Design Thinking Across Borders: Italian Design Thinking Camp for Authentic English Language Learning Experience

 Design Thinking student-vendors at Pieve di Cadore’s marketplace with Titian

This article stems from a Design Thinking pilot program in Italy made possible by the collaborative work of the following teachers: Dr. Christine Cipriani Wilson, Dr. Elizabeth Perry, Ms. Mariam Mathew, Ms. Jennifer Thomas, Ms. Antonella Perrini, and Ms. Mara Delotto. Many thanks to you all for your belief in education across all borders! The article also reflects the analysis of this pilot from a presentation (Wilson & Matthews, Project Zero Conference, Amsterdam, October 2, 2015) as well as a published article (Matthews, Perry, & Wilson, International School Magazine, Autumn, Volume 18, 2015).

Summary. The Design Thinking Process, applied to a pilot summer camp program for youth, demonstrates that not only does a new way of organizing a work process can lead to extroaordinary improvements to a marketplace, but that students can improve a target language in one week. Thirty Italian middle and high school students, ages 13-19, from the villages of the Dolomite Mountains, changed how they learn English as a foreign language using less memorization of grammatical structures and more application of communication skills. 

In this classroom without walls, students learned 21st century skills by playing, participating in structured as well as unstructured dialogues, and working together to solve real-world problems through a cross-disciplinary interaction and innovation methods in a non-formal educational program. In an effort to move away from transmission-based teaching, these students experienced a full English immersion guided by four international teachers representing different dialects: American English, Canadian English, Australian English as well as a translanguaging experience between Italian and English with their own English teachers who were Italian native speakers. Students were also supported by bilingual facilitators who interacted in English or Italian to help beginner, intermediate, and advanced level learners. Students at the Pieve Estate Design Thinking Camp engaged in deep learning by: 

? practicing iterations of Design Thinking through the process of making

? engaging in strategic thinking and problem solving (implementation) tasks, and

? communicating in the target language using all four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing for the purpose of work in a cross cultural environment. 

This camp involved an intensive week of five workshops with hands on experiential learning from both the middle school, Scuola Secondaria Tiziano, and high school, Liceo Scientifico E. Fermi, in the town of Pieve di Cadore. The article will describe the purpose, curriculum, activities, outcomes, and reflections from participants. It includes the challenges of implementation and a post survey qualitative assessment on how the camp affected the school community and the larger community of the village after its implementation.

 Keywords: Design thinking, innovation, collaboration, strategic thinking, English Language learning, translanguaging. 

Artisan wooden hearts from Pieve di Cadore

Introduction. What happens when educators from different disciplines and countries collaborate with students from a community in a rural area to develop and sell products that the community needs or wants using both native language and the target language? An authentic learning experience where deep discussion framed by the Design Thinking Process leads to an enriched language learning experience. The week-long summer camp engaged students in language learning that created as well as conveyed knowledge in a translanguaging environment of Italian and English where the impetus was to express ideas with increasing depth and complexity in English.  

Pieve Estate Design Thinking Camp Participants

At its conclusion, the student-vendors sold products of their own design, featuring such products as framed original photography, books that were hand bound, homemade stationary, and LED-enhanced crafts on market day in historic Pieve di Cadore, while communicating for specific purposes with more confidence. By prioritizing essential language skills that accompanied the process of creating market products, students built foundational literacy skills as well as social-emotional competencies, such as tolerance and personal resilience.

Framed Photography Team

This learning experience reveals how different disciplines can be woven together, following four key principles of “authentic learning”: 

• involving students in real-world problems that mimic the work and language of professionals, 
•  using open-ended inquiry, thinking skills and metacognition, 
• engaging in discourse and social learning in a community of learners, and
•  directing learning through project work.  

This article will be helpful to anyone interested in exploring Design Thinking, principles of authentic learning, literacy development, and collaborative projects with teachers from other disciplines and learning traditions. I hope that readers will consider how collaborative learning projects can be developed in formal and non-formal learning environments. The following questions will be considered:

1. What is meant by Design Thinking and how can it be used to frame student-directed projects to develop literacy skills? 
2. What does authentic learning look like in a multilingual context?  
3. What are the rewards and challenges of a truly collaborative approach to mutual understanding and mutual professional development - particularly when working across different disciplines, pedagogical traditions, and languages? 

Crossroads in the Dolomites

Design Thinking Defined.   An aspect of Design Thinking which pairs well with language learning is the concept of “Collaboration and Group Learning” as described by Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero: 

No matter where, what, or whom one teaches, creating a learning community is essential to promoting learning at home, school, and the workplace. In order to live, learn, and work together effectively, we need to be able to listen to one another, to work together to identify and solve problems, and to acknowledge and respect diverse points of view.

(Project Zero)

Design Thinking is a human-centered curriculum design which focuses on the deeper qualitative understanding of the human experience in the learning process. The language skill that is critical to the Design Thinking process begins with active listening; in order for participants in any endeavor to build community is learning to listen to each other in order to acknowledge and respect other opinions and orientations. From there, learners can begin identifying problems of others and then designing solutions to make a better community. 

Design Thinking, according to Harvard Graduate School of Education Teaching and Learning Lab, “is a mindset and approach to learning, collaboration, and problem solving.” In practice, the design process can be structured as a framework for identifying challenges through empathizing with the end user, gathering information and defining the problem, generating potential solutions through multiple ideas, refining ideas into a prototype, and then testing solutions for an end product or service. Design Thinking can be flexibly implemented; serving equally well as a framework for a course design or a roadmap for an activity or group project. 

Student-vendor explaining product in English to American tourists

There are five phases to Design Thinking: (1) Empathize with the potential users,  (2) Define your users’ needs, their problem, and your insights, (3) Ideate by challenging assumptions and creating ideas of innovative solutions, (4) Prototype to start creating solutions, and (5) Test solutions. 

These phases are not necessarily sequential, and are merely modes that contribute to an innovative project. (Dam and Teo, Interaction Design Foundation). For language learning, this process of collaboration necessitates a specific kind of communication that focuses interlocutors to a higher level of listening and speaking. With the goal of creation, students needed to be precise with their language, and interaction within a collaborating team was essential. There was no hiding in the back of the classroom.

Design Thinking in Italy.  Students in the 21st century need to learn and function within diverse groups in a globalized economy using multiple languages. Knowledge of themselves as individuals and group learners is critical, yet in many schools including Italy, the acquisition of knowledge is still primarily viewed as an individual act versus a social and communicative act.  (Making Learning and Thinking Visible in Italian Secondary Schools)

Pieve Estate Design Thinking Camp focused teaching and learning beyond the passive transmission of knowledge from teachers to students by encouraging learners to understand others needs and wants, by thinking of new ways to accomplish a solution to those needs and wants within the context of group think. The camp charged the community to shift the balance of learning in classrooms to include a focus on creating as well as conveying knowledge, language, culture, and values.

"Empathy"in Design Thinking is a student using an Ipad to view his community as an outsider through a new lens

The camp upended the perception that creativity was left to the great artists such as Titian, a great Renaissance painter born in Pieve di Cadore. These teachers assumed instead that students could be a creative problem-solver and eventual “artigiano” (Italian: artisan, craftsman).  

This was possible by moving developers of four product lines through a non-linear and iterative method of Design Thinking’s five phases of empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping and testing. Teachers guided students to reevaluate their town of Pieve di Cadore, reassessing their community by asking them to imagine themselves as outsiders observing no longer familiar objects and events but novel items and happenings. They were taught to empathize with the users of the product they would create by seeking solutions in their newly realized environment. Throughout the five workshops, learning was guided through the early research phase of understanding key concepts of Design Thinking, vocabulary of the marketplace, and three areas of product development, to the final presentation on market day. Time was spent mostly on what is important in learning: the process, rather than the product. In order for students to accomplish their respective goals on product development teams, they needed to engage in deep dialogue in pairs, groups, and the whole class, pushing their thinking and language learning to the next level.

Participants, Materials, Setting. The camp involved four international school educators from the American School of London, representing three different disciplines of Visual Arts, Technology, and English as an   Additional Language (EAL). These teachers collaborated with two local Italian teachers who were Humanities and English Language instructors at the Italian high school, Enrico Fermi Liceo Scientifico, and the middle school, Scuola Secondaria Tiziano, in Pieve di Cadore. Bilingual youth facilitators or “camp counselors” assisted participants by translanguaging in Italian and/or English to engage learners in analytical dialogue that tested their language learning for specific purposes at whatever level was needed.

Collaborating Teachers: Australian, American, Canadian and Italian

In order to create products for the marketplace in one week, students were immersed in an accelerated education program that did not cram learning into a box, but afforded students to experiment with the target language as they sought to learn more in the process of design thinking and making.

Having interviewed parents in Pieve di Cadore, I understood that English language learning was taught primarily through versions of “traditional grammar translation method” where students mastered grammatical rules from textbooks for academic writing and then applied those rules by translating sentences between English, the target language, and Italian, their native language. 

My hope was to develop a language learning experience that integrated literacy development in listening, speaking, reading, and writing within the context of work. Students used a wide range of new materials from ipads for photography, electric circuits for LED jewelry, stationary and natural materials from their community for stationary, as well as book binding materials and tools to develop homemade books. All of these items and processes of work had academic vocabulary and sentence structures tied to them.

2015 Mayor of Pieve di Cadore wearing an LED Product

The challenges of joining forces with local community members, to include the town’s mayor, become visible as we moved from the planning to implementation stages. Due to the municipality’s economic issues, the original funding to accompany the camp’s fees did not come through, resulting in all participants having to shoulder some costs of the camp. All teachers worked as volunteers.

Nevertheless, the results of the pilot program proved beneficial to all stakeholders not only to participating students but also to the teachers and facilitators who learned a unique application of the Design Thinking process. Students and parents were exposed to a different model of English language learning and teachers collaborated not only across disciplines, but across pedagogical culture and language.  

View of the Cadore Valley

Pieve di Cadore is more secluded than other towns in the Dolomites such as the former and future Winter Olympic town of Cortina di Cadore, only 19 miles away. Located within the region of Veneto, in the northernmost section of the province of Belluno at the border of Austria, South Tyrol and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Pieve was the historic supplier of sourced wood for the powerful Republic of Venice which used the lumber to build palace foundations and ships. The wood market made many Venetians wealthy and money was invested into forested lands and sawmills owned by such famous painters as Titian who was born in Pieve di Cadore, and my mother's family, located in the neighboring village of Auronzo di Cadore. 

Over time, Cadore has declined economically with Italy now among the weakest economy in Europe (New York Times, August 2019). In an effort to stimulate market activity, Pieve has evolved from its once thriving center for eyeglass design and production to a nascent tourism industry in an attempt to take advantage of its stunning natural landscapes and outdoor activities such as skiing, hiking, biking, and rock climbing. 

Billboard of Pieve di Cadore's touristic sites at entrance of the town

Currently, Pieve is a town of 3,794 inhabitants with a number of sites to include a Museum of Glasses of 2,000 pieces from Middle Ages to present, the Palazzo della Magnifica Comunità ("Palace of the Magnificent Community"), built in 1447 by a formal council which then ruled the city, a tower which was completed in 1491, Titian’s original home, a “diga” (dam) at the end of Lago di Cadore (Cadore lake) with climbing competitions in the summer, and a 40 mile bike route, “Ciclabile Dolomite”, that formerly connected multiple train stations from Venice-Mestre, Italy to Dobbiacco, Austria.

Pieve di Cadore today has an elementary, middle, and high school along with a general hospital, “Giovanni Paulo II”. The nearest train station in the town nearby, Calalzo, fought to stay open during the worst of the economic downturn. Many high school graduates have moved on to larger towns and cities to either go to college or find jobs.

Long distance hikers on the Pista Ciclabile, bike route from Calalzo to Cortina

Stakeholders of the Design Thinking camp, including government officials, local community members of parents and students, a journalist who recorded the event in the local paper, and the collaborating teachers began discussing the project a year before the summer camp was to happen. The mayor of the town engaged in discussions with me about short and long term commitments for supporting this camp. The four content teachers from the American School of London met regularly before the summer in Pieve to plan the curriculum. After all stakeholders agreed to the proposal. The concept was to run the program as a pilot project with the municipality providing flights for visiting teachers, the school providing classrooms in Pieve’s middle school, the community providing housing for the visiting teachers, and the visiting teachers providing materials for the camp to include Ipads. Due to the lack of funding by the municipality, however, certain proposal agreements did not come through, and camp fees were insufficient to cover all the costs of the visiting teachers’ trip. As a result, a lot of good will came forth from participants, especially the visiting teachers. 

Pieve Estate Design Thinking Poster

Proposal and Advertisement. Every week the municipality in Pieve di Cadore, “il Magnifico Commune di Pieve di Cadore”, publicizes events in the area from concerts to lectures in the community. An advertisement, created by the teacher and students at the Italian high school, could be found in all the shops and restaurants in the various town centers of the Dolomites in the spring before the camp was to begin. The lead Italian teacher tracked the camp registration. The camp received many responses with 30 registered students at the middle and high school level from more than ten villages along the valley committed to learning Design Thinking as well as English. Registered middle and high schoolers ranged from beginner to advanced levels of proficiency in English. 

An informational meeting in Pieve di Cadore was set in the spring with a powerpoint description of the Design Thinking curricula, teachers, and fees. The Italian teacher’s translation of the Design Thinking Camp Proposal was critical to reaching all members of the community. The presentation was hosted by the middle school principal of Scuola Media Tiziano, the middle school where the camp would be located. 

LED Circuit concept explained with images

Curriculum. The camp’s curriculum, framed by the Design Thinking process, focused learners on generating insights from users to produce crude prototypes that communicate many ideas. Student explorations into product lines was more about generating ideas than its realization.  

Mindsets for design thinking are best described by the article in Additive Innovation in Design Thinking and Making ( 2016) as “orientations to learning that have been identified as human centeredness, empathy, mindfulness of process, culture of prototyping, show don’t tell, bias toward action and radical collaboration.” (Jordan and Lande, 2016)

The additive innovation occurred over five days in classrooms with no computers other than the Ipads the visiting teachers brought with them. The classes were divided into five workshops of four hours each. Each workshop focused on a challenge: Candy Bar Challenge, Advertising Challenge, Pricing Challenge, Sales Challenge, and Market Challenge. All workshops highlighted English language skills including structured and unstructured speaking exercises, vocabulary tied to product lines, and reading/writing activities tied to market concepts. Dedicated time to iterations of applications to the design thinking process was provided to ensure students would be able to sell products at the end of the week. 

Students were divided into the following teams:

• Books and Stationary Team. Production processes focused on making as many product units per person as possible with handmade cards using fine stationary and natural objects found in Pieve’s parks.  
• Electric Craft Team. Production processes focused on careful stitching to create jewelry, bags, and pins while creating an electric circuit with electrical thread that connected the LED with the battery.  
• Framed Photography Team. Production processes explored Pieve's community with IPad's to capture lines of symmetry, focal points, light and shadows, leading lines, camera angle, and editing photographs using Mac software. Best photographs were saved in a folder of student iPads for printing.

Middle school student learning how to stitch a circuit onto a pocket for LED product

Schedule. The five day workshop involved introducing language learning tied to product design from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. The first session, from 9:00 -10:30 AM, involved the whole class participation on a “challenge” which was tied to design thinking for product development. 

Student notes on “Taking Great Photos”

This content was preceded by a fifteen minute language warm-up activity with key vocabulary introduced relevant to the challenge. After break, from 10:30 - 10:45 AM, students moved to the second part of the workshop, from 10: 45-11:00 AM, where they are guided through a recap of vocabulary and concepts from morning sessions, then transitioning to small group work on team product lines, which occurred from 11-12:45 PM . The final hour of the day, 12:45-1:00 PM, was dedicated to teamwork, focused on the product lines which needed to be completed on the fifth day of the week, market day. Workshop Days 1-4 were opportunities to both introduce and apply design thinking phases to product development while Day 5 was dedicated to showcasing ideas that were brought to fruition through collaborative work.

WORKSHOP DAY 1: CANDY BAR CHALLENGE

The whole class met for a 15 minute activity of spontaneous introductions which began with arranging students in a large circle. They stated their name and threw a ball to someone and said, "My name is ____ and his/her name is _____.” This was followed by a 30 minute mini lesson on the concept of Design Thinking, Empathy. Students were given a definition of empathy as the “understanding and sympathy of someone else's needs.” The class was divided into pairs, and each pair was asked to design a name tag for their partner with suggestions such as including icons of their favorite color, their pet, favorite hobby, interests, and strongest subject. They were then asked to introduce their partner to the class using the name tag. For high beginners of English, sentence frames was used to flow through these introductions such as “ My partner’s name is ___________, and his/her favorite color is _______________.”

After a 15 minute break, students reconvened for 15 minutes as a whole group to review concepts and vocabulary from the morning sessions, and then they transitioned to small group work. For the remaining two hours of the workshop, students attempted the Candy Bar Challenge. Students in four teams of 7-8 students created a candy bar that had its own features, wrapper, and name, transforming Kinder Chocolate, a favorite commercial chocolate in Italy, to something new. Each team must use the same materials but must make unique designs for each candy bar.

For the final fifteen minutes of the workshop, each team member presented their products in English, Italian, or a combination of both languages dependent on proficiency level of the student. Student teams presented 1 minute commercials on their chocolate bar.  They reflected on designs and features of the chocolate that are appealing to Pieve's community. Closing the afternoon session, teachers introduced the product lines for students to choose from for Friday's marketplace: stationary, bookmaking, electronic crafts, and photography. Students selected their first, second, and third choices.

WORKSHOP DAY 2: ADVERTISEMENT CHALLENGE

A pair of designers creating ideas for poster advertisement of product line

Getting the message out to the community through the “Advertising Challenge” involved building content-based vocabulary knowledge and building a concept map of a print advertisement. During Whole Class Time, students practiced using vocabulary in context such as "word of mouth" and "promotion". Students studied advertisements on billboards, magazines, newspapers, websites, flyers, brochures, signs, t-shirts, interviews on TV or radio in their own community. They also learned the parts of a print ad:  

1. Headline: This is the "book" of the ad. It is usually the first thing people see. It should be short, clear, and attention-grabbing. Promise a benefit, attract the target audience, should be less than 10 words.

2. Copy: Description of the product. Describe its features and benefits.

3. Graphics: drawing to arouse curiosity, attract target audience

4. Call to Action: get customer to act. Usually placed at the bottom of the ad. Come to Pieve's first youth marketplace at Piazza Tiziano on July 10, 2015 from 10-12:30

5. Slogan: in few words what you are selling. 8 words or less. Example: HOME DEPOT: "You can do it, We can help"

6. Jingle: a musical slogan that is memorable. Example: BOUNTY TOWELS: "Bounty, the quicker-picker-upper, Bounty" (to music)

7. Price: Clearly note the price per item of your product--should be outlined/ frame pounds/per unit. Round all prices--not 1.50Euros--Round to 2 Euros

After the recap of vocabulary and concepts from the morning sessions, students transition to small group work where they were asked to create a flyer for the Design Thinking market at the end of the week. They were asked to include vocabulary and concepts learned from the morning session.  

Whole class presentations on the advertisements that were created were shared. Students were asked to hang their advertisements throughout the villages of Cadore such as Pieve, Sottocastello, Lozzo, Pozzale, Valle, Calalzo from which the students had come.

WORKSHOP DAY 3: PRICING CHALLENGE

Handmade stationary packaged for market day

On Workshop Day 3, students attempted the “Pricing Challenge”. The warm-up activity focused on activating spontaneous responses in English. Students were organized in a large circle in the atrium of the middle school. They counted out loud in English by multiples of five. Once a student reached the number five s/he clapped one time without saying the number. Teachers would call out different combinations of counting with rules for how to respond; for example, with multiples of three, clap twice. This exercise helped students to listen carefully, and produce language with a very limited response time.  

 Following the warm up, students learned vocabulary in context: "revenue", "expenses", "profit", "loss", "break even point", "cost", "labor", "market value". These words were explicitly taught and practiced multiple times along with the key pricing formulas based of of the idea of profit: “revenue-expenses=profit. In pairs, students drew cards on pricing word problems, reading them outloud and responding with the answer: “If you sell 10 cards for 3 Euros each and you spend 12 Euros on materials, what will your profit or loss be?” or “ If it took five hours to complete 10 cards, what is your profit per hour of work?” 

After a recap of concepts from morning sessions, students transitioned to small group work focused on the Pricing Challenge: to create a prototype of their own product line at a price that the market can bear. Within a time limit, they were asked to create crude prototypes of their final product. Teams, under a limited time, had to “buy” materials from the facilitator’s material shop, prototype, and cost-construct a product.  Teams ended the day by explaining the cost and benefits of their prototypes during presentations.

WORKSHOP DAY 4: THE SALES CHALLENGE

Conversation frames for marketplace dialogues

During the warm-up activity of the Sales Challenge, students were given slips of paper which include half of a dialogue of questions and answers found in a marketplace: "Does this book come in another color?", "Yes, the book comes in yellow, orange, and green." Students needed to find a partner with the matching dialogue and sit down. When everyone was seated, they were called on to enact the dialogue to the whole class.

The students were then introduced to the “4 P's of Marketing”:

1) Product:Does your target market want or need your product? 

2) Place: Where and how are you going to distribute your product?), 

3) Price: What price will you charge for your product? 

4) Promotion: How are you going to make people aware of your product?

After the recap of concepts and vocabulary from the morning sessions, students transitioned to small group work on their product lines.  

The Sales Challenge involved a reenactment of Pieve’s marketplace. Counselors and teachers posed as customers with fake Euros. Students prepareed their booth with evolving prototypes of products with price tags. Once a customer identified a product they wanted to buy, the seller went to the "Cash Box Manager" in the center of the marketplace to record the sale. The Cash Box Manager added total sales and divided by number of sellers to calculate market earning. Marketplace earnings during this practice run was 250 Euros.

Student during mock market day using 4Ps

The final hour was dedicated to student presentations of their products’ “4 P’s”. Student presenters used dialogue frames which structured the sentences for their presentations. The audience could ask questions in order to help developers revise their product descriptions.

WORKSHOP DAY 5: MARKET CHALLENGE

LED Crafts Team were swarmed by potential local customers

On Pieve di Cadore’s weekly market day, students set up tables alongside other vendors from the local community in the central square, "Piazza Tiziano". They posted advertisements in front of their booth with pricing information and prepared their products for display. Final product preparation, pricing, and booth set up was completed on before customers arrived. Students reconfigure tables and chairs to match the practice market from the day before.

  Framed photography booth

From 10:00 - 12:30 PM, student-vendors sold to real customers on the piazza, the center of town, along with regular weekly vendors. The now more confident bilingual student-vendors solicited customers speaking in English to the tourists and Italian to the locals, drawing them to their booths with the academic terms, sentence starters, conversation frames for the marketplace that they had learned over the week. Other student-vendors remained at the booth to wrap items, collecting money, and providing change for completed sales. As the market came to a close, students discounted products to sell all their inventory as other market vendors did. 

Day 5: Market Day. Student vendors earned 400 Euros that day. This profit was divided equally to all members of the camp which resulted in a 12 Euro earnings for each member. From 12:30 - 1:00 PM, teachers, facilitators, and parents celebrated the success of the market. Certificates of participation were distributed by collaborating teachers from both schools along with a 12 Euro profit for each student.

Student-vendor receives certificate and earnings 

Program Documentation and Reflection.  Pieve Weebly Site captured all documentation of the program to include collaborations between the local and international schools, photos, workshop descriptions and participant comments.  These comments, along with the post survey responses provide qualitative data of the benefits of the cultural and linguistic collaborations for learning.

Vendor getting change from cash box

In one of the website responses, a participant of the Pieve Estate Design Thinking Camp highlights how the learner herself knew she was gaining 21st century skills. Catarina’s response on the website captures the success of this literacy program by reflecting the dual benefits of not only deepening thinking processes for developing ideas that lead to a valuable creation, but using this process to enrich a target language:

Catarina Response on Pieve Estate Design Thinking Camp

Italian: Il progetto mi è piaciuto davvero tantissimo, l'ho trovato utile sotto molti aspetti. Prima di tutto ovviamente è stato importante per il miglioramento dell'inglese non solo mio, ma anche dei bambini. A inizio settimana in tanti non capivano una parola, mentre alla fine non solo riuscivano a capire, ma anche a rispondere e interagire in inglese con i clienti del mercatino.

In secondo luogo a me è piaciuta molto anche l'impostazione mentale che le insegnanti hanno voluto darci, ovvero tutta quella componente più strettamente legata al design thinking e alle strategie per vendere un prodotto, che secondo me è stata importante soprattutto per farci aprire la mente e pensare con la nostra testa. E poi, come se non bastasse, oltre a tutto ciò ci hanno anche insegnato a realizzare personalmente alcuni prodotti. Io da parte mia ho provato fotografia e mi è piaciuta un sacco, adesso non la smetto più di fare foto! Ma ho visto che anche gli altri gruppi hanno fatto un bel lavoro e sono sicura che tutti si porteranno dietro questa bella esperienza. Una menzione particolare va inoltre alle insegnanti, senza le quali tutto questo non sarebbe stato possibile: fin dal primo giorno si sono proposte con tanta positività e voglia di fare, e soprattutto una grande disponibilità a venirci incontro in ogni modo.Con loro non ci siamo rapportati tanto come insegnanti, ma come vere e proprie amiche e punti di riferimento; non c'era nessun clima di soggezione, ma un rapporto diretto e scherzoso, volto non a sottolineare gli errori ma a trasformarli in punti di forza. Nel complesso è stato davvero un progetto ben riuscito e bellissimo, e mi è dispiaciuto che sia durato solo una settimana, ma spero vivamente che il prossimo anno possa essere riproposto!

English: I really liked the project, I found it useful in many ways. First of all, it was obviously important for the improvement of English not only mine, but also the children. At the beginning of the week, many did not understand a word, while in the end they not only managed to understand, but also to respond and interact in English with the customers of the market.

Secondly, I also really liked the mental approach that the teachers wanted to give us, that is, all that component more closely linked to design thinking and strategies to sell a product, which in my opinion was especially important to make us open our minds and think for yourself.

And then, to make matters worse, in addition to all this, they also taught us to make some products personally. For my part I tried photography and I liked it a lot, now I can't stop taking photos! But I have seen that the other groups have also done a good job and I am sure that everyone will carry this beautiful experience with them.

A special mention also goes to the teachers, without whom all this would not have been possible: from the first day they proposed themselves with so much positivity and desire to do, and above all a great willingness to meet us in any way. They related to us as both teachers, but as real friends and reference points; there was no atmosphere of awe, but a direct and playful relationship, aimed not at emphasizing errors but at transforming them into strengths. All in all it was a really successful and beautiful project, and I was sorry that it only lasted a week, but I really hope that next year can be replicated!

Australian art teacher and Italian student

In addition, Catarina notes the unique relationship between teacher and student in this camp as one of mentorship where the individual imparting knowledge is willing to meet the learner in “any way”. This interchange between teacher and student is described as “direct” and “playful” where errors were not emphasized, a common outcome of a traditional language learning experience. Instead, Catarina describes the learning as a transformation of less strong ideas and mistakes into better ideas and successes--the outcome of a final product.  

The counselor, Nicolo, an Italian with strong English skills, reflected on the role of being a facilitator as a positive experience because the students were so engaged in the learning process: 

Facilitator’s Response on Pieve Estate Design Thinking Camp

Hi. I have attended the design thinking camp as a counselor. It has been a great experience for me since I was able both to help a lot of young boys and girls to learn and practice English and also because I could learn great new things for myself.All the youngsters were very active and interested in what they were learning, so it was very easy for the teachers to instruct. This really passionate participation made me enjoy my role as a counselor. I am sure that most students have achieved a great quantity of new knowledge and skills during the camp, whilst having a great time too. I hope the camp will take place in the following years too. Cheers.

Nicolo, also recognized how a “great quantity of new knowledge and skills” were learned while having fun. The Design Thinking Process is from his perspective a “passionate participation” where students not only learned new ways of thinking, but also as a byproduct, had to express these ideas in language which improved the target language of the program.

Post Language Survey.  

Students were asked to reflect on their language learning over the course of the Design Thinking Camp on the last day of camp. Based on 25 responses, 

Paper and pencil student survey

learners stated they improved their ability to speak and listen in English for a specific purpose- that is to develop a product line that they would sell at the town’s marketplace. Serena responded: “My greatest achievement in learning English is learn the names of the tools and the words for do and sell my products”. (Serena, Post Language Survey, 10 July 2015).  

Sara reflected with wonder the speed at which she acquired the target language:

Sara, Post Language Survey, 10 July 2015. Italian: Mi sono divertita molto questa settimana! Credo di aver imparato piu Inglese in una settimana che in un anno di scuola! Anche se ci sono state delle incomprehnsioni (a volte), le ho superate con l’aiuto di persone vicini che sapevano un po di piu L’Inglese di me!!! Insomma, una bella esperienza da refare; caso mai con altri progetti/prodotti da realizare!!!! 

English: I enjoyed myself alot this week. I think I learned more English in one week than in one year at school! Also, if there were some misunderstandings (at times), I overcame this with the help of people next to me who know a little more English than me!!! 

Two striking points can be made from this response. That immersion English focused on the Design Thinking process provided a much stronger model of language learning that the traditional mode of English language learning focused on language forms alone. Sara's second point, that learning in a group of students with different levels of the target language enabled her to develop language with those that were at closer levels to her knowledge of English, reinforces Krashen's ideas of lowering the “affective filter” to minimize the anxiety of producing new language. (Shutz, 2019). Sara used other sources of support other than the teacher's explanations in the target language. She leaned on other speakers of English that was closer to her proficiency level to make sense of the communication that was going on within a class lesson.

A Design Thinking framework can help teachers think outside the box, design creative solutions to curriculum challenges, and ultimately develop language curricula that deeply resonate with our learners. By learning language for an authentic purpose within collaborative groups, students have the opportunity to gain the ability to engage in meaningful communicative acts. With such a structure, language learning gains can be seen over a shorter period of time. This pilot offers a model for formal and nonformal education in rural areas where access to technology is not as important as access to powerful pedagogical practices that lead to academic learning.

#Curriculum,  #languagelearning, #translanguaging, #designthinking, #pbl, #ClassroomDesign, #21stCenturySkills, #internationalschools,, #cadore, #dolomiti   

@WilsonCipriani, Christine Cipriani Wilson /Facebook, www.dhirubhai.net/in/christineciprianiwilson