Embracing Wonder and Curiosity: Transforming Teacher Practice Through Escape Rooms and Design Thinking

This session will present emerging observations of teacher participant reflections describing their experiences with design thinking and user experiences after an initial escape room provocation. Design thinking can support teacher- and student -construction of learning through collaboration, immersive user-experience and curriculum connections. This phenomenological interview methodology engages teacher participants to explore how wonder and curiosity might transform their teacher practice through a district-wide and district-led design thinking cohort. Recruited participants will participate in a focus group, followed by two individual interviews over a six-month period. Initial interviews will seek to share how gamification, design thinking and co-construction of learning in a K-12 classroom influenced a fostering of curiosity and wonder through the lens of a user experience. Follow-up individual interviews will encourage teacher reflection on the contribution escape rooms may have played in supporting critical thinking and real-world connections through design thinking and collaboration for teachers and student learning. The presentation will share emerging as well as unanticipated findings identified during the phenomenological review to date.