Activating Design in Community for the Future of Education
Design insights from relaunching the UC-San Diego Educators Alliance
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I’m writing because education wasn't designed around students, but we can improve the learner experience through design. I share stories, tips, and work in progress weekly.
Why it matters: Designing events with intentionality can spark real momentum. By bringing educators in San Diego-Tijuana together through design, we can break down silos, spark collaboration, and reshape the learner journey. Here's how we engaged 60+ educators to align and shape the future of design in education at a crossroads.
Go deeper:
Since 2015, Michèle Morris, Associate Director of the UC-San Diego Design Lab, has been organizing design educators across San Diego in different forms. Following the 2024 San Diego-Tijuana World Design Capital designation, there was a renewed energy to align educators and advance design education in the region. When I rejoined the Lab as a Designer-in-Residence back in November, I eagerly raised my hand to help with the reboot of the Educators Alliance and co-lead with Michèle.
The Educators Alliance consists of educators who are using human-centered design in classes and projects from K-12 through four-year university, and including technology colleges, community colleges, continuing education, and co-curricular organizations.
Coincidentally, I had a conversation with Kathleen deLaski about supporting a launch event for her new book, Who Needs College Anymore. Once I learned a bit more about the book and the goals for relaunching the Educators Alliance, I knew we had the makings of something special. Conversations with Melanie Booth (now local to San Diego) at the Credential Lab for the Higher Learning Commission, leaders at UC-San Diego Extended Studies, and Mark Milliron at National University followed, and the vision really started to take shape.
Fast forward through hosts of Linkedin messages to engage local educators, a little bit of coordination, and sponsorship from both UC-San Diego Design Lab and UC-San Diego Extended Studies, we reached our venue target of 75 attendees and designed a compelling programatic backdrop to relaunch the Educators Alliance.
Designing the event and some takeaways
The Fireside Chat, Panel, focused one-on-one connection, Q&A, and traditional networking were designed to provoke curiosity, engagement, and inspiration about the future of education.
This backdrop was meant to energize and activate attendees around the forces influencing the changing expectations of education and inspire the importance of preparing learners for the fast emerging future. Further, we threaded the value of design in questions and conversations as a tool to pursue the needs and expectations of the future. Our ultimate goal was to build engagement in future efforts and investment in co-designing the future of the Educators Alliance.
Setting the stage
The 10 Principles to Meet the Needs of Learners and Employers that surfaced through Kathleen’s book were printed on large posters visible when you entered the room. Attendees were asked to put their initials beneath the Principles that resonated with them most. This helped set the stage for the Fireside chat and the conversation to come.
“Who Needs College Anymore” Fireside Chat with Kathleen deLaski
We talked about “new majority” learners, the emerging trends and expectations of shorter, faster learning experiences and credentials woven between learning and work, and the role of design in writing the book and for education as a whole reflecting the work of the Education Design Lab which Kathleen founded.
This quote especially stuck with me, and is central to my belief in design as the leading approach to drive change in education:
“We’ve reached a point in the design of education where it’s becoming apparent to everyone that we have to break down the silos, the learner journey is broken, the school to work pipeline is broken and there’s a part for each group to play.
That’s why design plays such a huge role, it’s a great democratizer, and deblamer, it doesn’t blame anyone it just brings everyone together and says ‘what is the student journey, where is it not working for whom and how do we design together to fix it?’
My advice is work together; colleges need to work with employers, colleges need to work with k-12, k-12 needs to work with employers, that’s the name of the game right now, that’s just as important as getting your curriculum accredited, that’s the work of the next couple of years.”
Kathleen deLaski
“Insights from the Field” Panel
Melanie Booth (Higher Learning Commission Credential Lab), Morgan Appel (UC-San Diego Extended Studies), and J.B. Robinson (National University)
Themes of lifelong learning, challenges to innovation, learning recognition, the importance of being learner-centered, and the need for more collaboration were central to the conversation. And amidst reflections about what education needs to do by midcentury, what Melanie Booth shared still lingers with me:
“Our most important job in the future is going to be the job of Learner. Not office manager, truck driver, doctor, professor - we all need to be learners first. We need to help our young people learn how to learn, how to keep learning, and value learning as the activity and the outcomes and not the grade, credit, or the paper.”
Melanie Booth
Defining future plans for the Educators Alliance
To shift the energy and invite the group into co-creation, we asked attendees to stand and explore the future of the Educators Alliance with the insight from the evenings conversation as a backdrop.
We played the “Game of 21” (sometimes called Game of 35) to surface ideas and prioritize them quickly responding to the prompt “If we could accomplish one thing this year as the Educators Alliance to accelerate your work in design education, what would it be?”
What attendees want most from the Educators Alliance
After shuffling the ideas generated, attendees paired up, shared the ideas on their cards, and determined the number of points out of 7 to distribute between them. Over three rounds partners distributed their points, and then we gathered the group to report out on what ideas were assigned the highest number of points over three rounds. So what were educators hoping for out of the Educators Alliance this year?
Here were the most popular ideas:
Bring local educators, designers, etc together with some regularity (19)
Collaborate with k-12 teachers ASAP in designing with young learners (18)
HCD Project based curriculum between schools (18)
I summarized these insights on Linkedin for the community to prototype if the framing resonated, and it seems I touched a chord: educators are looking for a community to learn and work together to integrate design education in schools. Attendees overwhelmingly reacted sharing they learned something, connected, and are invested in the future. I’ll call that a success.
We will follow up with attendees in the week ahead, get them activated in design education events coming up in the weeks ahead, and work to organize and collaborate with them throughout the year. I’m excited to see what we will accomplish together!
Takeaways for your design practice
I hope this peek behind the curtain connects how event design informs outcomes. In your design practice, a few things are worth calling attention to:
Consider the value for your stakeholders. Yes, we could have held a small focus group to get input on the future of the Educators Alliance, but what’s in it for them? The format communicated we were invested in the growth of this community and it was a place to learn together on topics relevant to them.
Make the most of every moment. When attendees arrived we asked them to react to the posters in the back of the room as they got food and networked. As we transitioned between key moments in the event, we prompted participants to discuss what they learned. Every moment is an opportunity to inspire, connect, or surface insights. Consider the flow of emotion over the event.
Lead with co-creation. Rather than having the group react to ideas we’ve started to develop in reactivating the Educators Alliance, we looked to the room to express their needs and desires. And by attendees expressing them, they’re more invested in the outcome and pursuit than if we had guessed in the first place. Ask good questions, listen to the answers, and let that guide your work.
Preview the next step and activate around it. When you build momentum and energy around your work, people will almost always ask “what’s next?” Have an immediate call to action to advance the work and keep them involved. If you’re not sure, have them sign up for a newsletter or complete a survey and ask for emails to follow up. Remove as much friction as possible and keep it simple.
Reflecting on the event on Linkedin, Kathleen shared “I would love to use this as a model if other colleges and regions want spark a conversation among innovators about what it takes for colleges, high school and employers to reimagine the learner journey.” Reach out if I can connect you about hosting something in your community!
A new feature: Insights from the Field
This week I’m introducing a new section of the newsletter as a test. I’m taking the “Insights from the field” concept to bring you voices from across education to answer the question:
What advice would you give to someone driving change in education?
“Know that ‘driving' change may feel counter-intuitive. As traditional higher education institutions operate under bureaucracy and shared governance, ‘driving’ change requires bringing together loosely connected groups around a common purpose. A change leader is thus at the center of a network and finds ways to bring people in. Driving a change agenda from the top in an existing organization will likely result in significant resistance. If you need to go fast, move to the margins of your organization.”
Former SVP of Innovation at National University, Founder and Principal at EDSENSE
Sharing this with a colleague is the most meaningful way to show it made an impact.
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Love this. Among so many insights, the most obvious but overlooked is the need for educators to connect. Personally and professionally, collaboration is integral. It brings meaning and simply sheds lights that change in education is a team sport that people want to be on. Nice work!