How might we use rituals as a need finding tool to inform and improve behavior change methods?
Course Context
As part of my Graduate Teaching Assistantship with Professor Ruth Toulson I developed a workshop during the undergraduate course The Anthropology of Emotions. The Ritual Design workshop I delivered explored the role of rituals and how they can provide insights into human aspirations, culture, and how individuals create meaning. Through conversation and small group activities we explored how rituals can help define mental models and can be used to explore “meeting the user where they are” in order to design new rituals to inspire behavior change or new product and process adoption.
See my Ritual Design presentation here.
I’m an experienced teacher, trainer, and facilitator, my additional experiences include:
Global Service Jam – Lead planner, planning committee and participant of DC Service Jam (2016-2020). In more than 100 cities around the world each year, design thinking enthusiasts join forces on a weekend in March for the Global Service Jam’s weekend of service design to change the world. They are designers, artists, business people, mothers, community members, students, legislators and citizens. They meet with one goal in mind: to create, prototype, and publish a new service in less than 48 hours.
Booz Allen Hamilton – Introduction to Service Design and Design Thinking open to participation by company employees
Centro University (Mexico City, Mexico) – Course Designer and Instructor, Intro to Social Design, a week- long intensive for Master’s in Design Studies students
Johns Hopkins Center for Communications Programs – Facilitator, Human Centered Design Bootcamp for program teams and global field staff
Center for Disease Control National Grantee Meeting – Facilitator, Social Design for Community Approaches to Reducing STIs
Strong City Baltimore’s Neighborhood Institute – Facilitator, Social Design for Community Problem Solving Workshop
Maryland Institute College of Art – Graduate Teaching Intern, Anthropology of Emotion (Humanistic Studies SSCI 310) with Dr. Ruth Toulson
University of Wisconsin-Madison – Teaching Fellow, Undergraduate Research Scholars weekly seminar on the intersections of research and social justice
Molly Reddy 