Reflection for IPP - Don\'t remember what I got for this assignment in particular but overall I received PDF

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Don't remember what I got for this assignment in particular but overall I received a high distinction - I believe my overall mark was 91 or 92...

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Introduction: In the Autumn session of 2021, I undertook the Innovation and Professional Practice unit at Western Sydney University. Overall, this unit has broadened my knowledge of design thinking and innovation, which will ultimately help me in achieving a successful career in the future. This reflection will put its focus on the design thinking project, by defining the problem our group was able to identify, reflect on the application of design thinking (DT), consider user feedback, and analyse our group dynamics. This group project focused on revealing a problem within WSU’s online teaching and learning system and ultimately putting forward a solution that would improve this problem.

Business Problem Definition Upon conducting interviews and research among various students across the university, we encountered a number of issues, particularly with the lack of motivation that the students faced in relation to online learning. We, as a team, were able to identify this issue by undertaking a range of techniques including summary posters in the form of interviews, empathy maps and persona development. I believe these forms of research collection allowed us to accurately identify and define one of the most prominent issues within the online teaching and learning system at WSU, which ultimately has led to students feeling disassociated from their peers and tutors and experiencing a lack of motivation to study.

DT Application In order to develop a suitable solution to the issue of motivation, or lack thereof, our group worked together to apply the numerous Design Thinking framework to our work. By conducting interviews, we were able to acknowledge the issue of motivation, and implement the students’ experiences into our development of the solution. While we came to the decision that interviews were more advantageous than other forms of data collection, I personally felt that there were some limitations in the interview process. According to Strengths and Weaknesses of Qualitative Interviews (2015), one limitation is time. I felt that this heavily related well to our interviewing, as I felt most interviewees provided us with rushed, vague answers, which I assume was the result of wanting to continue their studying. However, I believe if we had been in a more casual setting, the answers we received would have been more detailed, allowing us to more accurately collect data. On the other hand, however, one benefit that I found was extremely useful during the interview process was our access to non-verbal cues. Non-verbal cues relate to the interviewees body language, according to DeFranzo (n.d), as well as facial expressions. When asking our questions, we were able to evaluate the students’ faces when asked certain questions, such as “Did you have any friends before attending online class?”. Despite answers often being vague, it was evident how individuals felt when contemplating what they were going to say. Their body language and facial expressions indicated to us their opinions of the current online learning system. Ultimately, conducting these interviews, despite challenges of time, allowed us to discover one of the underlying issues of the online teaching and learning system, and work towards creating a solution to improve the overall student experience.

User Feedback Following the development of the buddy system, and the introduction of our prototype during class presentations and after asking various individuals outside of the presentation, we learnt that most believed the presentation was a brilliant idea and could easily be implemented into the university’s online system, without impacting tutor preparation time, class time, as well as being financially viable as it requires little to no financial aid to operate. Students during the presentation, particularly those who were first year students during the peak of the COVID pandemic, revealed to us that they wished the system had been implemented at the start of their university journey in order to have made the transition easier for them. However, some students raised concerns about being paired with an individual who they may have nothing in common with, or do not particularly get along with. Upon hearing these concerns, I agreed with the students and our group began to ponder on the ways we could improve the buddy system. One way to address these concerns and improve the overall system would be to implement and utilise a software that allows students to partake in quizzes that will ultimately match them with another student. I believe that this will ensure that the students in the pair are the best possible match, minimising the risk of disputes, unhappy students and increasing the likelihood of motivation in students.

Group Dynamics I truly believe I was incredibly lucky with my group for this design thinking project. We were able to get along well and put our heads together in order to create a suitable and useful solution to the issue we discovered while conducting our interviews in the first stage of the DT process. We were able to distribute the work with no issues, ensuring that we each worked to the best of our abilities when completing our tasks. Furthermore, each group member was fair and respectful when it came to giving each other constructive criticism. Furthermore, each group member actively participated in each stage of the design thinking process, particularly with the interview process in the first stage of the DT problem definition phase, with each of us willingly conducting interviews in order to identify the main problem with online learning. I believe this strong start in our team relationship allowed us to work easily together in the following stages of our DT process. Following this, each of us would begin to work together in the ideation stage, developing mind maps based on the student experience. From here, we were able to branch off and eventually, after a discussion between the six of us, choose the most prominent issue and relating it back to our initial interviews. We were able to begin developing our prototype here, with myself and another team member collaborating to design a story board depicting our students prior to the implementation of the buddy system (based off responses received during the interviewing process), while the system is being implemented, and finally, the students after the buddy system has successfully been implemented. Overall, I believe our group worked incredibly well together to create a solution to the challenges that ourselves and other students experienced during the sudden shift from traditional university classes to online teaching and learning. We worked hard to ensure future students do not feel the same disassociation and lack of motivation that we may have felt. Overall, I had an incredibly positive group experience, and believe our group dynamics were great.

REFERENCE LIST

Strengths and Weaknesses of Qualitative Interviews 2015, viewed 29 March 2021

DeFranzo, E n.d., Advantages and Disadvantages of Face-to-Face Data Collection, viewed 30 May 2021...