David's Process Journal

[davidporteriv]

Evaluation

When evaluating our group’s implementation using a rubric along with a summative evaluation would be best. One of the big focuses for our group was making sure that we answered our problem statement with our implementation, as we saw a very clear need within our selected problem space and wanted to implement a solution that would help aid the problem. We understand that there is a deeper issue within the retention of educators in rural environments and wanted to create a space that would allow for them to be as connected to other resources and educators experiencing similar circumstances, which their urban counterparts have an ease of access to. The results of our implementation won’t show until it has been utilized by a number of entities, with our goal of slowing down a trend that is on the rise, suggesting that there would need to be multiple milestone checkpoints over time to evaluate our solution’s true impact. I think as a group, we did a good job communicating with each other and providing constructive feedback to one another as we approached each step in the creative problem solving process. I think as a whole we felt that we began to jump ahead of some steps of the process because as a group we talked through some of the questions that we had, almost constantly evaluating our own work. Overall, I feel like we surpassed even some of our own milestones that were set when meeting as a group in each step of the process, often finding ourselves having to slow down and take a deeper dive on how we chose to iterate in each step.

[davidporteriv]

Implementation Pt. 2

At the conclusion of last week we felt like we had discussed most of our features and the logistics that surround them in enough detail that we were ready to move forward in creating a detailed user flow document to include in our final presentation. Our focus shifted towards elevating our idea into business. An important component of this is branding and the company name. This was one of the more challenging parts in our solution. We tossed around some fun ideas, like Schooral (school + rural), but ended up feeling like having a more straightforward name would best maintain a professional vibe for the site. Eventually we landed on RuralTeach because the name clearly communicates who our target audience is for use of the website itself. As a group, we came to the conclusion that our selling audience would be district and school administrators.

We also spent time creating a color palette to use for our site by independently pinning different images and pictures to a shared Pinterest dashboard. Following the lead of the designers in our group, we sorted through the colors we felt would complement each other best and be attractive to the user experience on the site. While working on the specifics of the features, the team came together to share feedback on our initial impressions on the dashboard/home page’s 1st iteration. Some of the feedback shared was that a user may feel somewhat overwhelmed with the number of features that are presented. The designers in our group went back to the drawing board and spent time iterating on the product more, which resulted in removing some features altogether based on what would be our product’s primary goals. 

Before departing to do more individual work, we resurfaced our conversation from prior weeks on how to be more productive as a unit. Understanding that we had those in our group who had experience in design and others who were more business oriented, we reviewed the major points that needed to be hit during the presentation of our final product and will work in sub groups for efficiency’s sake. The designers plan to focus on the actual solution to our problem statement, and the business minded teammates will spend time thinking through our team’s problem solving process and telling the story on how we arrived at our solution, as well as how it can be implemented.

[davidporteriv]

Implementation Pt. 1

After getting a team consensus to focus on creating a digital platform for rural educators as the solution to our problem statement (​​Rural communities have the problem of retaining educators due to a lack of support, resources, and professional development.), we separated for the weekend so that each of us could develop a sketch and mock up of our individual vision for the platform. During the last class, we spent time hashing out the important aspects of the platform using the MOSCOW  method, where we really dialed in on some details that hadn’t fully been developed yet as a team. When we reconvened earlier in the week, we recognized that moving forward we can be more efficient with our time by allowing each of us to lean on our own expertise to help progress our platform forward, We spent more time discussing how each aspect of the platform would address our problem statement, and thinking through how this could be a resource that will help retain educators in their rural setting. 

As a group we feel like the best way to communicate our digital platform (to be named soon), is to create a “typical user” who would engage with our platform and walk through it as if we were logging in for the first time. We spent some time thinking through who our target audience would be and that led us into some good conversations. Our platform would be utilized by rural educators, specifically teachers, and had them in mind when creating the platform interface; making sure that it is inviting and easy to navigate the amount of information that our platform will host. Because we are wanting to implement and sell this platform to school districts we also had school district officials in mind, and want to make sure that when presenting our platform, that its functionality and purpose are on full display so that officials will have a clear understanding of what they would be investing in with our platform, and see how it can benefit their teachers. Looking back at our problem statement “Rural communities have the problem of retaining educators due to a lack of support, resources, and professional development that would otherwise keep them engaged in their work”, we understand that ultimately the students in these rural communities are affected by the constant turnstile of teachers in their schools, and believe that providing opportunities for these teachers to engage with professional development programs, as well as with other educators in similar work environments, will encourage them to stay in their communities and improve their quality of life. 

[davidporteriv]

Selection

Following class last Thursday, our group chose to begin to evaluate our three ideas (Digital Hub, Magic School Bus, Civic Engagement Platform) based on a selection matrix focused on four categories: desirability, feasibility, viability, and accessibility. Once we defined each of the criteria and created a scale for us to grade each idea on, we independently graded our ideas. 

When grading for each solution and category, I leaned heavily on my experience in the realm of education and reflected on the conversations that I have had with colleagues who work in schools on a daily basis. I also thought through some of the logistics and how these ideas could be marketed to educators. I often found myself playing ‘devil’s advocate” and thinking through some potential roadblocks that may come up in conversations when trying to market to constituents. All of these factors weighed in my grading, and I noticed that my grading was harder than the rest of my group’s.

After grading individually, we made time to discuss the reasoning for each other’s grading to develop an overall average that we put into a final matrix. After deliberating and averaging out the grades for each idea and criteria, we concluded that the Digital Hub would be the best solution to focus on. 

[davidporteriv]

Ideation

After presenting our drafted problem statement from the week before, "Rural communities have the problem of retaining educators due to a lack of support, resources, and professional development that would otherwise keep them engaged in their work. Our solution would propose a system that will improve their quality of life, while ultimately improving the quality of education they provide to their students,” we received the feedback that our problem statement should refrain from including a solution at this point. This left us with the following problem statement that we used during our group and individual brainstorming sessions: ("Rural communities have the problem of retaining educators due to a lack of support, resources, and professional development that would otherwise keep them engaged in their work.” )To initiate our group brainstorming process we created around 10 “how might we” statements, then through a group vote system, we  focused on one of those statements,“How might we encourage and incentivize educators to work in rural communities?” Afterwards, we timed ourselves while individually developing a list of solutions and documented them before coming back together as a group to vet each idea and think through pros and cons, while also identifying some research points.

Before coming back together as a group, we spent more time individually thinking through more solutions to our problem statement to bring back to the group early in the week. Each teammate was given time to discuss and elaborate on their potential solutions to their problem statement, and after they were done sharing, the rest of the group shared thoughts, questions, and feedback for the presenting teammate’s ideas. After everyone shared, we identified common ideas and started to combine various aspects of each other’s ideas and developed three unique solutions for our problem statement: create and implement a digital product that acts as a professional resource hub for rural teachers; create a program for college students in teaching programs that would have them travel to rural communities to support and share new teaching techniques; and a nonprofit organization that utilizes a digital product that acts as a civic engagement platform for rural teachers and rewards users with real monetary grants as they earn points for contributing to civic engagement forums.

[davidporteriv]

Conjunction Junction

Air Jordan 1’s

Jordan 1s are my favorite shoe and I enjoy wearing them often and they are a very popular shoe and they come in a lot of different color wars. I feel that Jordan 1s can be worn with almost anything and can be the highlight of one’s attire and can also be a point of conversation and at times are taken for granted by various sneakerheads.

I love Jordan 1s but some color ways are really ugly to me but it doesn’t matter anyways because they’re typically hard to get ahold of generally but that hasn’t stopped me from admiring them. I wish I could buy more pairs but the resell market has made them too expensive but I still try looking for various pairs but never have any luck finding them for a decent price. 

Sports

Sports are a great way to relieve stress and make friends and learn how to persevere through hard times and create a community with people you may not otherwise know and can be a great way to exercise and another way to be outdoors. 

Sports are fun but can be hard for some people but can be used to bring people together. I love sports but sometimes it’s hard to get into some, but some are pretty easy to understand but there are some that take time to learn about.

Food

Eating is one of my favorite hobbies and I sometimes like to try new things and sometimes I end up regretting it and other times I can’t get enough. Austin has a lot of places to eat and it’s hard to choose what I am craving at times and sometimes I want a little bit of everything and that makes me frustrated at times.

Cooking food is peaceful but I hate washing dishes but I know it’s part of the process but I still manage to try and find ways not to wash them but I know I have to clean or they will start to stink but sometimes I contemplate if I should just deal with the smell but I don’t want roaches or for people to smell the stench when they come over.

My Brother

My brother just turned 19 and he is currently a freshman in college and he is loving being away from home and we talk at least once a week and he tells me how he is doing and what he has been up to and who he has been spending time with outside of class.

My brother is younger than me but he is slightly taller than me but I make sure he knows I’m the stronger brother but he is the faster brother but I am the more athletic brother but he is still pretty athletic but not on my level.

Driving

I enjoy driving around and especially at night and with the windows down and with my music playing pretty loud and just feeling the breeze and when the roads are pretty empty. 

I drive at night for fun sometimes but I know i have to be careful not to drive too fast but that doesn’t stop me at times but I make sure to drive safe so I don’t get pulled over, but sometimes I start to crave food but I remind myself that I shouldn’t eat late but sometimes I deserve a treat.

[davidporteriv]

Definition

My process for developing a problem statement was connected to my own personal experiences, again using what I have learned from my day-to-day job as a reference. To start, I felt it important to have my own definition of “rural,” which led me to think specifically about population size as a primary factor, with distance from a metropolitan hub being secondary.My organization works with students who live and attend school in Manor, Texas, a small town east of Austin, Texas that has a population of roughly 10,000. After developing a definition of “rural,” I took a look at our morphological analysis and what stood out to me the most was widespread access to consistent, stable, and high speed wireless internet access for students and families. Especially during the pandemic, not having access to WiFi was more of an issue than ever before with students having to participate in school remotely, and our organization delivering mobile hotspots for a number of those students. With that being said, the problem statement I came up with is as follows: 

Students in rural communities have limited to no access to reliable and consistent internet in school and at home, which is preventing them from being as informed and engaged with post-secondary education/content as their counterparts in urban communities.

A couple of us approached this idea but as a group, decided that taking on making reliable internet available in rural communities was too big a goal for the scope of this project, and that we all wanted to work on a more specific target. One of the similarities between other group members was that each noted the impact teachers have on the students and the larger community. After much discussion, there was clear excitement and consensus from the team that we wanted to make teacher retention in rural communities our major focus. However, we each realized that teacher retention on its own can still be broad, so we spent time individually crafting our own problem definition using the 4 Ws method before choosing an official statement.

[davidporteriv]

Analysis

When looking to find information about education systems in general, I was driven to look at what I already knew and used my hometown and current city of residence, Austin, Tx, as my own “case study.” Austin has a very complex and layered history of its city development that ties directly to the education system. Gentrification has played a major role in the migration of Austin residents into more rural outskirts of the city, and has put more pressure on those respective school systems. I still find it interesting how segregated the city of Austin is and how with that being relatively common knowledge for the locals, government included, yet there hasn’t been much change that takes place within the major education system. In this understanding, I felt like it was important to look specifically at existing data, specifically the graduation rates, standardized test scores, and post-secondary data that exists on school district websites. I began to compare and contrast the data from various parts of the city and how those compared to even the rates from the small, rural areas outside of the Austin Metropolitan area. Having worked with various students who attend different schools throughout the multiple school districts, I have been able to see some of the major differences first hand and seeing this data has given me confirmation on some of the thoughts that I gathered from the small sample size that I had.

[davidporteriv]

Acceptance

My group has chosen to examine the enigma that is education, specifically when it comes to education in rural settings. In my mind the first thing that needs to be examined is the meaning of the word “rural,” which according to Merriam-Webster is “of or relating to the country, country people or life, or agriculture.” The connotation of rural, when looking with the lens of education, brings to my mind little to no access to technology, conservative viewpoints, and a lack of diversity. Coming from the education, non-profit sector, I have witnessed some of the practices and structures that exist within some rural school districts and there are a lot of barriers that exist to help students not only earn their education, but also be able to take the next step in advancing either their education or their careers. Success for me with this specific problem would be to inform young people of the opportunities that exist in and out of their communities and help prepare them for whatever path they choose after high school graduation. Accepting the challenge of evaluating what goes on in rural education spaces will help me do a better job of supporting students from those areas throughout their post-secondary paths in the work that I currently do on a daily basis.

[davidporteriv]

Exploring Creativity

Even with a deeper understanding of the definition of creativity, my first thought when I hear or read “creativity” always seems to be related to the arts, and specifically paintings and drawings. I feel that at a young age we are allowed to freely show expressions of creativity, but as we get older and begin to get a better understanding on how to navigate throughout the world, we see how rigid a lot of environments are (I’m thinking specifically within the realm of “professionalism” and the “typical” workplace). 

Specifically within my own life, when operating under the thought that creativity solely relates to the arts, I never saw myself as a creative person and have been told that I am not creative. But in doing more reflection in what it actually means to be creative, I would definitely categorize myself as a creative individual. When I face problems or challenging circumstances, I tend to find a number of ways to find a solution. As a coach it’s almost imperative to be creative when working to win, and doing so within a time constraint makes problem solving a lot more challenging. Not only when working to win a competition, but also when teaching others how to execute in a specific way, knowing that every one has a different learning style. In my non-profit work, we tend to have to get creative and find different ways of supporting and engaging our student population through relevant programs and communication in order to help them achieve their goals (which is ultimately our goal). 

With that being said, even though I know that I may not be the most artistically creative person out there, I do know that I am a creative in how I communicate and how I make connections with others.