winslow + partners
ideas for a changing world
For years architects and designers have used DESIGN THINKING in their iterative approach to design. However, it recently gained global recognition as a tool for problem solving for businesses and education. It is a methodology that can help develop innovative ideas as it seeks to understand the user in depth, challenge assumptions and redefine problems. This is in order to identify alternative teaching and learning solutions.
For more than 40 years the winslow + partners' team has utilized this approach for design and problem solving, we refer to this process as our Innovation Think Tank.
Our innovation think tank is a facilitated hyper-collaborative brainstorming process using design thinking; which can become the basis for Long Range Educational Planning.
Are your facilities meeting student’s current
and future needs?
Education needs to change to adequately respond to the current and future changes. This, will ultimately necessitate modifying the learning spaces, from the single classroom experience to a much more diverse learning environment. Our strategies can help you explore, evaluate and assess the specific elements in your school that need transformation.
We have two methodologies to help you and your community determine where to start:
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Our Innovation Think Tank
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Our User Experience Mapping
The following video explains WHAT IS our Innovation Think Tank:
w+p innovation think tank
Many areas of our lives have already changed:
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Transportation - Ride share and Waymo
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Finances – Bit-coin, Apple Pay, Zelle, etc.
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Shopping – Food subscriptions, other subscriptions
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Medicine – Mobile EKG’s, Smart watch health monitoring, etc.
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Manufacturing – Artificial Intelligence, etc.
THE NEED
Creation of a new educational ecosystem to accommodate this radical transformation. A new approach with a diversity of learning spaces to allow for necessary exploration and support the wide range of young learners.
OUR EXPERIENCE
For over 50 years, our founding partners, have been directly working on educational facilities, rethinking how to house students and the social structure that best supports them. Currently, there is an ever increasing need for students to develop curiosity, empathy, confidence and humor in order to be able to adapt to the life in which they will participate. Critical thinking skills and student centered collaboration will become essential as the basis for lifelong learning.
OUR APPROACH - through our Innovation Think Tank process
It starts with the teachers defining the appropriate "teaching and learning" criteria in order to meet the new reality. To define the most effective approach, the teachers get to articulate the physical, the social and emotional needs as well as the learning styles of the students at each grade level. For a successful outcome, this process should, where practical, include members of the community, each with differing opinions on the issues being considered and evaluated.
Our video on CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN EDUCATION
Change Management in Education UPDATED
Support for Change Management in Education
THE INNOVATION THINK TANK PROCESS:
A process as noted above, which we developed and have significant experience in facilitating. It is most effective on a white board as a visual documentation of ideas, using cartooning images to visually capture the essence of the conversations as they occur. This allows a group, with diverse vantage points, to see other’s perspective and find ways to accommodate the concerns of each.
OUR PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS FOR:
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Bond Election Support – Gaining Community/Faculty Support
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Educational Planning – Establishing Educational Approach and Standards
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Organizational Structure Adjustment – Working Relationships
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New Design Criteria – Expectations/Diversity
Facilitate Bond Election Support: With the inclusion of members of the public, along with the educators, staff and administrators, a criteria for a proposed Bond Election can be established. This allows the participants and community members to respond authoritatively to the public for their support.
Facilitate Educational Planning: A process that allows for new teaching and learning models to be explored and evaluated by the participants. By documenting ideas on an erasable whiteboard, a chronology of the discussion can be preserved but also allows for reflection on an idea, back to previous discussion.
Facilitate the Delineation of an Organizational Structure: The impacts of a restructure have a direct impact on how the school is run as well as the teaching and learning process. Overseeing the more self-directed students, who may be working individually or in small groups, will require adjustment in teacher planning and oversight.
Facilitation of New Design Criteria: Documenting the changes in the diversity of nontraditional spaces needed is required in order to develop a supportive architectural program. Matching new teaching and learning strategies with space needs should happen prior to, and be the basis of the architectural program.
OUR USER EXPERIENCE MAPPING
An additional layer that adds value to the Architectural Programming: This process explores the opportunities for non-traditional stimulation that can enhance the learning environment though orchestrating sensory experiences, such as sight, sound, smell, and motion. Including a diversity of participants (direct users) in this exercise can provide a wide variety of educational ideas, as well as specific experiences that can support the overall educational program.
