Living Spaces: Empathize & Define

Today our ESOL students finally found out about the clients they would be designing a living space for.
Before we begun, we reminded them that they will need to use empathy to understand their clients needs, (especially as their client is fictional - they really will have to step in their shoes). They would then define their needs and some of the requirements of the living space they would design. We also gave them a reminder that when they start brainstorming and prototyping, they should follow IDEO's Brainstorming Rules. However, we did not get onto that third step yet!

We also had students start off by looking at their characters, and using See, Think, Wonder, to help the to understand them better. Students were put into pairs, who they could share their ideas with, and also get more ideas from.

Students were having wonderful conversations and getting many ideas down on paper. For an ESOL class this was fantastic and you could see how much vocabulary the students were picking up, (because they were excited about their ideas, they were often looking for words they were unfamiliar with, so they could share their ideas properly).

In our next class, students will start ideating. They will use pens, pencils and paper....along with Lego, pipe cleaners and have goodies!

You can read about how we introduced the unit here and how we showed the students how creativity and play helps students design here.