Design and Mindsets

Human-Centered Design offers a process for creative collaborative problem solving (ie. learning) that is iterative and based on insights gained from the humans we serve. The design process leaves us feeling curious, confident, and more connected to those in our community.   We help teachers and principals think like designers, benefiting the whole community as they apply the design process toward new systems, structures, and curricula. 

Honoring teachers and school leaders as “learners” offers powerful modeling for students and gives you new insights that inform how to design deeper learning experiences.

Design Mindsets help educators ignite a culture of innovation across their school. Having a bias toward action and failing forward to learn helps move ideas forward. Embracing a human-centered mindset and being comfortable with ambiguity helps educators learn to observe and use uncommon measures—like elevated student voice—to inform their process.

Equity Aspiration

We help your team identify and craft an equity aspiration to design toward.

Designing for equitable learning outcomes requires that we first center ourselves in the work. Understanding our own identity is critical before we can design equitable learning experiences. We will help you center an equity mindset while you use the design process to connect with individual students, getting to know their interest, strengths, and barriers.

Once you begin to shift your practice—thinking like a designer, and seeing through the eyes of the learner—you will want to apply the process toward designing better systems and dismantling structures that keep students of color and many others from achieving their full potential.

Coaching and Communities of Practice

Our Coaches are educators first who became passionate about using human-centered design to improve the K12 learning journey for historically underserved students. They receive training at the K12 Lab, Stanford, and the National Equity Project. As coaches, they are committed to helping you shift your practice and create the conditions in which equitable deeper learning will thrive.

Communities of Practice give educators time to connect around shared experiences and apply design strategies toward common constraints. We are building an ecosystem of support through diverse networks and connections with others in the education community and beyond.

Partnerships and Data

Construct invests in the creative capacity of educators, igniting teaching and learning practices that support innovation, equity, and a learner centered school culture.

We partner with Inflexion to ensure that the shift toward a learner-centered community is resilient and lasting. Inflexion has more than a decade of research and data collection on school effectiveness and school readiness.

We are partnering with new education accelerator, Oregon K12 Lab, to support innovation across the K12 system