Workshop #1 INTRO+FEEL

On April 2nd, our DFC workshop series was kicked off at Lakeland School’s Higher Achievement after-school program.

Today’s goal really was to set the foundation of understanding and respect in this class. We started the conversation with “What do you think of when talking about design?” Followed by a brief introductory of Social Design and Design for Change’s framework. 

Sarah and I also shared a bit about who we are and where we come from with showing the Google Maps that direct the distance from Alabama and Taiwan to Lakeland school.

We did a spectrum activity to learn more about the students, by having some prompts as the ice breaker and acknowledging their identities, such as:
1) I prefer to work… individually /  in a group.
2) My current energy status… high / low
3) I enjoy being a middle school student here in Lakeland… very much / not at all

Then we extended this activity to have a kinesthetic way of pre-evaluation:

 4) At school/home, I am always curious to know ‘how’ things work. [Sound like me / Doesn’t sound like me]
5) I am curious to know more about different issues in my environment and community.
6) I am willing to experiment new ideas/methods without always worrying about the outcomes.
7) When stuck in a problem, I usually think about different ways of solving it.
8) I feel like I can easily make my ideas real.
9) I often think about how others feel and put myself in their shoes.

To get a general sense of their self-evaluated creativity, confidence, and empathy levels.

We spent some time to discuss and create a team agreement.

And then in the rest of our very first workshop, the students were guided to reflect their day by “My School Day” work sheet that also led us one step forward to the FEEL stage of DFC framework.