Today was our first challenge workshop with Fulton County Schools in Atlanta.  At AK12DC we help schools learn and apply design thinking to address school-wide challenges that align with their strategic needs.  We are working with the following five Fulton County Schools:

• Mountain Park Elementary
• Woodland Elementary
• Ocee Elementary
• Riverwood High School
• Hembre Springs Elementary

Some schools like Mountain Park and Woodland have been members of AK12DC for three or more years.  While the rest of the schools are entering their second year participating in the program.

Our role in working with these schools is to:

• provide the training in learning and using design thinking;
• partnering with member schools for a full year to apply design thinking as a process to address school-wide challenges;
• support schools with a design thinking mentor, someone who is deeply involved in using design thinking in schools, corporations or non-profits;
• support the school’s design team with a member of AK12DC’s leadership team to address issues along the way and track performance; and
• to provide three challenge workshops each year for the five design teams to do laps of design thinking, work on their challenges, and benefit from the support of their mentor and AK12DC’s leadership team.

September 16th was the first challenge workshop for 2019.   Some design teams had some new members so we did a few laps of design thinking with activities like redesigning the commute and the gift-giving experience.  Each activity was focused on a particular aspect of the design thinking process.  After lunch, we gave teams team-time to plan out their work for 2019.  It was an exciting day and generated lots of enthusiasm from our five teams.

Follow us on Twitter @AK12DC using the hashtag #ak12dc . For more information contact us at robertryshke@westminster.net