How do I continuously improve my on-site Service Design teaching?
In short:
I ask "Stars and Wishes" feedback at the end of each course
I Show what has changed based on that feedback
I write Q&A about what I learned
I review those Q&A before each semester
I have one-to-one conversation with students about their experience
There are a few things that I have integrated in my Service Design teaching that allow me to continuously improve how I am helping people learn Service Design. Here are five things that I do to improve the way I teach Service Design within the Master Service Design of the HSLU, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
Stars and wishes
The stars and wishes is an exercise that we have implemented with my mate Andy Polaine at the end of each of our Service Design classes. It's an very short exercise where we ask learners before they leave the class to live at least one sticky note, can be more, in each category.
Stars are for elements that people loved, that they felt where helpful or fun
Wishes are um requests, elements that they wish they were more of, or elements that they wish they were less.
Show what you changed based on the feedback
Getting feedback is the first step but it's obviously not enough. You have to reflect on it, select what makes sense to implement and then implement it. But still then it's not enough. Because people might not even realize that you made changes based on what they told you.
That
So that's why now, for the last few weeks, At the start of my Service Design courses I'm showcasing how I analyzed the feedback that was given to me and what I decided to implement and what I decided to not implement.
This is both a good routine for me and for the learners.
Appreciation: It's good for the learners because they see appreciation and respect for the feedback they shared
Accountability: It's good for me because it makes me accountable to make some changes or at least to show why I'm not making the changes.
Write Q&A about what you learned
I love to have I have a Q&A library where I write about what I've learned in my work as a Service Design practitioner. It's a place where I'm transforming what I've learned into questions and answers.
I do exactly that also for my teaching and this is a bit of a reflection moment that allows me to realize what has worked well and what hasn't worked well.
Reviewing my Q&A
Writing about these reflections is one thing, and reviewing them is something that I'm trying to implement now for the future where at the start of each semester I'm going back to the Q&A I wrote about teaching Service Design to see what were my reflections in the past weeks, months, and years about that topic.
This allows me to see if there is something that I stopped doing that I maybe want to bring back.
One-to-one conversations with learners
Often at the end of my Service Design classes I try to stay longer and have a bit of an informal user research interview with one or two learners where I try to understand how they personally experience the course. Often these conversations give me a more detailed context about what was written on the "Stars and wishes" feedback sticky notes.
I also hope that in a way this shows to students that if they have an important request to make about something that could improve the course, they know they can stay a little bit longer and share they request with me in more details if it's important to them.
Made with AI help
I've recorded an audio note about this Q&A in the Voice Memo app of my Mac and used the transcription as a basis for this article. I reviewed it, improved it and added the fifth element.