Exploring Student-Led Problem Solving in Savannah High Schools

The 11 students in the room were nervous. They were about to present their ideas for an Anti-Violence Week to the school principal, Mr. Muhammad. Their journey began with a simple question: What change do you want to see in your community? It ended with their answer, which they created collectively over 12 class periods as part of their marketing class. Would their principal approve their idea, so their event could take place at Alfred E. Beach High School?

This is just one story from a pilot program I helped facilitate at frog, where we’ve been exploring how student-led problem solving creates ripple effects felt in the classroom, the school, and the community at large. This work has been in partnership with schools and local community groups, who have been using the Collective Action Toolkit (CAT)--our award-winning open-source guide to design thinking--in their classrooms and community meetings. The toolkit encourages problem solving as a form of skill development, with group activities that draw on participants’ strengths and perspectives. The toolkit challenges groups to act on their ideas by defining and clarifying shared goals throughout the process.

While we’d initially created the CAT to provide community leaders with resources and activities for bringing groups together to solve problems and create change in their local communities, we’ve seen it used in a much broader array of use cases. This includes everything from corporate innovation groups and startups to NGOs and governments. But we were intrigued by stories from teachers around the world, who were using many of the CAT’s activities in their schools. In order to better understand the potential value of group problem-solving in the high school classroom, we embarked on a 10-week pilot program with the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Design for Sustainability program, in partnership with Design Ethos, Gatorball Academy, and teachers and classes at Beach, Groves, and Savannah High Schools.

In Professor Scott Boylston’s 10-week class “Sustainable Practices in Design,” eight designers worked with 42 students and three teachers in Savannah area high schools. The designers facilitated CAT activities over several weeks, moving from identifying community issues the students were passionate about to proposing implementable solutions using the toolkit’s six categories of activities.

I've documented this pilot program in a series of articles over the past two weeks:

• On FastCoDesign, I published an article called “Designing Community Action with High School Students,” where I shared stories from the students and designers working together at Beach High School. The article provided readers with a high-level overview of how student-led group problem solving can happen in the classroom.
• In a follow-up piece on frog's Design Mind called "Piloting the Collective Action Toolkit in Savannah High Schools," I shared stories from the students and designers at Groves and Savannah High Schools.
• On GOOD.IS, I wrote a piece called "Helping High Schoolers Redesign Their Own Education" that provided a set of seven best practices for designers that want to facilitate group-led problem solving in high schools.
• On Design Mind, in a piece called "Empowering Local Communities Through Group Problem Solving," I talk about the ripple effects I saw from the pilot program when I returned to Savannah this spring. Here's a slide deck from one of the presentations I gave while I was there:

If you’d like more information about this pilot program, download We Have a Voice: Facilitating Community Action with High School Students, a 100-page document created by the SCAD graduate students about their work with Beach, Savannah, and Groves High School. It also contains the graduate student's findings about how the community organization Gatorball Academy—who helped us connect with the high school teachers and classes—could position themselves to better serve local school students.

Many thanks to the eight graduate students, three teachers, 42 high school students, and community organizations that participated in this pilot program. They include:

Scott Boylston, SCAD Design for Sustainability
David Sherwin, frog
Erin Sanders, frog
Larry "Gator" Rivers, Gatorball Academy / Menyet
Debra Hasan, Gatorball Academy / Menyet
Robynn Butler, SCAD
Eric Green, SCAD
Carol Lora, SCAD
Marina Petrova, SCAD
Katie Mansell, SCAD
Naz (Najmeh) Mirzaie, SCAD
Alexandra Pappalardo, SCAD
Nathan Sundberg, SCAD
Ms. Wilson, Beach High School
Ms. Dawson, Groves High School
Ms. Reese, Savannah High School