Flouting flurries, some 90 DU faculty devoted five hours Friday, January 11, to Design-a-Palooza, a design thinking exercise that produced fifteen prototypes for potential revisions in general education. On the way came dozens of posters and thousands of post-its of brainstormed thoughts and ideas, whimsical to earnest, modest to moonshots, all of them archived for analysis.
Co-sponsored by Faculty Senate and the GERI (General Education Review and Inquiry Committee), with generous support from Provost Haefner, the event focused on four inquiry challenges:
Challenge 1. Imagine “the public good” as a way to bring identity and coherence to the Common Curriculum. With that focus in mind, what curricular features can best help enable and manifest “the public good” for students?
Challenge 2. Imagine a critical understanding of human diversity and identities as a way to bring identity and coherence to the Common Curriculum. With that focus in mind: What curricular features might best foster this understanding?
Challenge 3. Imagine the ability to collaborate effectively and ethically across, with, and within different communities as a way to bring identity and coherence to the Common Curriculum. With that focus in mind: What curricular features might best foster this ability?
Challenge 4. Imagine the ability to evaluate evidence and source materials and to employ them responsibly as a way to bring identity and coherence to the Common Curriculum. With that focus in mind: What curricular features might best foster this ability?
When they registered, faculty indicated their interests in challenges and were assigned to their first choice. People who attended without registering were assigned to open spots. Inclement weather compressed 16 groups to 15 on the day of the event.
Group facilitators photographed posters at four stages, including the final one: an idea for prototyping. They submitted a quick summary of their group’s concluding plan, and commented on challenges. GERI compiled these materials in a rough, raw, and mostly complete compilation, which members of the DU community can see on the GERI portfolio site here. (Note that you’ll need to log in to Portfolio to see the file, which even compressed clocks in around 20 megs.)
This file also contains the full schedule and directions for the day, which began with lunch and ended with a cocktail hour and refreshments.
GERI is analyzing the materials and will soon provide a report. We’ll also continue gathering ideas and insights from our colleagues on campus. (For example, the four challenges that drove Design-a-Palooza were selected from a larger set of visions and outcomes that we have generated and shared with the faculty.)
We remind you that the GERI Portfolio Site contains dozens of reports, readings, and copies of communications. As, we’ve noted previously, probably the best quick source for catching up is an overview document we generated for a Senate meeting in late fall.
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