Innovation, Engagement, and School Change: The Upper Valley Education Design Clinic

Abstract

This capstone project presents a phenomenological case study of a novel K-12/higher ed initiative, the Upper Valley Education Design Clinic. In this clinic, Dartmouth College undergraduates join teams of K-12 teachers to learn Design Thinking methods to co-design solutions to authentic school problems over the course of a year. This study examines whether the Clinic is meeting its dual goals: boosting educators' sense of agency and efficacy in leading change, and shaping undergraduates' understanding of designing change in complex organizations while also reshaping undergraduates' views of the teaching profession. Drawing on an iterative qualitative methodology, the study triangulated data from structured field observations, interviews with participants across cohorts, and organizational documents, analyzing the combined dataset through successive rounds of coding, abductive theorizing, and synthesis. The findings position the Clinic as a distinctive model of reciprocal knowledge co-construction rather than one-way expertise transfer, showing gains in educator motivation and systems understanding and shifts in undergraduate perceptions of teaching. The findings also surface structural barriers, particularly timing and workload, that recommendations propose to address through scheduling changes and multi-stakeholder team structures.