October 21, 2025 • 40 mins
Dr Tessa Forshaw, Founding Scholar of the Next Level Lab at Harvard University and Rich Braden (BSEE and BSCE), Chief Innovation Evangelist at People Rocket are the authors of the book Innovation-ish: How anyone can create breakthrough solutions to real problems in the real world.
In this episode, they share what innovation and creativity mean to them, how everyone can be creative and innovative, and how the portfolio comes into play in their classes and also consulting projects. Learn about a couple of the mindsets and moves from their book and the difference between passive reflection and active metacognition.
Resources
- Project Zero at Harvard University
- Harvard Innovation Labs
- Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, aka d.school
- IDEO CoLab
- Clinton Global Initiative
- NEOM project
- Book Experiments in reflection: How to see the present, reconsider the past, and shape the future by Dr Leticia Britos Cavagnaro
- Thinking routines
Related episodes
- Leticia Britos Cavagnaro: Make learning visible
- Cathy Elliott: Creativity and feedback in assessment portfolios
- Bob Reuter: Externalise your thinking with portfolios
- Ingrid D'Souza: Creativity and lifelong portfolios
Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.
Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:05):
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
(00:25):
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
Today, I'm excited to bespeaking with Dr Tessa Forshaw
and Rich Braden. Tessa stumbledupon my podcast through Dr
Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, whowas a guest a couple of years
ago and has been mentionedinfrequently in various episodes
(00:45):
since. I look forward to talkingto both of them today because
they've just published theirbook 'Innovation-ish' that draws
a lot on reflection and makinglearning visible. It's wonderful
to meet you, Tessa and Rich.
Tessa Forshaw (01:00):
Thank you so much.
Rich Braden (01:01):
Wonderful to meet you.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:03):
Tessa, what do you do at Harvard University,
please?
Tessa Forshaw (01:06):
I am the founding scholar of the Next Level Lab,
which is a research lab thatsits within Project Zero in the
Harvard Graduate School ofEducation. I'm a cognitive
scientist, and so I study,through the lens of the
cognitive and the learningsciences, how people work,
learn, and create.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:25):
Thank you, and you're a colleague of
Leticia Britos Cavagnaro throughthe d.school, right?
Tessa Forshaw (01:30):
Yes, so Rich and I actually met when both of us
were on the teaching faculty atthe Stanford d.school several
years ago, and now I am on theother side of the country, but
now I teach still with Rich atthe Harvard Innovation Lab as
well.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:44):
Rich, what is your role at People Rocket?
That's one awesome company name,by the way.
Rich Braden (01:50):
Thank you. I typically go by the Chief
Innovation Evangelist. I ampassionate about helping people
access and participate ininnovation in education, in
government, in corporations, insocial sector, across the board.
I love to bring it to everybody.
I do a lot of advising andleading design projects, and we
put together specialised teamsto match with what that project
(02:13):
is.
For 15 years, I've had a splitfocus with one foot - I'm not an
academic, but I teach inacademic environments for that
long at Stanford. In fact, I metLeticia because I had a side
career doing improv where it wasbeing applied and taught an
improv for educators class wherewe met, and she said, "Hey, this
(02:35):
is so much like what my work isat the d.school. Why don't you
come over here?" And really,sort of gave me my kickstart
into this world, and so Istarted teaching at Stanford in
the design school, but also inthe Graduate School of Business,
doing creativity and innovation.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:49):
That's fantastic to draw these
connections between thedifferent people and the
different foci that everybodyhas, but then bringing them
together, in this case throughimprov, in your case, Rich, and
Tessa for you by having been onthe staff at d.school, and I'm
now meeting you also because ofLeticia, so she's our connective
tissue.
Rich Braden (03:09):
That's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (03:10):
When did you two encounter portfolios for the
first time?
Tessa Forshaw (03:15):
In teaching design, they've always been a
central part of how studentsdemonstrate their learning. But
for me, my passion, I suppose,for them and belief in their
use, came when I was teaching atthe d.school. I supported a
class called 'Portfolios are foreveryone'. The class was
designed to support graduatingstudents to help craft a
(03:38):
portfolio of their work so far.
The premise wasn't just adocumentation in the sense of
Project A, Project B, Project C,Project D, etc., but the goal
was to help them use a story ora metaphor or some kind of
connective tissue to bring theirwork together and tell the
(03:59):
consumers of the portfolio, bethat readers of postgraduate
education applications, be thatgraduate programmes in
consulting companies, postgraduate jobs. The goal was to
be able to help the studentsreally articulate a story of who
they were and how they become,and how their different projects
had connected along the way.
That really resonated with mebecause I spent many years
(04:21):
focusing on this idea oflearning transfer, and really
that's the premise that youlearn something in one context
and you can easily apply it in anovel context. I have this
inherent belief that people haveskills from all the different
projects and work andexperiences that they've had in
their lives, and that they canbring them together and bring
them forward into novel rolesand spaces. I think portfolios
(04:45):
are a really powerful way ofcommunicating that.
Kristina Hoeppner (04:48):
Absolutely.
That really exemplifies theportfolio work because it is not
just about the documentation, itis very much about that
reflection and then also thattransfer of knowledge into other
areas. Rich, what is yourexperience then with portfolios,
please?
Rich Braden (05:05):
I would say my earliest experience that I can
recall is for a slightlydifferent purpose of influence
and connection creating. I didsome work with the Clinton
Global Initiative in theirannual meeting where people make
huge challenges to try to go outand projects and change the
world and connect with the othermembers there for funding, for
connections, and influence. Myjob was to help these
(05:28):
individuals who were out in theworld changing the world, so it
could be a doctor working in acountry, helping to do ear
surgeries, to tell their story,to create a portfolio of what is
a lifelong career, and tell itin a very short period of time.
Doing that by showcasing it, asopposed to listing, was a really
(05:48):
important facet of that. Thatwas really to influence and
create connections.
The reflective in education inclasses like Tessa was just
mentioning, we've also used itas an end-of-class project where
the students show up, there is astool with a note on it from the
teachers saying, 'Here is yourassignment,' and they have to
then collaborate and worktogether to create a work
(06:10):
product and an article that wethen edit and post on Medium if
it needs any editing of what wastheir learning experience of the
entire class. It's a moment,instead of a final on the last
day, for them to stop reflect ontheir work, to work together, to
share and create something thatpredominantly is for them to
remember and to seek theirlearning, so that they can go
(06:33):
back and reflect on it later, tobring that forward when they
want to access some of the toolswe've covered.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:38):
You now mentioned another two aspects of
portfolio work that I findreally important, namely, the
first one was the storytellingthat we should not just list
things, but really tell thestory and therefore also shape
how we are entering a particularsubject or how we are viewing
something that somebodypresents. The second aspect is
then to use it as an alternativeassessment method, in your case,
(07:00):
making it really visible to thestudents what they have actually
learned in class.
Tessa Forshaw (07:05):
One thing about portfolios that is really
important in our class is thatthey provide an assessment
method for us that helpsstudents not feel wed to their
innovation having to besuccessful in a classical sense.
What I mean by that is, beforewe use portfolios, in the early
years that Rich and I wereteaching together, we had this
(07:27):
tendency in our class forstudents to think that getting
an A in our class meant havingfound an innovative idea that
worked and was like going to bea start-up. And so they would
try to present to us like theygot the question right, and they
got the right insights, and theywere trying to put square pegs
in round holes to make sure itlooked like it fit because they
(07:47):
thought that that is what a goodgrade meant.
When we changed that, theportfolio approach let it be
that they could try somethingand learn actually, that that
was a really terrible idea andfundamentally not the right
problem that they were solving,demonstrate that learning in
their portfolio and then howthey moved on and went to
something else. Thatfundamentally changed what they
(08:10):
were willing to present to us,what they were willing to share
with us, and was reallytransformative for us in how we
communicate actually what goodinnovation and design work is,
which is not making somethinglook beautiful if it shouldn't
exist because nobody wants itand it doesn't work.
Rich Braden (08:27):
I think another aspect is that, especially with
our approach to teaching theclass, we have very few slides
or any kind of traditionalpieces, and the students are
rarely in front of any kind ofdevice or screen. They're at
whiteboards. They'reinterviewing people. They're
doing post-its. So most of theclass and the learning happens
(08:49):
in the activity, and so thereflective article at the end is
also a chance for them to makesure that they've captured the
notes, and they are building amemory device for themselves
because so much has happened notthere. We don't give a syllabus
up front that tells them what'sgoing to happen because we want
the experience to unfold. And soI think that becomes an
(09:10):
important piece for theirongoing learning and helping
them to transfer.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:14):
Which reminds me a lot of having been at the
d.school once, seeing all ofthose whiteboards and movable
walls and all the creativepieces of work that are
showcased, even in the foyer.
Having that documentation pieceand then also the reflection
built into it, so that they thencan take that away because at
some points they might not haveaccess to the physical evidence
(09:35):
that they have created for theirproject.
Rich Braden (09:40):
Yes, often they will capture digitally the
whiteboards that you're talkingabout, and it becomes part of
their portfolio and their notesbecause that, for them, cues the
memory of what happened, andthey can even zoom in and read
them.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:53):
Which now really nicely leads us into the
start of the conversation aboutyour book because recently, on
the third of September of 2025you published your book
'Innovation-ish (10:03):
How anyone can create breakthrough solutions to
real problems in the realworld'. Why did you decide to
team up? Well, I guess, sinceyou've been already working
together multiple times, andwhat is the story behind the
book's title? How are wesupposed to pronounce it? Is it
innovation ish? Is the emphasison the 'ish', or is the emphasis
(10:26):
on the 'innovation'? What wouldyou like us to know about it?
Tessa Forshaw (10:30):
That is the best question I have got so far
through this experience. I loveit. My answer is both. It's
'innovation ish'. Sometimes, ifyou're saying, like, 'Should we
try be a little innovative?' Andat the same time, if you're
trying to say to someone, 'Hey,be innovative, but don't take it
too seriously,' you could belike, 'Look, just be a little
(10:51):
bit innovation-ish.' So I thinkit could be either, depending on
the situation.
Rich and I started teachingtogether nearly 10 years ago.
That is, wow. I honestly felt alittle bit like in the
classroom, I had found a kindredspirit who felt really similarly
about design education to me, inthe sense that everybody that
(11:13):
I'd ever met I believed hadcreative potential. And I think
Rich really believed that, too.
We also were both frustrated athow many people around us didn't
see themselves as creative whenwe could see how amazing they
were, and how many studentswould struggle to identify
themselves as someone who shouldeven be in a conversation about
innovation, let alone doing it.
(11:36):
This book really came second toour teaching together and
formulating a class, which wasreally built around this idea
of, let's get rid of all of thejargon. Let's get rid of all of
the fancy words and all of theprocesses and the need for
expensive spaces and beautifulBirch buildings, and you know,
all of that, and get down to thepeople and how their mind works
(12:00):
and empowering them to have theagency and the capability to
unlock creativity in theireveryday lives.
Rich Braden (12:09):
I was just going to add that I think the 'ish' is
just taking this big thing,that's innovation that kind of
frightened people, softening itto be a little more cuddly, like
stuffed animal [Tessa laughs] ora Pokémon or something like
that, to be like, 'Oh, it's justinnovation-ish. It can't hurt
you. Now that it can't, now youcan go and play with it.' That's
(12:29):
at the end of the day what wewant is people to engage in the
work.
Kristina Hoeppner (12:33):
You've certainly done that. We didn't
really have a lot of timebetween Tessa contacting me, us
scheduling the interview, andnow actually talking to each
other. It was just a little overa week. So I've read your book
over the weekend, and I reallymust say, I devoured it just in
one session because it was sovery easy to read. It was so
engaging to read because youreally spoke to me. You engaged
(12:57):
me just through the languagethat you used. And yes, jargon
free. And of course, there's alot of references at the end of
the book if somebody wants toknow the theory behind it or
wants to read up more of it, butthe book itself just really felt
so nice to read and follow alongbecause it had this very
personal view also with all ofthe stories that you shared with
(13:20):
your personal stories in there,with stories from your students
and your community. So it'sreally a wonderful read.
Rich Braden (13:26):
Thank you. I think there are two things. One, we
very intentionally wrote it tobe accessible language because
we think that what's in it isvery accessible. And two, Tessa
is gifted to break that down andexplain it in ways that even me,
a simple improviser, canunderstand clearly and that
everyone can. Much of it makessense. I've heard her go on
(13:51):
wonderful, long explorations ofall the technical terms
underneath it. I love andappreciate her for that, but it
really takes that somethingextra to bring it down to where
everybody can just absorb it.
That makes it actionable andaccessible, so that you can
really start to use those toolsand use your brain the way it
works to help you to do betterwith creativity. And I think
(14:12):
that's a really powerful conceptthat she's brought to it.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:16):
Yeah, it also follows in your book that it's
innovation-ish, that it makesinnovation accessible. It's not
this daunting big thing, buteverybody can do it.
Tessa Forshaw (14:26):
Through working with Rich I've had the
opportunity to also get out ofthe ivory tower, so to speak,
and I'm so grateful for thatbecause People Rocket does
amazing work with all sorts ofdifferent organisations, from
small non-profits to massivequick service restaurants,
global entities, and everythingsort of in between. One of the
best things as an academic, Ithink, is going out into the
(14:50):
real world, and this is sort ofbeing innovation-ish, that's a
little bit meta. But like goingout into the real world and
seeing how people talk aboutthis, what language do they use
and bringing that to the workbecause the language I use isn't
the point. It's about speakingit in a language that can be
understood and interpreted andheard.
Rich Braden (15:09):
I think when we set out what you just said for
everyone, we thought through it,and we had an idea at first, oh,
this is who this book is for,and then we would realise
something else. So people thatare brand new to innovation, we
wanted to make it easy for them,but then in there, we found
people who would struggle withit or imposter syndrome or think
of themselves as not creative,and we're like, 'We can lower
(15:29):
the bar to make that easy andsafe for them as well.'
We definitely had people come ina little sceptical, going,
'Look, I've tried this stuff.
I've taken the other class, orI've done this other thing, and
I've seen it not work.' We havebeen able to turn that around in
some of the ways it's taught andthat people are told I think are
fundamentally flawed, and wetried to fix that.
(15:51):
When we talk with expertinnovators about it as well.
There's nuance in the way thatwe're doing this with the
approach. We talk about it asthere are a certain set of
mindsets that are required forinnovation. There are a certain
set of actions you take, we call'moves'. And then the most
important piece, I mean, they'reall important, they work
together, but metacognition ofreflecting on how it's going,
(16:14):
your thinking and feelingsduring it, and how you use new
strategies to improve whatyou're doing. Pretty much every
group, they come to it in adifferent way, and they get a
different thing out of it. Butit really is speaking very
broadly, and we include allother methodologies within what
we're talking about.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:33):
On this podcast we are talking very much
about portfolios, and so I dowant to tie it always back, and
Tessa has said that you areusing portfolios in your class,
and that it has transformed howyou're teaching because you're
encouraging your students toalso talk about their failures,
to talk about ambiguity, which,of course, is very much what
reflection often is aboutbecause we are learning through
(16:55):
the things that do not quite goso well. Can you please share a
story that illustrates then thismindset shift using the
strategies that you havedeveloped and also present in
the book?
Rich Braden (17:09):
A good story that illustrates this is actually the
'interactions mindset' where youhave to get out into the field
and interact with real people.
We were working with adistributor of a product. Their
customer was a big quick servicerestaurant. We went out into the
field with them to a distributorso they could see the flow of
the products and the supplychain and how things come in and
out. This was a group ofexecutives from both companies
(17:30):
that were there to see this.
They knew how things worked, butI had convinced them that the
reality in the field isn'talways what we see on paper or
get in our reports.
At one point during the tour, wewent out onto the parking lot.
There was a truck full of bigcylinders of product that was
(17:52):
from one company delivered tothe other. A manager was there
giving a wonderful tour,explaining everything, answering
all the questions, and then hehopped up in the truck and he
said, 'You excuse me for aminute. I have to actually do
the inventory, and then I'll beback with you.' He clipped a tag
off, and he went inside so hecould record the number. As soon
as he clipped it, the wholeenergy of the group tightened
up. I saw them go a littlestiff, and I had no idea what
(18:15):
was going on. As soon as the guywent in the building, I looked
and they started talkingtogether, and I asked them,
'What's going on?' He hadclipped the security tag that is
involved with the chain ofcustody of this product, which
is a very important thing. Hedidn't do it because he's a bad
guy. He did it because 'I haveto take this in. I have to make
sure the numbers are right. Thisis the quickest, most efficient
(18:36):
way to get my job done.' So he'dcome up with a little innovation
to help everybody there make itwork, but it violated the
policies that they had put inplace, and they knew that
something was wrong. They wereshocked to find out that that's
how it been done for quite awhile.
That insight of that's how itworks, is something that you
could only see when you go outand talk to people and you can
(18:57):
then solve that problem. How dowe successfully record the
tracking information that weneed and get it accurately and
quickly? You can use barcodes,you can use RFID, you can use
scanners, you can make a pieceof the tag that comes off.
There's so many differentsolutions once you see it, but
they wouldn't have known thatthat was what was going on
without going out into thefield, and that's because they
(19:18):
put on an observational mindsetof this interactions with other
people.
Kristina Hoeppner (19:23):
That's very powerful story. Tessa, does a
story come to mind for you?
Tessa Forshaw (19:28):
In a slightly different vein, a story for me
that talks about the value of aportfolio was we were working
with a different organisation,but again, in that quick service
space. They came up with aseries of ways to think about
reducing waste in the back roomof their cafés. And what they
(19:50):
coalesced around was this oneidea that they all fell in love
with that included Alexa orvoice activation system like
that and was very sexy and fun.
There were several other ideasthat have sort of made it to
that initial stage, and theywere keen to go all in it. But
Rich and my counsel wasactually, no, you need to hold a
portfolio of ideas at thismoment. That's really important.
(20:10):
They're communicated via aportfolio so that people can
understand them and see them,the value of them, and build a
shared mental model around whateach one is.
They went out and they testedthis idea already talking about
how much it would cost to rollit out to every instance of the
organisation, what that wouldlook like, all of these things.
And then it turns out that whenyou're in the kitchen area of a
(20:34):
restaurant or a café, voiceactivated systems are really
tricky because a) not everybodyspeaks English in the same
accent or to the same degree, b)they're really noisy. There's
fans and yelling and all sortsof things, and so stuff gets
picked up and missed. It didn'tactually work.
Thank goodness that they hadthis other portfolio of ideas
that they'd actually consideredand fleshed out, rather than
(20:57):
just going with it from ideastage and running out and
implementing it becauseotherwise, they would have been
millions of dollars inimplementation until they
figured out that it didn't work.
Instead, they came back up. Theywere able to pick a different
idea from the portfolio, thistime with much more of a testing
mindset. They tested a coupleand then they eventually did go
with some of the items in theportfolios.
(21:18):
That was a great example for meof how a portfolio can also help
you face failure because it'snot about your singular idea
being the right thing, but it'smore about there's a selection
of things. Then you can learnabout and you can test different
things and take them forward,and then come back to the
portfolio. It sort of changesthe mindset about how you go
(21:39):
about the testing and theiteration and the product
development.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:42):
It also comes down to what you call passive
reflection and metacognitionthat you can say yes, the idea
failed and leave it at thatpoint, more the passive
reflection. You've realised thatsomething didn't work. Versus
the active metacognition whereyou're noticing that something
went wrong, and that also, Ithink, aligns really nicely with
(22:05):
Leticia's book 'Experiments inreflection: How to see the
present, consider the past, andshape the future' because the
most important thing is thenoticing.
From noticing, having awareness,go into evaluation, so
considering the evidence anddetermining whether it's working
or not, and then controllingusing the evaluations to adjust
(22:25):
the plan and then switch tacticsif needed. In your case, Tessa
and also Rich that theyevaluated more ideas, discuss
things more.
Do you want to talk a little bitmore about that distinction that
you're making in the bookbetween the passive reflection
and active metacognition becausetypically in portfolio work, we
just talk about reflection.
Rich Braden (22:47):
You know what story I'm thinking of, don't you?
Yeah, go for it.
No, no, it's your story.
Tessa Forshaw (22:52):
Okay. My mother-in-law, Nada, was the
most amazing woman. She would gotravelling a lot through Europe.
This one time, she took herdaughter on a trip. She would
take diaries. I had theprivilege of reading some of her
diary entries. They say thingslike, 'I woke up. I ate
breakfast. We went out to lunchhere in this square, saw the
(23:16):
church. It was big, went for awalk, met a couple from Germany
- I remember that explicitlyonce - did this.' That diary
entry, I think, is a reallygreat example of passive
reflection. It's recounting whathappened. Yes, there is value in
that you're playing it back. Youmight be implicitly connecting
(23:39):
some dots or thinking aboutthings, you might get warm
memories that cue forward whenyou read it later and you think
about the day. But it serves apurpose of recounting what
happened.
If you think about passivereflection versus active
metacognition, as we call it,take Nada's diary, and we're
going to make it up a littlebit. Now it says, 'Woke up this
(23:59):
morning and I realised I wasfeeling really tired from the
night before. I wonder ifperhaps we went to bed a little
bit too late. Vicky and I wentup. We got dressed, we had
breakfast. The smell of freshomelet really puts me in a good
mood for the day, and I was soexcited to take it on. We went
for a walk through the old city.
It was really beautiful. Andthen we met this couple from
(24:21):
Germany, and that interaction oftalking to people from other
sides of the world about howbeautiful this place we were
standing together in, eventhough neither of us was from
there, was really energising,and I got so much out of that. I
was so glad we met them.'That's a completely different
situation. That is activemetacognition, where you're
thinking about how the day went,what you did, maybe I need to
(24:44):
adjust something for next time.
What gave me energy, what tookit away? How did my emotions
appear in the day, not just mythinking and not just my
actions? What decisions orchoices did I make because of
things?
When I think about reflection indesign education, I think we all
want active metacognition, butsometimes we accidentally
(25:08):
scaffold to only get passivereflection. I love thinking
routines a lot. One thing that Ilearned the hard way in my own
design classroom [laughs], Ithink Rich and I both learned
this the hard way, is thathaving students reflect on the
last day of class in the last 20minutes by standing in a circle,
saying a thinking routine outloud, isn't actually the kind of
(25:30):
reflection that we need to teachthem to make them better
designers in the real world.
That active reflection is morelike recounting something that
happened in the class, and evenif it is active, it's happening
at the end. So they can't changetheir actions and their choices
and their decisions because theclass is ending in five minutes.
They probably want to get outthe door as quickly as they can.
(25:53):
When we think about activemetacognition, we've started
trying to change what reflectionlooks like in our classroom and
in the book, we really lean onthis as an important concept.
Every design choice that youmake, every time you're trying
to think about what mindset youneed, what move you need, how
that move went, you are engagingin reflection, constantly, in
(26:15):
situ and throughout, so that youcan be making those dynamic
decisions to change yourexperience, so that in the case
of my lovely mother-in-law,Nada, you're at the end of the
day, she then isn't repeatingthings that maybe didn't bring
her joy on her trip. She's doingthings that did. She's talking
to more strangers because thatgives her energy, and she's
(26:36):
learned that about herself.
She's realising that the smellof eggs in the morning makes her
really happy, and so that's agood choice to go to for
breakfast. I think there aresmall things and big things that
come through being active in ourmetacognitive reflection
practice.
Kristina Hoeppner (26:52):
Tessa, what is a thinking routine, please?
Tessa Forshaw (26:55):
A thinking routine is typically a strategy
or a scaffold that an educatormight give a learner. 'I like, I
wish, I wonder', is a greatexample, or 'I used to think,
but now I think' is another one.
I'm a huge fan of them. However,I think that the magic doesn't
happen from the routine. You cancomplete a statement like 'I
used to think, but now I think',and not be metacognitive. A
(27:18):
great example is sometimes atthe end of class, when we were
first doing this, as I mentionedin the last five minutes, at the
very end, we would hear thingslike, 'I used to think talking
to people at McDonald's would befull on, and now I think it
smells bad.' That's not really ametacognitive reflection, right?
That's a recounting.
(27:38):
When we changed it toincorporating it in all the time
and making it about the smallmovements, not the big things,
we started to see things like -in that exact same context, we
would have started to seesomething like 'I used to think
that approaching people who werestrangers in a place would be
really confronting and theywouldn't want to talk to me. Now
(27:59):
I think I'm making that anxietymyself, and by calming that down
and focusing on them and servingthem and asking them questions
about themselves, I can overcomethat and engage in productive
conversations.' That would be areally good example. Or 'I used
to think that the answer to Xquestion was Y, but now I think
(28:21):
I was bringing in a lot ofbiases from another context that
don't actually have a placehere.' That reflection got so
much deeper, even though we wereusing a really good reflection
tool, a thinking routine thatProject Zero at Harvard came up
with. That tool, it needs to beused properly. It can't just be
copy and pasted.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:40):
Is that then where instead of just giving
those prompts, you also givethose additional question types
that you've developed so thatyou give more detail of what you
expect your students to talkabout or what they should be
thinking about?
Rich Braden (28:54):
The move map is a great example of giving a
scaffold or a tool to helpprompt active metacognition. We
have the students stop anddocument so we can externalise
and let them inspect the stepsand the questions that they're
asking as they go through. Sobefore they choose what they do
next in their project, we havethem think about, what have you
learned? Where are you now? Andwhat is the most important thing
(29:18):
that you need to answer ifyou're going to move your
project forward. Then they canexamine the different mindsets
and create really a littleportfolio of moves. Here are the
different options that we haveand what we think we'll get out
of them. Now they can evaluatethat and make a decision what
they choose to move forwardwith, but they already have an
(29:38):
expectation of what they thinkthey're going to get. At the
end, they're comparing theirexpectation to the results they
actually got. That helps themwith their decision making. By
repeating that cycle over andover, they're very intentionally
moving forward, knowing what,why, and where they are going to
do the next step of theirproject, and they can then go
(29:59):
back and inspect their thinkingand say, 'Ah, I think this
didn't work as well as wewanted. Let's make a different
choice here.' So it sort ofcreates a map of their decision
tree, and they can go back toinspect at any time.
Kristina Hoeppner (30:12):
You've documented a number of moves in
your book so that studentsreally have lots of different
tools on hand that they can usedependent on the situation that
they are in. Rich you wanted totalk about one important thing
in regards to portfolios.
Rich Braden (30:28):
For me, portfolios are not just a history or a
catalogue of what has happened.
They are also an analysis anddecision making tool. Many
people think of innovation asone big monolithic thing, like a
moon-shot idea. In 10 years, wecan reach the moon, or we can
create this amazing newelectronic currency that will
change the world, right? Thesereally grand ideas, and those
(30:50):
are lovely.
Tessa and I had the experienceof travelling to Saudi Arabia,
to a region called Neom. Neom isa grand vision of the future by
the Crown Prince, and it is manydifferent projects, including
one, for instance, the Line. Itis a vertical city, 500 meters
(31:10):
tall. It's supposed to be over100 kilometers long. It's in
construction. It's not finishedyet. That's a moon shot, maybe
even, I think Tess has called ita Mars-shot idea. It's a giant
idea.
But when we got there and we sawwhat was happening really on the
ground, what we realised is itis a giant portfolio at many
different scales of innovation.
While you have the moon-shotidea of the Line, to do that
(31:31):
there are some really tightconstruction techniques. To
raise, I think it was 100 yardor meter segments of the
building and lift them up in oneof the windiest places on the
planet, there's some specialthings you have to innovate to
do that. To do that and to buildthose, the amount of cement that
(31:52):
they need meant they had toinnovate in cement production
and logistics to bring in thenumber of trucks, including
building roadways. To make thatcement set and last in that kind
of environment, they had to comeup with robots to bend 40
millimeter rebar inside thecement.
(32:13):
There's this cascade of ideas,from a moon-shot to an
orbit-shot to a cloud-shot to aroof-shot even down into
jump-shots of how do we day today do the scheduling?
Innovation really is a portfolioof ideas at a very different
scale, and by mapping that out,you can see where maybe you've
made too big of leaps. You canmake decisions on that. You can
(32:34):
see where maybe you're deficientin one area or another with the
organisation or the idea thatyou're working with. There is
this portfolio of shots that youcan do, from sort of roof-shots
to moon-shots that I think is areally important idea.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:49):
No matter how big the task is, even if it's a
small one, you can reflect onit. It doesn't always have to be
something very big.
Rich Braden (32:55):
Absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:57):
Often when we think about innovation, it is
these crazy ideas, and you needto be very creative, and it
needs to be something thatalready says creativity on the
outset. However, we are usingportfolios quite frequently for
assessment purposes in classeslike engineering or mathematics
(33:17):
or plumbing or also forprofessional certification, so
for nurses that just need tomake sure that they create their
portfolio to showcase how theyare treating patients and
fulfilling all theirrequirements. Often such
scenarios might be regarded asquite rigid or not really
allowing for a lot of creativityor innovation because there is
(33:39):
an assessment framework orcertification framework
involved. How can students orprofessionals make use of the
ideas from your book in thesescenarios? How would you bring
in that creative element or showthem you can still be creative
and innovative?
Tessa Forshaw (33:54):
Coming back to the title of the book,
'Innovation-ish', is that wedon't have an all or nothing
mentality. So a lot ofcreativity, design, creative
problem solving, innovationframeworks out there are, you
know, beautiful framework that'slovely in its design. And you
start here, and then you have togo through all of the things and
all of the steps and get to theend. And then at the end you
(34:16):
have, you know, your unicorn oryour magic, innovation. Our
approach is a little bit morealong the lines of, if you read
the book and there's one tinything that you think you can do,
you know what, I'm going to takeon an interactions mindset and
just chat to a couple of peoplein the coffee shop line to learn
a little bit more about how theyperceive X, you are being a
(34:37):
little bit more innovation-ish.
We call it innovation-ishness.
The more moves you do, the moreinnovation-ishness you have.
I used to work at the IDEOCoLab. People around there,
they're very high on theinnovation-ishness because
they're doing these kinds ofmoves with the mindsets every
day, all the time. That's theirjob. But not every job is like
(34:58):
that. And so we would say, doone thing, a little bit is a
little bit more than nothing.
Two is a little bit more thanthat. Rich, I think you often
use a gym analogy to explainthis, right?
Rich Braden (35:10):
If you go to the gym one day a week, it is not
going to transform your health,but it is better than not going
to the gym one day a week. Whenyou're routinely going one day a
week, you get used to it, andyou are motivated to maybe go a
little bit more, so maybe do asecond day and a third day. The
amount that you do indicates theamount of benefit you're going
(35:30):
to get out of it. If you'retraining for a triathlon, you
better be hitting the gym quitea bit, or it's not going to go
very well. If you're just tryingto do a little bit of connection
with your family, and you takean after dinner walk for 30
minutes a couple times a week.
That's the amount of that thatyou need. So true with that
portfolio of innovation, if youdo a couple of roof-shots and a
(35:51):
couple of jump-shots and maybeevery once in a while a
cloud-shot, that might be enoughfor what your needs are, not
everything has to be a giantinnovation. But if you do want
more, the pathway is justincrease your practice, and you
will get there.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:08):
Thank you so much. Tessa, I think you will be
an honorary German becauseyou've mastered compounding
words or elements of words andmaking them into longer words.
So we are not just havinginnovation, there's
innovation-ish, and now there'sinnovation-ishness. Yes, you're
an honorary German.
Tessa Forshaw (36:26):
That's the best compliment I've got all day
[laughs]. I love that.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:30):
Now to our quick answer round. Which words
or short phrases do you use todescribe portfolio work?
Rich Braden (36:38):
Reflective, influential, and decision
making.
Tessa Forshaw (36:43):
When I talk about portfolios to students, I say
things like, they help me seeyour process. They help me see
how you think as a designer.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:53):
What tip do you have for learning designers
or instructors who createportfolio activities? Let's
start with you, Tessa.
Tessa Forshaw (37:01):
I think it would be that thing that we learned in
class at the beginning, which ismake sure that the portfolio is
about the process more than itis about the product. It's okay
if some of them show products orideas or things that weren't
successful because they're allpart of the portfolio. So making
(37:22):
sure that you don't signal tostudents that only the fidelity
of a final product is whatmatters.
Rich Braden (37:29):
I would say show iteration. Do bad drafts. Show
the next step and the next stepas it evolves. Retain where you
came from because all thoseideas are the building blocks of
the future ideas, and it's niceto see all of it. Depending on
how you present it, you maycurate from your portfolio, but
keep everything and let it bemessy.
Kristina Hoeppner (37:53):
Now, final piece of advice for our
portfolio authors and forstudents or anybody really who's
creating portfolios. What advicewould you give to them?
Rich Braden (38:03):
A concept from our book is let them be divergent
and convergent. Put a lot ofthings out there, fill up your
portfolio, then curate and moveforward to the next iteration
with the things that areresonating and work. So you
constantly are building newthings and then curating new
things.
Tessa Forshaw (38:22):
I would say function is more important than
form. It's very easy in this eraof Instagram, we're so far
focused on the façade, on what athing looks like, and if it's
beautiful or Instagramable, or,you know, whatever. And
actually, the thing that mattersthe most in good design is the
(38:42):
function. If it doesn't do thething that the users need, if it
doesn't fulfil the purpose, ifit doesn't do for the nurses
demonstrating patient care, ifyour portfolio doesn't do that,
it doesn't demonstrate the youknow, appropriate care of
patients and the competenciesthat you need to exhibit, but it
looks pretty, who cares?
Function over form. That is myadvice.
Kristina Hoeppner (39:07):
Thank you so much for that final piece of
advice, and thank you so muchfor the chat today. It was
really, really awesome hearing abit more about your book. Of
course, we've not even exhaustedmaybe 10% of it because it is
both beautiful in function andalso in form that I'd really
like to invite everybody to getit, to read it, and also try a
(39:30):
lot of those concepts. Youchoose one of the mindsets. Give
it a go. I'm certainly going totry the ideas mindset, so
getting beyond the 10 or 12initial, very obvious ideas, and
trying to see if I can get to 50or 100 and any of the other
mindsets. Check out the moves.
And then also, I think, reportback to Tessa and Rich and let
(39:51):
them know how your journey intocreativity and innovation is
going. So thanks so much to thetwo of you.
Tessa Forshaw (40:01):
We definitely would love folks to share on
LinkedIn anything that they try.
We take feedback, excitement,and sarcastic remarks. All of
those are welcome. We lookforward to hearing about it.
Rich Braden (40:13):
Absolutely. Thank you for having us.
Kristina Hoeppner (40:16):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with Dr TessaForshaw and Rich Braden. Head to
our website, podcast.mahara.org,where you can find resources and
the transcript for this episode.
It would be great if you sharedour podcast with a colleague of
(40:39):
yours so they can listen aswell. Until then, create, share,
and engage.
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
(00:25):
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
Today, I'm excited to bespeaking with Dr Tessa Forshaw
and Rich Braden. Tessa stumbledupon my podcast through Dr
Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, whowas a guest a couple of years
ago and has been mentionedinfrequently in various episodes
(00:45):
since. I look forward to talkingto both of them today because
they've just published theirbook 'Innovation-ish' that draws
a lot on reflection and makinglearning visible. It's wonderful
to meet you, Tessa and Rich.
Tessa Forshaw (01:00):
Thank you so much.
Rich Braden (01:01):
Wonderful to meet you.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:03):
Tessa, what do you do at Harvard University,
please?
Tessa Forshaw (01:06):
I am the founding scholar of the Next Level Lab,
which is a research lab thatsits within Project Zero in the
Harvard Graduate School ofEducation. I'm a cognitive
scientist, and so I study,through the lens of the
cognitive and the learningsciences, how people work,
learn, and create.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:25):
Thank you, and you're a colleague of
Leticia Britos Cavagnaro throughthe d.school, right?
Tessa Forshaw (01:30):
Yes, so Rich and I actually met when both of us
were on the teaching faculty atthe Stanford d.school several
years ago, and now I am on theother side of the country, but
now I teach still with Rich atthe Harvard Innovation Lab as
well.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:44):
Rich, what is your role at People Rocket?
That's one awesome company name,by the way.
Rich Braden (01:50):
Thank you. I typically go by the Chief
Innovation Evangelist. I ampassionate about helping people
access and participate ininnovation in education, in
government, in corporations, insocial sector, across the board.
I love to bring it to everybody.
I do a lot of advising andleading design projects, and we
put together specialised teamsto match with what that project
(02:13):
is.
For 15 years, I've had a splitfocus with one foot - I'm not an
academic, but I teach inacademic environments for that
long at Stanford. In fact, I metLeticia because I had a side
career doing improv where it wasbeing applied and taught an
improv for educators class wherewe met, and she said, "Hey, this
(02:35):
is so much like what my work isat the d.school. Why don't you
come over here?" And really,sort of gave me my kickstart
into this world, and so Istarted teaching at Stanford in
the design school, but also inthe Graduate School of Business,
doing creativity and innovation.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:49):
That's fantastic to draw these
connections between thedifferent people and the
different foci that everybodyhas, but then bringing them
together, in this case throughimprov, in your case, Rich, and
Tessa for you by having been onthe staff at d.school, and I'm
now meeting you also because ofLeticia, so she's our connective
tissue.
Rich Braden (03:09):
That's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (03:10):
When did you two encounter portfolios for the
first time?
Tessa Forshaw (03:15):
In teaching design, they've always been a
central part of how studentsdemonstrate their learning. But
for me, my passion, I suppose,for them and belief in their
use, came when I was teaching atthe d.school. I supported a
class called 'Portfolios are foreveryone'. The class was
designed to support graduatingstudents to help craft a
(03:38):
portfolio of their work so far.
The premise wasn't just adocumentation in the sense of
Project A, Project B, Project C,Project D, etc., but the goal
was to help them use a story ora metaphor or some kind of
connective tissue to bring theirwork together and tell the
(03:59):
consumers of the portfolio, bethat readers of postgraduate
education applications, be thatgraduate programmes in
consulting companies, postgraduate jobs. The goal was to
be able to help the studentsreally articulate a story of who
they were and how they become,and how their different projects
had connected along the way.
That really resonated with mebecause I spent many years
(04:21):
focusing on this idea oflearning transfer, and really
that's the premise that youlearn something in one context
and you can easily apply it in anovel context. I have this
inherent belief that people haveskills from all the different
projects and work andexperiences that they've had in
their lives, and that they canbring them together and bring
them forward into novel rolesand spaces. I think portfolios
(04:45):
are a really powerful way ofcommunicating that.
Kristina Hoeppner (04:48):
Absolutely.
That really exemplifies theportfolio work because it is not
just about the documentation, itis very much about that
reflection and then also thattransfer of knowledge into other
areas. Rich, what is yourexperience then with portfolios,
please?
Rich Braden (05:05):
I would say my earliest experience that I can
recall is for a slightlydifferent purpose of influence
and connection creating. I didsome work with the Clinton
Global Initiative in theirannual meeting where people make
huge challenges to try to go outand projects and change the
world and connect with the othermembers there for funding, for
connections, and influence. Myjob was to help these
(05:28):
individuals who were out in theworld changing the world, so it
could be a doctor working in acountry, helping to do ear
surgeries, to tell their story,to create a portfolio of what is
a lifelong career, and tell itin a very short period of time.
Doing that by showcasing it, asopposed to listing, was a really
(05:48):
important facet of that. Thatwas really to influence and
create connections.
The reflective in education inclasses like Tessa was just
mentioning, we've also used itas an end-of-class project where
the students show up, there is astool with a note on it from the
teachers saying, 'Here is yourassignment,' and they have to
then collaborate and worktogether to create a work
(06:10):
product and an article that wethen edit and post on Medium if
it needs any editing of what wastheir learning experience of the
entire class. It's a moment,instead of a final on the last
day, for them to stop reflect ontheir work, to work together, to
share and create something thatpredominantly is for them to
remember and to seek theirlearning, so that they can go
(06:33):
back and reflect on it later, tobring that forward when they
want to access some of the toolswe've covered.
Kristina Hoeppner (06:38):
You now mentioned another two aspects of
portfolio work that I findreally important, namely, the
first one was the storytellingthat we should not just list
things, but really tell thestory and therefore also shape
how we are entering a particularsubject or how we are viewing
something that somebodypresents. The second aspect is
then to use it as an alternativeassessment method, in your case,
(07:00):
making it really visible to thestudents what they have actually
learned in class.
Tessa Forshaw (07:05):
One thing about portfolios that is really
important in our class is thatthey provide an assessment
method for us that helpsstudents not feel wed to their
innovation having to besuccessful in a classical sense.
What I mean by that is, beforewe use portfolios, in the early
years that Rich and I wereteaching together, we had this
(07:27):
tendency in our class forstudents to think that getting
an A in our class meant havingfound an innovative idea that
worked and was like going to bea start-up. And so they would
try to present to us like theygot the question right, and they
got the right insights, and theywere trying to put square pegs
in round holes to make sure itlooked like it fit because they
(07:47):
thought that that is what a goodgrade meant.
When we changed that, theportfolio approach let it be
that they could try somethingand learn actually, that that
was a really terrible idea andfundamentally not the right
problem that they were solving,demonstrate that learning in
their portfolio and then howthey moved on and went to
something else. Thatfundamentally changed what they
(08:10):
were willing to present to us,what they were willing to share
with us, and was reallytransformative for us in how we
communicate actually what goodinnovation and design work is,
which is not making somethinglook beautiful if it shouldn't
exist because nobody wants itand it doesn't work.
Rich Braden (08:27):
I think another aspect is that, especially with
our approach to teaching theclass, we have very few slides
or any kind of traditionalpieces, and the students are
rarely in front of any kind ofdevice or screen. They're at
whiteboards. They'reinterviewing people. They're
doing post-its. So most of theclass and the learning happens
(08:49):
in the activity, and so thereflective article at the end is
also a chance for them to makesure that they've captured the
notes, and they are building amemory device for themselves
because so much has happened notthere. We don't give a syllabus
up front that tells them what'sgoing to happen because we want
the experience to unfold. And soI think that becomes an
(09:10):
important piece for theirongoing learning and helping
them to transfer.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:14):
Which reminds me a lot of having been at the
d.school once, seeing all ofthose whiteboards and movable
walls and all the creativepieces of work that are
showcased, even in the foyer.
Having that documentation pieceand then also the reflection
built into it, so that they thencan take that away because at
some points they might not haveaccess to the physical evidence
(09:35):
that they have created for theirproject.
Rich Braden (09:40):
Yes, often they will capture digitally the
whiteboards that you're talkingabout, and it becomes part of
their portfolio and their notesbecause that, for them, cues the
memory of what happened, andthey can even zoom in and read
them.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:53):
Which now really nicely leads us into the
start of the conversation aboutyour book because recently, on
the third of September of 2025you published your book
'Innovation-ish (10:03):
How anyone can create breakthrough solutions to
real problems in the realworld'. Why did you decide to
team up? Well, I guess, sinceyou've been already working
together multiple times, andwhat is the story behind the
book's title? How are wesupposed to pronounce it? Is it
innovation ish? Is the emphasison the 'ish', or is the emphasis
(10:26):
on the 'innovation'? What wouldyou like us to know about it?
Tessa Forshaw (10:30):
That is the best question I have got so far
through this experience. I loveit. My answer is both. It's
'innovation ish'. Sometimes, ifyou're saying, like, 'Should we
try be a little innovative?' Andat the same time, if you're
trying to say to someone, 'Hey,be innovative, but don't take it
too seriously,' you could belike, 'Look, just be a little
(10:51):
bit innovation-ish.' So I thinkit could be either, depending on
the situation.
Rich and I started teachingtogether nearly 10 years ago.
That is, wow. I honestly felt alittle bit like in the
classroom, I had found a kindredspirit who felt really similarly
about design education to me, inthe sense that everybody that
(11:13):
I'd ever met I believed hadcreative potential. And I think
Rich really believed that, too.
We also were both frustrated athow many people around us didn't
see themselves as creative whenwe could see how amazing they
were, and how many studentswould struggle to identify
themselves as someone who shouldeven be in a conversation about
innovation, let alone doing it.
(11:36):
This book really came second toour teaching together and
formulating a class, which wasreally built around this idea
of, let's get rid of all of thejargon. Let's get rid of all of
the fancy words and all of theprocesses and the need for
expensive spaces and beautifulBirch buildings, and you know,
all of that, and get down to thepeople and how their mind works
(12:00):
and empowering them to have theagency and the capability to
unlock creativity in theireveryday lives.
Rich Braden (12:09):
I was just going to add that I think the 'ish' is
just taking this big thing,that's innovation that kind of
frightened people, softening itto be a little more cuddly, like
stuffed animal [Tessa laughs] ora Pokémon or something like
that, to be like, 'Oh, it's justinnovation-ish. It can't hurt
you. Now that it can't, now youcan go and play with it.' That's
(12:29):
at the end of the day what wewant is people to engage in the
work.
Kristina Hoeppner (12:33):
You've certainly done that. We didn't
really have a lot of timebetween Tessa contacting me, us
scheduling the interview, andnow actually talking to each
other. It was just a little overa week. So I've read your book
over the weekend, and I reallymust say, I devoured it just in
one session because it was sovery easy to read. It was so
engaging to read because youreally spoke to me. You engaged
(12:57):
me just through the languagethat you used. And yes, jargon
free. And of course, there's alot of references at the end of
the book if somebody wants toknow the theory behind it or
wants to read up more of it, butthe book itself just really felt
so nice to read and follow alongbecause it had this very
personal view also with all ofthe stories that you shared with
(13:20):
your personal stories in there,with stories from your students
and your community. So it'sreally a wonderful read.
Rich Braden (13:26):
Thank you. I think there are two things. One, we
very intentionally wrote it tobe accessible language because
we think that what's in it isvery accessible. And two, Tessa
is gifted to break that down andexplain it in ways that even me,
a simple improviser, canunderstand clearly and that
everyone can. Much of it makessense. I've heard her go on
(13:51):
wonderful, long explorations ofall the technical terms
underneath it. I love andappreciate her for that, but it
really takes that somethingextra to bring it down to where
everybody can just absorb it.
That makes it actionable andaccessible, so that you can
really start to use those toolsand use your brain the way it
works to help you to do betterwith creativity. And I think
(14:12):
that's a really powerful conceptthat she's brought to it.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:16):
Yeah, it also follows in your book that it's
innovation-ish, that it makesinnovation accessible. It's not
this daunting big thing, buteverybody can do it.
Tessa Forshaw (14:26):
Through working with Rich I've had the
opportunity to also get out ofthe ivory tower, so to speak,
and I'm so grateful for thatbecause People Rocket does
amazing work with all sorts ofdifferent organisations, from
small non-profits to massivequick service restaurants,
global entities, and everythingsort of in between. One of the
best things as an academic, Ithink, is going out into the
(14:50):
real world, and this is sort ofbeing innovation-ish, that's a
little bit meta. But like goingout into the real world and
seeing how people talk aboutthis, what language do they use
and bringing that to the workbecause the language I use isn't
the point. It's about speakingit in a language that can be
understood and interpreted andheard.
Rich Braden (15:09):
I think when we set out what you just said for
everyone, we thought through it,and we had an idea at first, oh,
this is who this book is for,and then we would realise
something else. So people thatare brand new to innovation, we
wanted to make it easy for them,but then in there, we found
people who would struggle withit or imposter syndrome or think
of themselves as not creative,and we're like, 'We can lower
(15:29):
the bar to make that easy andsafe for them as well.'
We definitely had people come ina little sceptical, going,
'Look, I've tried this stuff.
I've taken the other class, orI've done this other thing, and
I've seen it not work.' We havebeen able to turn that around in
some of the ways it's taught andthat people are told I think are
fundamentally flawed, and wetried to fix that.
(15:51):
When we talk with expertinnovators about it as well.
There's nuance in the way thatwe're doing this with the
approach. We talk about it asthere are a certain set of
mindsets that are required forinnovation. There are a certain
set of actions you take, we call'moves'. And then the most
important piece, I mean, they'reall important, they work
together, but metacognition ofreflecting on how it's going,
(16:14):
your thinking and feelingsduring it, and how you use new
strategies to improve whatyou're doing. Pretty much every
group, they come to it in adifferent way, and they get a
different thing out of it. Butit really is speaking very
broadly, and we include allother methodologies within what
we're talking about.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:33):
On this podcast we are talking very much
about portfolios, and so I dowant to tie it always back, and
Tessa has said that you areusing portfolios in your class,
and that it has transformed howyou're teaching because you're
encouraging your students toalso talk about their failures,
to talk about ambiguity, which,of course, is very much what
reflection often is aboutbecause we are learning through
(16:55):
the things that do not quite goso well. Can you please share a
story that illustrates then thismindset shift using the
strategies that you havedeveloped and also present in
the book?
Rich Braden (17:09):
A good story that illustrates this is actually the
'interactions mindset' where youhave to get out into the field
and interact with real people.
We were working with adistributor of a product. Their
customer was a big quick servicerestaurant. We went out into the
field with them to a distributorso they could see the flow of
the products and the supplychain and how things come in and
out. This was a group ofexecutives from both companies
(17:30):
that were there to see this.
They knew how things worked, butI had convinced them that the
reality in the field isn'talways what we see on paper or
get in our reports.
At one point during the tour, wewent out onto the parking lot.
There was a truck full of bigcylinders of product that was
(17:52):
from one company delivered tothe other. A manager was there
giving a wonderful tour,explaining everything, answering
all the questions, and then hehopped up in the truck and he
said, 'You excuse me for aminute. I have to actually do
the inventory, and then I'll beback with you.' He clipped a tag
off, and he went inside so hecould record the number. As soon
as he clipped it, the wholeenergy of the group tightened
up. I saw them go a littlestiff, and I had no idea what
(18:15):
was going on. As soon as the guywent in the building, I looked
and they started talkingtogether, and I asked them,
'What's going on?' He hadclipped the security tag that is
involved with the chain ofcustody of this product, which
is a very important thing. Hedidn't do it because he's a bad
guy. He did it because 'I haveto take this in. I have to make
sure the numbers are right. Thisis the quickest, most efficient
(18:36):
way to get my job done.' So he'dcome up with a little innovation
to help everybody there make itwork, but it violated the
policies that they had put inplace, and they knew that
something was wrong. They wereshocked to find out that that's
how it been done for quite awhile.
That insight of that's how itworks, is something that you
could only see when you go outand talk to people and you can
(18:57):
then solve that problem. How dowe successfully record the
tracking information that weneed and get it accurately and
quickly? You can use barcodes,you can use RFID, you can use
scanners, you can make a pieceof the tag that comes off.
There's so many differentsolutions once you see it, but
they wouldn't have known thatthat was what was going on
without going out into thefield, and that's because they
(19:18):
put on an observational mindsetof this interactions with other
people.
Kristina Hoeppner (19:23):
That's very powerful story. Tessa, does a
story come to mind for you?
Tessa Forshaw (19:28):
In a slightly different vein, a story for me
that talks about the value of aportfolio was we were working
with a different organisation,but again, in that quick service
space. They came up with aseries of ways to think about
reducing waste in the back roomof their cafés. And what they
(19:50):
coalesced around was this oneidea that they all fell in love
with that included Alexa orvoice activation system like
that and was very sexy and fun.
There were several other ideasthat have sort of made it to
that initial stage, and theywere keen to go all in it. But
Rich and my counsel wasactually, no, you need to hold a
portfolio of ideas at thismoment. That's really important.
(20:10):
They're communicated via aportfolio so that people can
understand them and see them,the value of them, and build a
shared mental model around whateach one is.
They went out and they testedthis idea already talking about
how much it would cost to rollit out to every instance of the
organisation, what that wouldlook like, all of these things.
And then it turns out that whenyou're in the kitchen area of a
(20:34):
restaurant or a café, voiceactivated systems are really
tricky because a) not everybodyspeaks English in the same
accent or to the same degree, b)they're really noisy. There's
fans and yelling and all sortsof things, and so stuff gets
picked up and missed. It didn'tactually work.
Thank goodness that they hadthis other portfolio of ideas
that they'd actually consideredand fleshed out, rather than
(20:57):
just going with it from ideastage and running out and
implementing it becauseotherwise, they would have been
millions of dollars inimplementation until they
figured out that it didn't work.
Instead, they came back up. Theywere able to pick a different
idea from the portfolio, thistime with much more of a testing
mindset. They tested a coupleand then they eventually did go
with some of the items in theportfolios.
(21:18):
That was a great example for meof how a portfolio can also help
you face failure because it'snot about your singular idea
being the right thing, but it'smore about there's a selection
of things. Then you can learnabout and you can test different
things and take them forward,and then come back to the
portfolio. It sort of changesthe mindset about how you go
(21:39):
about the testing and theiteration and the product
development.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:42):
It also comes down to what you call passive
reflection and metacognitionthat you can say yes, the idea
failed and leave it at thatpoint, more the passive
reflection. You've realised thatsomething didn't work. Versus
the active metacognition whereyou're noticing that something
went wrong, and that also, Ithink, aligns really nicely with
(22:05):
Leticia's book 'Experiments inreflection: How to see the
present, consider the past, andshape the future' because the
most important thing is thenoticing.
From noticing, having awareness,go into evaluation, so
considering the evidence anddetermining whether it's working
or not, and then controllingusing the evaluations to adjust
(22:25):
the plan and then switch tacticsif needed. In your case, Tessa
and also Rich that theyevaluated more ideas, discuss
things more.
Do you want to talk a little bitmore about that distinction that
you're making in the bookbetween the passive reflection
and active metacognition becausetypically in portfolio work, we
just talk about reflection.
Rich Braden (22:47):
You know what story I'm thinking of, don't you?
Yeah, go for it.
No, no, it's your story.
Tessa Forshaw (22:52):
Okay. My mother-in-law, Nada, was the
most amazing woman. She would gotravelling a lot through Europe.
This one time, she took herdaughter on a trip. She would
take diaries. I had theprivilege of reading some of her
diary entries. They say thingslike, 'I woke up. I ate
breakfast. We went out to lunchhere in this square, saw the
(23:16):
church. It was big, went for awalk, met a couple from Germany
- I remember that explicitlyonce - did this.' That diary
entry, I think, is a reallygreat example of passive
reflection. It's recounting whathappened. Yes, there is value in
that you're playing it back. Youmight be implicitly connecting
(23:39):
some dots or thinking aboutthings, you might get warm
memories that cue forward whenyou read it later and you think
about the day. But it serves apurpose of recounting what
happened.
If you think about passivereflection versus active
metacognition, as we call it,take Nada's diary, and we're
going to make it up a littlebit. Now it says, 'Woke up this
(23:59):
morning and I realised I wasfeeling really tired from the
night before. I wonder ifperhaps we went to bed a little
bit too late. Vicky and I wentup. We got dressed, we had
breakfast. The smell of freshomelet really puts me in a good
mood for the day, and I was soexcited to take it on. We went
for a walk through the old city.
It was really beautiful. Andthen we met this couple from
(24:21):
Germany, and that interaction oftalking to people from other
sides of the world about howbeautiful this place we were
standing together in, eventhough neither of us was from
there, was really energising,and I got so much out of that. I
was so glad we met them.'That's a completely different
situation. That is activemetacognition, where you're
thinking about how the day went,what you did, maybe I need to
(24:44):
adjust something for next time.
What gave me energy, what tookit away? How did my emotions
appear in the day, not just mythinking and not just my
actions? What decisions orchoices did I make because of
things?
When I think about reflection indesign education, I think we all
want active metacognition, butsometimes we accidentally
(25:08):
scaffold to only get passivereflection. I love thinking
routines a lot. One thing that Ilearned the hard way in my own
design classroom [laughs], Ithink Rich and I both learned
this the hard way, is thathaving students reflect on the
last day of class in the last 20minutes by standing in a circle,
saying a thinking routine outloud, isn't actually the kind of
(25:30):
reflection that we need to teachthem to make them better
designers in the real world.
That active reflection is morelike recounting something that
happened in the class, and evenif it is active, it's happening
at the end. So they can't changetheir actions and their choices
and their decisions because theclass is ending in five minutes.
They probably want to get outthe door as quickly as they can.
(25:53):
When we think about activemetacognition, we've started
trying to change what reflectionlooks like in our classroom and
in the book, we really lean onthis as an important concept.
Every design choice that youmake, every time you're trying
to think about what mindset youneed, what move you need, how
that move went, you are engagingin reflection, constantly, in
(26:15):
situ and throughout, so that youcan be making those dynamic
decisions to change yourexperience, so that in the case
of my lovely mother-in-law,Nada, you're at the end of the
day, she then isn't repeatingthings that maybe didn't bring
her joy on her trip. She's doingthings that did. She's talking
to more strangers because thatgives her energy, and she's
(26:36):
learned that about herself.
She's realising that the smellof eggs in the morning makes her
really happy, and so that's agood choice to go to for
breakfast. I think there aresmall things and big things that
come through being active in ourmetacognitive reflection
practice.
Kristina Hoeppner (26:52):
Tessa, what is a thinking routine, please?
Tessa Forshaw (26:55):
A thinking routine is typically a strategy
or a scaffold that an educatormight give a learner. 'I like, I
wish, I wonder', is a greatexample, or 'I used to think,
but now I think' is another one.
I'm a huge fan of them. However,I think that the magic doesn't
happen from the routine. You cancomplete a statement like 'I
used to think, but now I think',and not be metacognitive. A
(27:18):
great example is sometimes atthe end of class, when we were
first doing this, as I mentionedin the last five minutes, at the
very end, we would hear thingslike, 'I used to think talking
to people at McDonald's would befull on, and now I think it
smells bad.' That's not really ametacognitive reflection, right?
That's a recounting.
(27:38):
When we changed it toincorporating it in all the time
and making it about the smallmovements, not the big things,
we started to see things like -in that exact same context, we
would have started to seesomething like 'I used to think
that approaching people who werestrangers in a place would be
really confronting and theywouldn't want to talk to me. Now
(27:59):
I think I'm making that anxietymyself, and by calming that down
and focusing on them and servingthem and asking them questions
about themselves, I can overcomethat and engage in productive
conversations.' That would be areally good example. Or 'I used
to think that the answer to Xquestion was Y, but now I think
(28:21):
I was bringing in a lot ofbiases from another context that
don't actually have a placehere.' That reflection got so
much deeper, even though we wereusing a really good reflection
tool, a thinking routine thatProject Zero at Harvard came up
with. That tool, it needs to beused properly. It can't just be
copy and pasted.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:40):
Is that then where instead of just giving
those prompts, you also givethose additional question types
that you've developed so thatyou give more detail of what you
expect your students to talkabout or what they should be
thinking about?
Rich Braden (28:54):
The move map is a great example of giving a
scaffold or a tool to helpprompt active metacognition. We
have the students stop anddocument so we can externalise
and let them inspect the stepsand the questions that they're
asking as they go through. Sobefore they choose what they do
next in their project, we havethem think about, what have you
learned? Where are you now? Andwhat is the most important thing
(29:18):
that you need to answer ifyou're going to move your
project forward. Then they canexamine the different mindsets
and create really a littleportfolio of moves. Here are the
different options that we haveand what we think we'll get out
of them. Now they can evaluatethat and make a decision what
they choose to move forwardwith, but they already have an
(29:38):
expectation of what they thinkthey're going to get. At the
end, they're comparing theirexpectation to the results they
actually got. That helps themwith their decision making. By
repeating that cycle over andover, they're very intentionally
moving forward, knowing what,why, and where they are going to
do the next step of theirproject, and they can then go
(29:59):
back and inspect their thinkingand say, 'Ah, I think this
didn't work as well as wewanted. Let's make a different
choice here.' So it sort ofcreates a map of their decision
tree, and they can go back toinspect at any time.
Kristina Hoeppner (30:12):
You've documented a number of moves in
your book so that studentsreally have lots of different
tools on hand that they can usedependent on the situation that
they are in. Rich you wanted totalk about one important thing
in regards to portfolios.
Rich Braden (30:28):
For me, portfolios are not just a history or a
catalogue of what has happened.
They are also an analysis anddecision making tool. Many
people think of innovation asone big monolithic thing, like a
moon-shot idea. In 10 years, wecan reach the moon, or we can
create this amazing newelectronic currency that will
change the world, right? Thesereally grand ideas, and those
(30:50):
are lovely.
Tessa and I had the experienceof travelling to Saudi Arabia,
to a region called Neom. Neom isa grand vision of the future by
the Crown Prince, and it is manydifferent projects, including
one, for instance, the Line. Itis a vertical city, 500 meters
(31:10):
tall. It's supposed to be over100 kilometers long. It's in
construction. It's not finishedyet. That's a moon shot, maybe
even, I think Tess has called ita Mars-shot idea. It's a giant
idea.
But when we got there and we sawwhat was happening really on the
ground, what we realised is itis a giant portfolio at many
different scales of innovation.
While you have the moon-shotidea of the Line, to do that
(31:31):
there are some really tightconstruction techniques. To
raise, I think it was 100 yardor meter segments of the
building and lift them up in oneof the windiest places on the
planet, there's some specialthings you have to innovate to
do that. To do that and to buildthose, the amount of cement that
(31:52):
they need meant they had toinnovate in cement production
and logistics to bring in thenumber of trucks, including
building roadways. To make thatcement set and last in that kind
of environment, they had to comeup with robots to bend 40
millimeter rebar inside thecement.
(32:13):
There's this cascade of ideas,from a moon-shot to an
orbit-shot to a cloud-shot to aroof-shot even down into
jump-shots of how do we day today do the scheduling?
Innovation really is a portfolioof ideas at a very different
scale, and by mapping that out,you can see where maybe you've
made too big of leaps. You canmake decisions on that. You can
(32:34):
see where maybe you're deficientin one area or another with the
organisation or the idea thatyou're working with. There is
this portfolio of shots that youcan do, from sort of roof-shots
to moon-shots that I think is areally important idea.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:49):
No matter how big the task is, even if it's a
small one, you can reflect onit. It doesn't always have to be
something very big.
Rich Braden (32:55):
Absolutely.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:57):
Often when we think about innovation, it is
these crazy ideas, and you needto be very creative, and it
needs to be something thatalready says creativity on the
outset. However, we are usingportfolios quite frequently for
assessment purposes in classeslike engineering or mathematics
(33:17):
or plumbing or also forprofessional certification, so
for nurses that just need tomake sure that they create their
portfolio to showcase how theyare treating patients and
fulfilling all theirrequirements. Often such
scenarios might be regarded asquite rigid or not really
allowing for a lot of creativityor innovation because there is
(33:39):
an assessment framework orcertification framework
involved. How can students orprofessionals make use of the
ideas from your book in thesescenarios? How would you bring
in that creative element or showthem you can still be creative
and innovative?
Tessa Forshaw (33:54):
Coming back to the title of the book,
'Innovation-ish', is that wedon't have an all or nothing
mentality. So a lot ofcreativity, design, creative
problem solving, innovationframeworks out there are, you
know, beautiful framework that'slovely in its design. And you
start here, and then you have togo through all of the things and
all of the steps and get to theend. And then at the end you
(34:16):
have, you know, your unicorn oryour magic, innovation. Our
approach is a little bit morealong the lines of, if you read
the book and there's one tinything that you think you can do,
you know what, I'm going to takeon an interactions mindset and
just chat to a couple of peoplein the coffee shop line to learn
a little bit more about how theyperceive X, you are being a
(34:37):
little bit more innovation-ish.
We call it innovation-ishness.
The more moves you do, the moreinnovation-ishness you have.
I used to work at the IDEOCoLab. People around there,
they're very high on theinnovation-ishness because
they're doing these kinds ofmoves with the mindsets every
day, all the time. That's theirjob. But not every job is like
(34:58):
that. And so we would say, doone thing, a little bit is a
little bit more than nothing.
Two is a little bit more thanthat. Rich, I think you often
use a gym analogy to explainthis, right?
Rich Braden (35:10):
If you go to the gym one day a week, it is not
going to transform your health,but it is better than not going
to the gym one day a week. Whenyou're routinely going one day a
week, you get used to it, andyou are motivated to maybe go a
little bit more, so maybe do asecond day and a third day. The
amount that you do indicates theamount of benefit you're going
(35:30):
to get out of it. If you'retraining for a triathlon, you
better be hitting the gym quitea bit, or it's not going to go
very well. If you're just tryingto do a little bit of connection
with your family, and you takean after dinner walk for 30
minutes a couple times a week.
That's the amount of that thatyou need. So true with that
portfolio of innovation, if youdo a couple of roof-shots and a
(35:51):
couple of jump-shots and maybeevery once in a while a
cloud-shot, that might be enoughfor what your needs are, not
everything has to be a giantinnovation. But if you do want
more, the pathway is justincrease your practice, and you
will get there.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:08):
Thank you so much. Tessa, I think you will be
an honorary German becauseyou've mastered compounding
words or elements of words andmaking them into longer words.
So we are not just havinginnovation, there's
innovation-ish, and now there'sinnovation-ishness. Yes, you're
an honorary German.
Tessa Forshaw (36:26):
That's the best compliment I've got all day
[laughs]. I love that.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:30):
Now to our quick answer round. Which words
or short phrases do you use todescribe portfolio work?
Rich Braden (36:38):
Reflective, influential, and decision
making.
Tessa Forshaw (36:43):
When I talk about portfolios to students, I say
things like, they help me seeyour process. They help me see
how you think as a designer.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:53):
What tip do you have for learning designers
or instructors who createportfolio activities? Let's
start with you, Tessa.
Tessa Forshaw (37:01):
I think it would be that thing that we learned in
class at the beginning, which ismake sure that the portfolio is
about the process more than itis about the product. It's okay
if some of them show products orideas or things that weren't
successful because they're allpart of the portfolio. So making
(37:22):
sure that you don't signal tostudents that only the fidelity
of a final product is whatmatters.
Rich Braden (37:29):
I would say show iteration. Do bad drafts. Show
the next step and the next stepas it evolves. Retain where you
came from because all thoseideas are the building blocks of
the future ideas, and it's niceto see all of it. Depending on
how you present it, you maycurate from your portfolio, but
keep everything and let it bemessy.
Kristina Hoeppner (37:53):
Now, final piece of advice for our
portfolio authors and forstudents or anybody really who's
creating portfolios. What advicewould you give to them?
Rich Braden (38:03):
A concept from our book is let them be divergent
and convergent. Put a lot ofthings out there, fill up your
portfolio, then curate and moveforward to the next iteration
with the things that areresonating and work. So you
constantly are building newthings and then curating new
things.
Tessa Forshaw (38:22):
I would say function is more important than
form. It's very easy in this eraof Instagram, we're so far
focused on the façade, on what athing looks like, and if it's
beautiful or Instagramable, or,you know, whatever. And
actually, the thing that mattersthe most in good design is the
(38:42):
function. If it doesn't do thething that the users need, if it
doesn't fulfil the purpose, ifit doesn't do for the nurses
demonstrating patient care, ifyour portfolio doesn't do that,
it doesn't demonstrate the youknow, appropriate care of
patients and the competenciesthat you need to exhibit, but it
looks pretty, who cares?
Function over form. That is myadvice.
Kristina Hoeppner (39:07):
Thank you so much for that final piece of
advice, and thank you so muchfor the chat today. It was
really, really awesome hearing abit more about your book. Of
course, we've not even exhaustedmaybe 10% of it because it is
both beautiful in function andalso in form that I'd really
like to invite everybody to getit, to read it, and also try a
(39:30):
lot of those concepts. Youchoose one of the mindsets. Give
it a go. I'm certainly going totry the ideas mindset, so
getting beyond the 10 or 12initial, very obvious ideas, and
trying to see if I can get to 50or 100 and any of the other
mindsets. Check out the moves.
And then also, I think, reportback to Tessa and Rich and let
(39:51):
them know how your journey intocreativity and innovation is
going. So thanks so much to thetwo of you.
Tessa Forshaw (40:01):
We definitely would love folks to share on
LinkedIn anything that they try.
We take feedback, excitement,and sarcastic remarks. All of
those are welcome. We lookforward to hearing about it.
Rich Braden (40:13):
Absolutely. Thank you for having us.
Kristina Hoeppner (40:16):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with Dr TessaForshaw and Rich Braden. Head to
our website, podcast.mahara.org,where you can find resources and
the transcript for this episode.
It would be great if you sharedour podcast with a colleague of
(40:39):
yours so they can listen aswell. Until then, create, share,
and engage.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.