Based on the community engagement and visioning work, Equitable Access and Transformational Mindsets emerged as the two most urgent areas to address to build a more integrative and innovative system in Virginia Beach.
After choosing these topics, participants across the VBCPS community engaged in a series of facilitated in-person and virtual design sessions to create solutions for building more equitable learning communities and cultivating the mindsets necessary for big changes in schools. These design sessions, facilitated by 2Rev, helped participants learn how to use human-centered design — a method of thinking and problem solving that helps us brainstorm and prototype small-scale changes — to solve these complex problems. Design, by its very nature, is very hands-on, and teams didn’t just talk circles around equity and mindset; instead, they rolled up their sleeves and developed prototypes that were tested in a small way and then presented as robust recommendations back to the community, to the advisory group, and to the city as a whole.
The illustration above shows each step of the journey for participants in the prototyping networks. The work culminated with a presentation of learning to the community advisory group and other members of Virginia Beach’s community.
Diving into Equity & Mindsets
Building Transformational Mindsets
How might we leverage the design process to understand, brainstorm, prototype, and test new strategies to help stakeholders build the more innovative, integrative mindsets needed to support transformation?
Ensuring equitable access to opportunities
How might we think creatively about both the supply of, and equitable access to, high-quality, future-oriented learning experiences for all students?
“I am hopeful to see what comes out of the prototyping process — and even more than the product, is the process. I am looking at how people engage and how people engage in networks over time and [am approaching this as a] model we can use again for any challenge we identify.””
