Our students benefit from their instruction at the Academy, but one group of Academy educators is expanded their reach — educating the educators at a visualization workshop held at the recent SXSW EDU event! In this interview, Design instructor and Assistant Dean Matthew Manos recounts the exciting experience and even drops some hints about what might come next!

Why is visualization important for educators?
There was a famous psychological study by Alan Richardson on a basketball court. One group of participants in the study were asked to regularly practice throwing free-throws, another was asked to only visualize themselves sinking the shot, another was asked to do nothing at all. The amazing discovery from this study was that the group that only visualized their success had almost the same level of improvement as the group that practiced regularly. This points to the power of visualization to not only serve as a tool to create superior communicators, but also to create a classroom environment in which students can grow their confidence and success.

What gave you, the panelists, the idea to do this workshop? 
Professor Child was kind enough to "rally the troops" on this one. He invited Sue Tan and I to design a workshop on the power of visualization with him, and this spark of an idea he had very much stemmed from courses that he teaches in the Academy around rapid visualization and ideation. Further, the three of us use visualization in our day-to-day work, and all know the power of it as a tool first-hand.

Why SXSW EDU? 
The SXSW conference is known for its ability to highlight the innovations and ideas that will change our world long before others are even aware. The EDU track in particular is an incredible venue to be at the forefront of educational innovation. The conference attracts all kinds of teachers, administrators, and entrepreneurs working in the education industry, making it a perfect fit.

How was your workshop structured? 
For our workshop, we used the metaphor of an orange tree to guide the experience. Professor Child began the workshop by helping audience members "plant the idea". This was done through a guided visualization/meditation that resulted in each workshop participant generating their own mind map full of starting points. Specifically, our workshop was centered around Emotional Intelligence as a theme for participants to innovate around. After the idea was planted, I took the stage to guide participants through a process that allowed them to "nurture" the idea. This looked like a series of rapid ideation exercises that used dice to allow participants to make random connections between their own mind map, and the mind maps of others. Finally, Sue Tan lead the group through the final segment: "Growing" the idea. For this, she passed out play-dough, construction paper, pencils and markers, and guided everyone through a prototyping process that brought their ideas to life.

Who participated? 
We were incredibly lucky to have a stellar turnout (standing room only!) of teachers, administrators, entrepreneurs and education enthusiasts.

What was most memorable part of the workshop?
The amount of energy in the room was contagious. At one point during the ideation session it got so loud that I couldn't even hear myself think! The participants really made this a huge success. I have to say, though, the best moment for me was at the end when a woman stood up and mentioned that this was the best workshop she had experienced at SXSW EDU — that was incredibly validating, and had us all walking away extremely proud. 

Are you interested in doing this again, or in other venues?
Absolutely! Workshop facilitation is one of my favorite things in the world. Further, the three of us have plans of publishing the curriculum from this workshop in the form of a toolkit or book of some sort... stay tuned!


Live from SXSW: Interview with Matthew Manos