K-3 Design Thinking – Our young students need to be provided with opportunities to be creative and design through exploration and play to build questions based on their own curiosities. Teachers need to provide students with opportunities to discover tools that will best support their design process.
4-5 Design Thinking – Building upon their curiosities, students in grades 4 and 5 will learn to improve upon the design process through prototyping, practicing skills and selecting specific tools to assist in the design process. These students will begin to discover how their ideas and the ideas of others can be analyzed in a human-centered view based on specific objectives and criteria.
6-9 Human-Centered Design Thinking – Further to curiosity, prototyping, practicing skills and tool selection, by identifying needs through questioning, interviewing and research, students in grades 6 to 9 will focus on learning skills for designing with a human-centered, empathetic focus. They will learn to use multiple tools to support their design process, and analyze and critique their designs and the designs of others through the lens of the potential users.
Tinkering – The art of applying the scientific method to the design process as students build their prototypes and test their designs in an effort to improve their design for their potential users.
Thinkering – Closely tied to Tinkering through communicating and thinking out loud with fellow designers, students take the time to observe, reflect and discuss each other’s design process, to see how different designers tinkered with the problem. Students will be able to increase their human-centered focus by seeing how different designers empathized with their potential users, and by asking each other open ended questions, students will begin to summarize their tinkering process.
Design Charrette – Students have the opportunity to view the designs of their peers, and make and receive feedback so they can further improve upon their design. Quality open-ended questions are important for the success of the design charrette or gallery walk.
Makerspace – The makerspace brings our students from consumers of information to designers through their own curiosities and explorations. A makerspace provides the space, tools and mindset for imagination and innovation.
Habitudes – The combination of habits of mind and attitude that we want to foster within our students in order to promote a rich and safe design thinking environment.
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