Three attributes we must develop on our own/ sharing our skills the correct way.

When i found this clip it made me think of our last class. I think he really covers well two of the things that we talked about in class. To be specific i'm talking about conveying our strengths  in a correct way. Also there are character traits that almost all employers are looking for. As he states, employers can not teach us these things. We must go through the processes in our lives that help us to build these desired traits. The blueprint, i feel is a great way to help us to learn the importance of passion, initiative, and resourcefulness. Among other character traits, we must learn to internalize them and make them a part of our character. That way, when our customer sees us they will want us for what we have.  What are some other qualities that employers can't coach us to have?

Lendel Jeppesen

Stand Out (A Goofy Movie)

In Fridays class we talked about different skills and traits that would help us "Stand Out" in front of our customers. Standing out when we're selling ourselves to potential clients is very important for us to get the jobs we want. It helps them understand who we are, and what we want to accomplish with them. In class we also talked about how playing it safe could be riskier than taking a chance with something that might fail. I feel like these two things are very much related. Most people don't want to stand out, most are okay blending in the background and letting someone else take control and while that is easier it wont give you the best results that will help you move forward in your career. So ... stand out!

Kate Kendrick

Lucky?

Since we have been talking about the Element book I wanted to share something I thought was profound about it as my group has been reading it for our presentation. So last week I was in charge of leading our little group discussion and at the beginning I told everyone that we were going to have a competition to see who could find the most words in a word search in three minutes to win a milky way candy bar. Before they began I asked who thought they would win. Two thought they would and two thought they wouldn't. Then I had them pick randomly a puzzle and after their selection showed them that they were either marked as easy or hard. After they saw which one they had received I asked once again who thought they would win. Once again the same two raised their hands and one had a hard one and one had an easy one. Then the race began and guess who won? Yep the only one who believed he would win and had an easy puzzle also. This goes with how the book says that we can create our own luck and grab hold of opportunities that come our way as we have a positive attitude and really believe that good will happen even though the puzzle that life throws at us is labeled as being hard. We affect a lot of how our lives turn out so lets all have a little more hope with a positive and enthusiastic attitude.
Karen Ungricht

Beauty

In class we have talked about design adding value. Indicating that beauty is a luxury, but when in fact, I believe, it is a necessity. We see evidence of this in the functional objects we use everyday. Take a quilt for example. The purpose of this object has been used prehistorically. And the function of the blanket doesn’t change regardless of its color, construction or pattern. But yet, I see many women go to great lengths to take fabric and cut it up, only to sew it back together along with other coordinating pieces to create something beautiful. Stepping back, the point of it seems like a waste of time. The function of the quilt stayed to same. This didn’t make it warmer or more durable. Why waste countless hours sewing something together that was whole to begin with? The answer is that there is nothing practical about beauty, this is why value is added. I think that there is a drive inside us to create something beautiful. No real purpose, but a person satisfaction.

Kellie Larsen

Democracy versus Hierarchy

A few class sessions ago I noticed that the debate was moving towards whether or not organizations should be set up in a hierarchy or somewhat democratic. Dr Fawson and Daniel Pink are argueing for the implimentation of democracy in any organization, but I think that everything needs a hierarchy. Although I think that having a democratic corporation is a fantastic way to encourage new ideas, I believe that all companies have to have some sort of hierarchy. Even if the entire company is in a democratic setup, the final word in any production is the customer. Although so many fantastic ideas are circulated and encouraged throughout a company that is structured democratically, they will have no success unless they can appeal to the customer. Even if the whole company has a democratic model, the hierarchy comes into play when the good or service hits the market. Yes, it would be fantastic if every company model is democratic within the company, but that doesn't help to sell your product. Hierarchy is necessary in any given organization.

-Hannah Heninger

Group 3 consisting of Bryan Marcus and Lauren

Education and the need for innovation.

I once had a teacher who failed epically at her job. She taught sophomore science in Palmer High School. I don’t remember her ever standing and teaching, saying anything to inspire us, or even explaining assignments. I just remember getting progress reports that said I was failing. In fact ¾ of her class not only was failing, but did in fact fail, like me. That is why I say she failed epically, when ¾ of your students fail to learn the topic, something is broken. While several of the kids were more interested in the science of agricultural cultivation of Cannabis sativa (marijuana), it’s a problem shared by most of the teachers at most of the high schools I have ever heard of, yet they have better than a 25% pass rate. So, why is she still teaching? Because there are things in the education system that are broken. For example:

Teachers who don’t care (like the one mentioned above) are teaching. They don’t really care so they assign pointless assignments (who ever learned anything from doing a word find anyway) and students are picking up the attitude and not caring about doing the pointless assignments. It’s broken. If a teachers job and/or pay depended on student evaluation of teachers, combined with student performance then there would be great improvement in teacher quality. The teachers who didn’t perform well would find other jobs and be replaced by teachers who could and would do well.

Homework is often not very effective in helping students learn. It’s broken. The majority of students learn better from doing creative assignments, like the ones we do in this class. The candy trading exercise, for example, was very good at demonstrating the point that getting products to the people who want them adds value to them, and it was fun to boot. –points please.) That was much more effective than a worksheet of processing times tables.

Lack of reward or drive for innovation makes for a stagnant system. We talk about how our school system is falling behind those of other countries yet, to my knowledge, we have no system in place to provoke innovation, creation or implementation of new and better ways of teaching kids. As far as I know it’s all from top down. Also broken. Hears a radical idea, if the education system was broken into smaller education corporations that were competing with each other innovation and creation would be much more highly valued. It took about 5 years to go from the Nokia brick to the I-phone, what contribution could a creative mind like that of Steve Jobs’ make to education?

If we can have ordinary things that still function well, like a grocery cart, undergo this amazing design process to create a better, more human centered product then, I have full faith that the education system could be vastly improved by the same process. These are a few of our ideas, what thoughts do you have for how the design process could be implemented to make the education system better?

Planners from TTH Class

Here are the planners you all designed:

Which one was your favorite? Why?