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Convergence Academies – Create Chicago

During the Summer of 2014, six Hive Chicago organizations piloted a one-week design and fashion project with the Burberry Foundation called Create. Students engaged in the creative process and produced targeted videos responding to the “Creativity for Good” prompt. Learn more about the pilot project and the organizations below.

The design process for the Burberry Create Challenge at Tilden embodied the full arc of design thinking through exploration, uncovering, imagination and creation. While each day of the challenge had a specific focus, each phase of design thinking was integrated into each day through facilitator-guided daily activities, discussions and reflections. The teacher/ facilitator played a major role in guiding students through this process while granting them the freedom to explore by creating the safe space where their ideas could flourish.

Lead Organization:
Convergence Academies

Project Goal:
Students were first introduced to exploration through the Burberry Store visit and field trip to Harold Washington's YOUmedia space. These trips allowed students an immersive journey to two very different intentionally designed spaces where their senses could be immersed and their minds could explore the full spectrum of various iterations of design thinking. This exploration granted students the opportunity to explore the meticulous attention to detail with regards to both digital maker spaces and high end fashion design. Additionally, through facilitation, students were able to explore and critique student-created media to get a better sense of what they wanted to create both technically and creatively. Uncovering was a part of the design process that occurred throughout the design challenge. Students were able to unpack and disassemble the Burberry Store, YOUmedia space and student-created media, giving students a stronger sense of their audience and how they wanted to utilize digital media to articulate their ideas. Uncovering also included the development of students’ skills with their digital media tools that they would use to create their projects. Imagination was integrated into every aspect of the design challenge beginning with the first day of ideation through facilitator/teacher led activities. Students were required to critically analyze their audience and visualize their message and how this message would be transmitted to their audience. While the facilitators guided the instruction, students were solely responsible for the extraction and whittling of ideas down to digestible bits for their audience. An integral part of the imagination portion of the Create Challenge was the students being able to imagine and visualize how they would utilize their digital media tools to articulate their message and vision. The final stage of creation was completely student-driven. After working through the activities and Burberry Creates toolkit students were able to work independently with minimal interference from the instructors. At this point of the design challenge, students were equipped to work independently to bring their vision to life. The creation process did involve a critique and revise that involved facilitator/peer feedback and critique. Students were excited to see the new space. One mentioned, “If all of my classrooms looked like this, I would actually want to come to school.” Another just graduated and is starting college this fall. He wanted to know if there was a way for him to continue being involved in the space, and suggested coming back to visit as a mentor to younger students. Another student actually attends a different school. One of his hopes from the challenge was that the final video could serve as inspiration and encouragement for his own school to create a space like the Digital Atelier. Although the subject for their challenge (the Digital Atelier) was predetermined, they were excited about the space and the chance to promote it to other students and community.

Project Tags:
Create Chicago

Project Portfolio