Final systems visualiztion
The lnk to the final system visualization (a Prezi): http://prezi.com/cpyvgiqwobin/boxhighschool_1/
Self-critique of final systems visualization
After hearing feedback from my peers about my system visualization and thinking about it some more after I had a final product, I wish I had more time to make the project more polished. From my first iteration I cleaned up the interface, make the graphics a bit cleaner, and integrated the various images a little bit better than they were integrated before.
A large problem for me in this project was the integration of data - the data available on high school curricula does not lend itself well to data that evokes emotions of passion and empowerment for users, since most of the data on curricula are in the form of words. A possible solution around this would have been to create a "word web" of words that appear in curriculum standards and compare that to say a "word web" of words that appear in the mission statement of hands-on programs like FIRST Robotics. This might have gotten the point across in a different way - both with words and images. For my project I tried to evoke the message with too much metaphor, since I did not rely on enough data to get the point across. In a future iteration of this project, I would try using a word web of some kind to compare the ineffectiveness of high school curricula with the effectiveness of hands-on learning programs like FIRST Robotics.
Another possible improvement on the project would be for the visualization to be a physical interactive lesson of some kind. For example, if the visualization were a piece of paper that gave the user instructions for how to construct a box out of the piece of paper (origami-style) while giving facts about the issue at hand (including data), that might have been a much more interesting view of the entire system that did two things: communicate and demonstrate.
Overall, I thought my visual metaphors came out strong, and in the newer updated Prezi, the data was more integrated, along with some information about motivation (why we care) and solutions (how we can fix it). Together, these two things make for a much stronger project, but it could be greatly improved by the use of either word webs or some kind of interactive visualization that also demonstrated an example of the point it was trying to get across.
High school education does not prepare students for the challenges that they will face in the world. Education needs to produce critical thinkers, designers, synthesizers, people who will make a difference, people who can generate new ideas. Most high school graduates nowadays go on to some kind of secondary education - over 85% of high school graduates. This kind of percentage of graduates requires a generation of critical thinkers, and the high school curriculum is not producing it.
High school curricula are simply too pedantic for today's society - students are running on the racetrack of their high school careers from test to work to test, without the chance for any creativity. They are learning to think inside the bounds of the box that is the high school curriculum. But the world is beautiful outside the box.
I want policymakers, lobbyists, and curriculum developers to think about the system of education. Where are our students going? Aren't they the leaders of tomorrow? Wouldn't you want to train the next creative mind?
A simple visualization that resembles a line drawing is all that is needed here. Anything fancier and the message is lost in the flashes of presentation. I want a comparison between two types of synthesis - one that is repetitive and one that is design-oriented. I want to bring in a familiar phrase ("think outside the box") and poke fun at stick-figure drawings by synthesizing them in a unique way to show their usefulness in the design of a complex system visualization.
Our students need to think outside the box.
Here is a first draft of the visualization, without any text or colors.
The method for the system visualization was originally going to be a simple infographic, much like an advertisement. This eventually evolved into the idea of a Prezi, mainly since I wanted to learn a new presentation technology. The other reason to use a Prezi was to make an interactive way to move around between the various spaces in the system visualization. Making the visualization interactive in some way, and allowing the user to move around (if in a constrained way) resembles the kind of lesson or task that a teacher should give to a student - free, but in a directed way.
The main problem I want to focus on is the idea that education (specifically high school curriculum standards) does not foster enough creativity in students.
The world today is complex, and we want to educate our students to face the challenges of tomorrow. Education needs to produce critical thinkers, designers, synthesizers, people who will make a difference, people who can generate new ideas. Most high school graduates nowadays go on to some kind of secondary education - over 85% of high school graduates. This kind of percentage of graduates requires a generation of critical thinkers, and the high school curriculum is not producing it.
High school curricula are simply too pedantic for today's society - students are running on the racetrack of their high school careers from test to work to test, without the chance for any creativity. They are learning to think inside the bounds of the box that is the high school curriculum. But the world is beautiful outside the box.
The way to encourage creative thinking, foster innovation, and push students to obtain the skills about global leadership that they need as world citizens is to give them space to explore and come up with creative solutions to problems themselves. Instead of asking for "recall" of material, ask for them to build a visualization of the material. Instead of telling them about the process of design, have them design something. Instead of explaining how to build something, let them build and explore. The high school curriculum standards must be changed from a simple recall or "understanding" metric to a "intuitive feel" or "ability to teach others" or "mastery" standard.
Organizations and programs like the FIRST Robotics program aim to foster creativity and critical thinking in students by providing them a guided set of tasks to accomplish, letting them come up with creative solutions to the problems at hand. High school curriculum standards should be changed to reflect these values, to allow students to explore the world around them and come up with innovative solutions to problems.
The way to create the engineers and thinkers of tomorrow is to foster creativity by giving students a hands-on learning experience inside and outside of the classroom. By adding more hands-on activity standards and assessments to the high school curriculum. The students need to think outside the box, or they will just be stuck doing the same things over and over again as a result of their high school education.
Message : creativity isn't given a chance
Metaphor: a racetrack, running between "school" and "tests" while trying to think out of the box. The racetrack being inside the box is an even stronger metaphor.
Conflict: we want to teach our children to become citizens of tomorrow, give them critical thinking and problem solving skills in secondary education, but the secondary education system structure/assessment doesn't reward student creativity - instead it rewards memorization and regurgitation of information
Curriculum standards for high schools are appalling, even at the national level.
http://www.educationworld.com/standards/index.shtml
The emphasis in all these standards is "knowledge", "mastery", "recall", rather than synthesis or creativity or discovery or design. The curriculum standards promote memorization, regurgitation, and recall of material rather than creative ways to synthesize it together to form new ideas.
