My goal in this course is to design a realistic, interactive learning experience that addresses a social issue. I began by having an ideation session around a few topics of interest. By using the mind mapping method, I organized my thoughts around a course about gay sex education. I want to create the type of material that I wish I had as I was figuring out my sexuality. Sex education is BARELY a part of most secondary curricula and education on gay sex is only very small portion of that! All too often, young gay men are sexually socialized through misinformation and popular culture. While the latter is not necessarily a bad thing, some out-of-context messages can be harmful to the individual and the gay community at large. I want this course to serve as a supplement to young gay men as they prepare to engage their sexuality with safety and a sense of social responsibility.

Robert McKim introduced me to higher levels of introspection in his work on visual thinking. In the text, I learned that we all have a way of representing our thoughts that are separate from the thoughts themselves (McKim, 1972). Understanding that is transformative for both the design AND content of this course. I used this visualization concept and a design thinking method to represent learning material that doesn’t exist yet. As I mapped out the possibilities in my mind, I could represent them using imagery in my brain. I’m learning that there actually are concrete, tangible components of the creative process; gathering ideas and ideation are one of them. I transferred this internal visual onto paper and made it concrete. In addition to kickstarting the creative process, visual thinking principles have implications for my course content. The words ‘gay sex’ invoke unique responses from any person who hears them given our social climate on the topic. In other words, people visually represent this in SO many ways. They can be demonized, vilified, celebrated, misunderstood, etc. etc. Which is precisely why I want to create content that is grounded in research and centers the gay experience.

I used the mind mapping design method to ideate for this course. This topic is very vast and the possibilities are endless haha. There are so many different angles that you could approach this topic from: psycho-social understandings, healthcare/ sexual health, history, racial, gender expansive socialization. I used the mind map as a tool to uncover all the angles and identify which were the most important to me; this is a passion project after all. I found myself lingering on the topics of just cisgendered gay sex (as opposed to queer sex that includes gender non-conforming folks). Additionally, I was really fixated on focusing on the topic through a racial lens and understanding the gay Black male experience with sex. I’ve included the mind map below and you can follow the iterations of the course under the Gay Sex Education tab. I look forward to diving into designing this course. I am certain that it will be useful for young gay men as they figure out how to navigate their sexuality. It could even be useful for those who came out later in life and feel like there are no resources for them.

 

 

 

References:

References

McKim, R. H. (1972). Experiences in Visual Thinking. Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.