Welcome to the Crown Institute Participatory Toolkit!

 

The toolkit is a collection of activities and guidelines intended to support the collaborative design of research projects, practical resources, and curricular materials. The activities and guidelines in this toolkit aim to support authentic partnership work that centers equity and wellness in the collaborative design process and product. 

Audience

This toolkit was designed for researchers working in collaboration with practitioners, community members, and young people. However, these resources are broadly applicable to designers, educators, and diverse practitioners, who are encouraged to adapt them to best meet their unique contexts. These tools are designed for those interested in genuine collaboration, where research, design, and teaching is not done on or to subjects, but rather, activities are enacted with collaborators. The toolkit uses this term, “collaborators,” to indicate the active role and contribution of all team members. 

How to Use

The resources in this toolkit are organized into 5 categories: (1) Build Trusted Teams: What does trust look like in participatory design? How can we build trust to do our work together? (2) Identify and Understand: What do we need to know about the places, the histories, and the people with whom we are working and for whom the work is intended to benefit? How do we learn what we need to know?, (3) Organize for Design: How can we plan and enact practices of collaboration that center care, dignity, equity?, (4) Evaluate and Iterate: How will we understand the impact of our designs? How can we improve upon both our processes and products?, (5) Sustain: How can we identify and build the structures necessary to sustain our designs? These categories, and the resources within them, are not designed to be linear, prescriptive, or comprehensive. They are intended as a starting place to ignite curiosity, reflection, conversation, and collaboration. We invite you to explore these participatory design tools and adapt them to fit your team and your context. These tools have emerged out of many collaborations and across many iterations. We see these as a living library and look forward to the ways in which the tools will grow and evolve. We welcome your feedback at crowninstitute@colorado.edu. 

Authors

This project was supported by the Crown Institute. This toolkit was created and curated by a team of researchers and practitioners representing the fields of education, psychology, and sociology. The resources in this toolkit have been developed in the context of deep partnerships with many youth and community collaborators, by whom this project was made possible and for whom we have deep gratitude.

                                                                                                        

Steering Committee

Susan Jurow 

Leah Peña Teeters

Bill Penuel

Vanessa Roberts 

 

Authors

Adriana Alvarez

Moises Esteban Guitart

Jade Gutierrez

Christine Jackson

Susan Jurow 

Emma Lischwe 

Leah Peña Teeters

Bill Penuel

Ashley Potvin 

Vanessa Roberts 

Erica Van Steenis

 

Editors

Sona Dimidjian

Christine Jackson

Marlene Palomar

Michelle Shedro

Leah Peña Teeters

Julia C. Zigarelli

 

 

 

Build Trusted Teams

What does trust look like in
participatory design? How can we
build trust to do our work together?

View Toolkit 

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Identify & Understand

What do we need to know about the
places, the histories, and the people
with whom we are working? How do
we learn what we need to know?

View Toolkit

 

 

 

 

 

Organize for Design

How can we plan and enact practices
of collaboration that center care,
dignity, equity?

View Toolkit

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ei

 

 

 

Evaluate and Iterate

How will we understand the impact of
our designs? How can we improve upon
both our processes and products?

View Toolkit

 

 

 

 

 

Sustain

How can we identify and build the structures
necessary to sustain our designs?

View Toolkit

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