Current educational systems are trying to transform their practices with those that align with critical thinking skills, collaboration amongst students and allowing students to feel motivated and engaged in learning. Within a special education classroom at a Title I high school located in South Tempe, Arizona, a design was innovated in order to attempt to enhance this learning environment to foster students’ ability to build intrinsic motivation and engaged within their classroom through collaboration and the autonomy supported by the teacher and this innovation. Throughout this paper, you will be able to see the contextual analysis, theoretical inspirations, design constructs and analysis of the implementation within two separate class periods.

This paper is the culmination of a fifteen-week design study in partnership with a high school teacher to utilize design thinking in a classroom context. A procedure for guiding the educator through the design process was developed and implemented to gain understandings into whether incorporating design thinking in a classroom context would enhance educators problem-solving abilities and empower them to effectively tackle complex problems. The findings suggest that design thinking is a powerful tool for educator’s and can have a positive impact on their classroom environment, though continued support is key. The paper begins with a situation analysis report to discuss the mission of the partner organization, as well as goals and expectations of the study. It continues with the theoretical inspiration statement which articulates the theoretical underpinnings of the study. Then, the design statement and prototype describe the outline of the procedures developed to guide the collaborating teacher through the design process. The paper concludes with the design enactment report which includes a narrative of the process and details the findings.

Drawing on collective biography, memory work, and diffractive analysis, this chapter examines childhood memories of our entanglements with plants. By approaching research as a ceremony, our goal is to reanimate the relationships we have shared with plants and places, illuminating multiple intra-actions and weaving different worlds together.  Our collective ceremony of re-membering brings into focus how plants called us forward, evoked our gratitude and reciprocity, shared knowledge, and offered comfort, companionship, love, belongingness, and understanding throughout life. The process of our collective re-membering and writing has turned into a series of ceremonial gatherings and practices, bringing forth vivid memories, poetic expressions, and creative drawings.  As humans, we have often (re)acted to plants’ generous gifts in meaningful gestures and communications that have co-created and made visible our deeply felt inter-species love and care.

This article combines collective biography, diffractive analysis, and speculative fabulation to weave together
the authors’ childhood memories of “common worlding.” Our collective biography brings into focus how we
engaged in common worlding in our childhoods through dreaming, metamorphosis, and play by tactfully
moving across different worlds and learning with the human and more-than-human others we encountered. As
we foreground childhood memory and its potential to reimagine pasts, presents, and futures, we explore what
kind of conditions are necessary to (re)attune ourselves to the multiple worlds around us in order to maintain
and nurture children’s—and our own—other-worldly connections.