where the stakeholders learn to participate in further refinement of the solutions so that they can prepare for broader implementation school-wide and within the community and local industrial fabric. Any new decisions will go through the design thinking approach as they consider scalability and sustainability factors.

Further reading:

Discussion questions related to the NexGen Vocational School

  1. What is the relevance of innovation and sustainability in developing teaching practices?
  2. Some national schooling systems simply do not contemplate vocational education as a transition into higher education. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a more practical approach to learning.
  3. Where can you see this co-design between industry and schools in your own community?
  4. Does your current university sponsor curricular internships at local or (multi)national firms and organizations? Which stakeholders benefit most from these internships?
  5. What are the pros and cons of stakeholder involvement? Can you imagine some “unpredictable” or surprising results that could derive from enhanced interaction between the stakeholders?
  6. How does education fit a business model? Do you see education as a system to protect students from the labor market, in an effort to preclude child labor? Aiming for a sustainable transition to the labor market, why would a close-knit community be beneficial?
  7. As a budding entrepreneur, why would it be important to get involved in your community at a young age? How can you encourage community involvement at school?
  8. Consider motivation for each of the stakeholders. For example, how could you help your teachers to feel good about any potential extracurricular activity?
  9. Redesigning a school brings stakeholders together across multiple generations. Find examples to contradict the saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks''.
  10. Can you ideate more solutions for excellence in learning before you reach university?