ISKME's Use Case Design Lab from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s OER Grantees Meeting, April 22nd, 2014 - April 24th, 2014: OER Value Proposition and Evidence of Impact in 2014
http://iskme.org/events/oer-grantee-meeting-2014

This unit looks at the interplay between losses in privacy and gains in convenience that accompany the ever-expanding use of and reliance on digital media and technology in our lives. The aim is not to convince students of a specific stance; rather, it is to provide an opportunity for students to look critically at the ways in which privacy has changed and to think about taking intentional action regarding their own use of digital media.

Each week of the unit, students will grapple with an essential question that focuses their attention on one aspect of privacy. As the core text, George Orwell’s 1984 elucidates two major definitions of privacy: first, the internal thoughts that we develop and contemplate without outside influence; and second, the freedom from being observed, accessed, and controlled by outsiders.

Throughout this unit, students will produce short argumentative pieces drawing evidence from the texts read for and discussed in class. The short pieces of writing students produce throughout the class will culminate in a final argumentative essay weighing the interplay and value of privacy and convenience in our digital lives.

This wiki page describes the goals and tenents of improv, as well as four different improv activities (Name Gesture Circle, Yellow Ball, Vacations, and Thank You) used in ISKME's Professional Development Teacher Academy: Teachers as Makers June 15-16 2010 at San Mateo County Office of Education.

This resource is arranged to give teachers and librarians websites and strategies to integrate “design thinking” into instruction and libraries.

This unit exposes 10th or 11th grade Chemistry, Physical and Environmental Science students to basic concepts of Biotechnology. Students will learn that, through the use of Biotechnology, scientists and engineers are able to modify genetic structure in animals and plants to improve them for the development of beneficial products. In this unit, students will be introduced to specific biotechnology aspects of genetic engineering, artificial tissue development, tissue regeneration and tissue culture in which fragments of living tissue from an animal or plant are transferred to an artificial environment in which they can continue to survive and function.

In order to understand these larger concepts, the unit contains a short presentation of “Molecules of life”, exposing students to the fundamentals of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and their components. Concepts in biotechnology development will be accompanied by a two week lesson plan that provides real-world examples and hands-on laboratory protocols.

Students will explore what is Biotechnology as a branch of Science and explain its role in everyday life. They will also study and conduct experiments in testing proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and learn about fermentation process. Teachers will use the concepts of Biotechnology to expose students to organic chemistry concepts such as carboxylic acids, amines, and introduce students to the basic nomenclature of these organic compounds.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students examine the nutritional value and environmental impact of non-dairy alternatives as a replacement to traditional dairy.

SCIENTIST NOTES: Milk sourced from cows has, by far, the largest environmental impact of all of the milk options. But when it comes to the non-dairy competitors, there is no clear winner, as this lesson investigates. All of the resources in this lesson have passed the scientific review process.

POSITIVES:
-Students undergo the process of identifying a possible issue, gathering evidence to prove or deny it, and proposing a solution to it.
-Students have a voice in their school environment and culture.
-Students learn about new foods and lifestyles.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Teachers may need to prepare for the possibility of their students presenting to the school administration and/or board.
-Teachers may need to clarify the meaning of “dairy” and “non-dairy” to students.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students work in small groups, providing multiple opportunities for students to problem solve before asking the teacher.
-Teachers can have students explore the more advanced table in the science article or look through FoodData Central if that is too advanced.

Short Description:
Innovation today considers the economic, environmental, and/or social sustainability of an innovative initiative from its inception or idea generation through to its commercialization or implementation. This concept applies to many types of innovation such as products, processes, services, technologies, and business models. Companies use innovation as a means to gain a competitive advantage and bring value to business stakeholders. This book introduces business innovation, from incremental innovation such as enhancing the performance of an existing product, service, or process, to radical or disruptive innovation such as one that has a significant impact on a market. The content examines how leaders foster a culture of innovation, how companies turn creativity into innovation, and how innovation transforms not only organizations but economies as well.

Word Count: 46438

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Innovation today considers the economic, environmental, and/or social sustainability of an innovative initiative from its inception or idea generation through to its commercialization or implementation. This concept applies to many types of innovation such as products, processes, services, technologies, and business models. Companies use innovation as a means to gain a competitive advantage and bring value to business stakeholders. This book introduces business innovation, from incremental innovation such as enhancing the performance of an existing product, service, or process, to radical or disruptive innovation such as one that has a significant impact on a market. The content examines how leaders foster a culture of innovation, how companies turn creativity into innovation, and how innovation transforms not only organizations but economies as well.

Often library or learning commons spaces are designed or redesigned without significant input from customers(i.e. students, teachers, or librarians).  Including student voice in design helps activates students' sense of engagement and teaches problem solving skills.  Libraries are increasingly coming to recognize that including student voice in library policies and library design is not only good for students as learners, but also good for building strong and collaborative library-student relationships.  As outlined in the U.S. Department of Education's Future Ready Librarians framework,  the role of the librarian as a facility planner means that the librarian needs to engage in best practices around gathering "client" information and empowering clients as "owners" of the space.   The framework also recognizes the role of librarians in inspiring students as creators. This one week course will introduce library school students and school administrators to methods for incorporating student and teacher input into a library design project.  A core part of the module includes introducing library students to the Design Thinking Process as a vehicle for more customer-centered design.  Students will then create their own activities for gathering student or faculty input.  A variety of inspiring readings on libraries and design from both inside of OER Learning Commons, Creative Commons licensed materials, and other sources will be utilized as well as materials introducing the Design Thinking Process. Objectives:Through example, lecture, and practice students will become familiar with the Design Thinking Process and begin to use it as a method for solving library design challenges.Students will be able to identify how the Design Thinking Process interviews contribute to empathy and lead to more user centered design.Students will experience using principle of open learning to build a library environment that is inviting to all.Students will work collaboratively, modeling the collaborative work they want their future students to engage in.

Through this unit, 7th grade students will use the engineering design thinking process to create a prototype for a solution to an injury to the integumentary system. Students will begin by learning about healthy, functional skin and then learn about two major injuries to skin: burns and skin cancer. Following their research on healthy and injured skin, students will walk through the steps of the design process to create a prototype of a solution to the problem. At the end of the unit, students will present their work and findings. This unit was designed for 7th graders but can be adapted for students in 6th through 12th grade.

The unit is framed around the engineering design process to intentionally bring an interactive approach to learning which emphasizes the importance of the process to finding answers to problems, rather than simply the outcome. At the middle school stage of their academic career, many students are often simply asking questions to directly learn the answers, rather than valuing the process of discovering the solution. Through this unit, students will become equipped with problem-solving skills that will shape their thinking in and outside of the classroom. This unit is designed with hopes of engaging students in a new way of thinking by pushing creativity, inquiry, and inspiring students to value the process of discovering solutions.

Context, purpose and audience. There are two broad types of assumptions that designers must identify and address: the first type are assumptions they, as designers, have as they begin a project; the second type are assumptions that are ambient in the project context–assumptions that many of the project stakeholders either hold or frequently experience. In both cases, naming the assumption and developing an articulation for how that assumption can be reconsidered can help direct a project toward greater impact.

This lesson is designed to help participants reframe these two types of assumptions. It can be used with design students from high school to continuing (adult) education. It is best delivered towards the end of the initial phase of design research (“Empathize” phase, to use the parlance of Stanford), after students have conducted interviews and other forms of research.

The lesson offers five reframe patterns. These are meant to help students identify particularly powerful articulations of reframed assumptions by providing five different jumping-off points for ideation. The patterns are best introduced and used lightly: as provocations rather than as a formula to rigidly follow.

We illustrate these reframe patterns using examples from disability studies. Thus, this lesson also serves as a “trojan horse” to infuse core design justice concepts.

Debbie Clark's 8th grade science students take several days to complete their Rube Goldberg contraptions. Bringing things from home, they experiment with the parts, design their contraption, and make a blueprint for it before beginning to build. This is a lesson that emphasizes cooperation, teamwork, creativity and design.

SYNOPSIS: This lesson introduces students to sea turtles and the human-caused dangers they face while encouraging them to create a way to help save these beautiful creatures.

SCIENTIST NOTES: There is an intrinsic benefit in conserving sea turtles, and this lesson lets students to understand the impact of sea turtles in our ocean. It would equip them to design a real-life project to save sea turtles from extinction. All accompanying materials in this lesson are appropriate to provide better understanding on the subject. Above all, there is a high confidence in using this lesson in the classroom.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson allows for a collaborative hands-on learning environment for students as sea turtle conservation is introduced.
-This lesson features creative learning and engagement for all students.
-Students develop a strong connection to student-led activism through the book Follow the Moon Home by Philippe Cousteau and Deborah Hopkinson.
-This lesson features a step by step guide to follow the engineering design process.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Teacher needs a copy of the book Follow the Moon Home by Philippe Cousteau and Deborah Hopkinson.
-Students should have a basic knowledge of sea turtles and global problems like pollution and plastic in the oceans.
-Teacher can print out worksheets prior to the lesson if desired.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students can think-pair-share during the reading, making predictions or answering questions.
-Groups of students with mixed abilities can collaborate throughout this lesson.

SYNOPSIS: This lesson introduces students to sea turtles and the human-caused dangers they face while encouraging them to create a way to help save these beautiful creatures.

SCIENTIST NOTES: There is an intrinsic benefit in conserving sea turtles, and this lesson lets students to understand the impact of sea turtles in our ocean. It would equip them to design a real-life project to save sea turtles from extinction. All accompanying materials in this lesson are appropriate to provide better understanding on the subject. Above all, there is a high confidence in using this lesson in the classroom.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson allows for a collaborative hands-on learning environment for students as sea turtle conservation is introduced.
-This lesson features creative learning and engagement for all students.
-Students develop a strong connection to student-led activism through the book Follow the Moon Home by Philippe Cousteau and Deborah Hopkinson.
-This lesson features a step by step guide to follow the engineering design process.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Teacher needs a copy of the book Follow the Moon Home by Philippe Cousteau and Deborah Hopkinson.
-Students should have a basic knowledge of sea turtles and global problems like pollution and plastic in the oceans.
-Teacher can print out worksheets prior to the lesson if desired.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students can think-pair-share during the reading, making predictions or answering questions.
-Groups of students with mixed abilities can collaborate throughout this lesson.

Working as if they were engineers, students design and construct model solar sails made of aluminum foil to move cardboard tube satellites through “space” on a string. Working in teams, they follow the engineering design thinking steps—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, redesign—to design and test small-scale solar sails for satellites and space probes. During the process, learn about Newton’s laws of motion and the transfer of energy from wave energy to mechanical energy. A student activity worksheet is provided.

The Solutions based on Biomimicry for Personalized Health unit will allow high school students in the Biology or Health field to develop the skills needed to assess and design solutions to worldwide healthcare issues. The next generation science standards (NGSS) are used as a basis for the development of this unit and will be woven throughout the unit to allow practice and implementation of the standards. The question formulation technique engages the students with both local and world-wide problems in healthcare. Once the problems have been defined, students will begin to design possible solutions. Biomimicry, biotechnology and engineering will be applied to the possible solutions. This will allow for students to develop various routes in personalized medicine to a viable healthcare solution. The feedback and refinement process gives students the chance to test the sustainability of their design against economic, technological and other constraints. Students will create a computer simulation and prototype to develop the healthcare solution. Once the redesign process has been completed the students will research how to pitch their new engineering healthcare solution. The format will be similar to ‘Shark Tank’ and validators will have the opportunity to question the students on their innovation as well as decide whether they are interested in investing. Overall, the unit is a comprehensive personalized health unit that includes all science and engineering practices and the engineering performance expectations.

If we take a constructivist approach to learning in libraries, then library spaces should be responsive to student needs. As Theodore Creighton points out in Setting the Stage for Staff Development,  "the teacher’s responsibilities involve creating classroom environments where students think, explore, and construct meaning, while including opportunities for students to have social interaction."  Similarly, library spaces, which allow support for both classes and "free-range" learning should do the same.  In a previous OER Commons module by this author on library space design, students studied methods for gathering student input into design. The next step is to begin incorporating that input into the actual design process and to apply input to the space as a whole.   Too often librarians start with furniture rather than starting with the purposes and mission of the program and space. As Malcolm Brown points out,"Creating a vision for learning and learning spaces is a powerful leverage point; it informs almost all other decisions about learning space design. A vision also allows us to effectively articulate to all constituents what we are trying to accomplish. The vision helps organize all participants in the design and implementation of these spaces as well as the activities they support. Simply installing wireless access points and fresh carpeting isn't enough if done in isolation; such improvements pay real dividends only if they are in concert with the institution's overall teaching and learning objectives."  (Learning Spaces)Prospective librarians may not have a current space to design, but they can begin envisioning space as a construct that incorporates user needs and wants and that drives program goals, and begin to think about spaces as a whole.   This module particularly focuses on ideas contained in the book Language of School Design(Nair and Fielding) and work by Ewan McIntosh (notosh.org).  Both works  ask library designers to think of spaces in terms of zones and how those zones make a variety of student learning possible.  A series of readings and recordings will provide an introduction to these concepts with examples.  School Librarian Competencies , 4, 5, and 10http://researchguides.austincc.edu/c.php?g=554360&p=3891603ISTE Educator Standards  2 and 5https://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-educators

This video is meant to be a fun, hands-on session that gets students to think hard about how machines work. It teaches them the connection between the geometry that they study and the kinematics that engineers use -- explaining that kinematics is simply geometry in motion. In this lesson, geometry will be used in a way that students are not used to. Materials necessary for the hands-on activities include two options: pegboard, nails/screws and a small saw; or colored construction paper, thumbtacks and scissors. Some in-class activities for the breaks between the video segments include: exploring the role of geometry in a slider-crank mechanism; determining at which point to locate a joint or bearing in a mechanism; recognizing useful mechanisms in the students' communities that employ the same guided motion they have been studying.

CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene-editing technology with potential to expand the agricultural industry and improve human health. However, this technology may have unforeseeable consequences and adverse effects for society. Statistical procedures are often used to study public perceptions of controversial technologies. In this unit plan, students will design and administer surveys to investigate how their peers feel about various applications of gene-editing technology. In the process, students will apply random sampling methods and learn how to minimize response bias. Once their surveys are completed, students will analyze the results using contingency tables, confidence intervals, and hypothesis tests. The ultimate goal of this unit will be to help students to create clear policies for regulating the use of CRISPR-Cas9 and defend these policies with their statistical findings.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), immunizations are one of the public health’s most cost-effective inventions. The United Nations (UN) created several sustainable development goals to ensure a sustainable future for all. One of these goals focuses on good health and well-being at all ages. Vaccinations play a vital role in achieving this goal. In 1803, Edward Jenner coined the term vaccination, from the Latin word “Vacca” which means cow. Vaccines are substances that consist of weakened, dead, or incomplete portions of pathogens or antigens. Vaccines help prevent diseases and are one of the most important achievements of mankind. Research shows that vaccines help prevent a million deaths per year worldwide, increase average life span, and help eradicate infectious diseases such as smallpox. The current unit, targeted to high school students, dives into the history of infectious diseases and vaccinations, different types of immunity and how they are acquired, a brief overview of how vaccinations help produce antibodies that combat disease-causing agents and briefly discuss the vaccination delivery systems that are currently used worldwide. This unit could be taught over a period of 3-4 weeks, the unit introduces the Design Thinking Process where students embrace empathy, work collaboratively, create “human-centric” solutions to problems.