21st Century Innovators: Design Thinking for Middle School Scholars
My students need building materials to engage in five design thinking projects: Seismic Shake-Up, Inspector Detector, Headphone Helper, Soft Landing, and On Target.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
Our computer lab is the center of learning for every scholar in our building at Resurgence Hall. We are fortunate enough to have a computer lab for scholars to develop their computer science skills, and we would like to expand opportunities for our scholars by engaging them with design thinking challenges that utilize critical thinking and creativity skills.
Everyone should learn how to code, it teaches you how to think.
Our classroom lives by this quote from Steve Jobs. My 6th graders have already begun to learn how to create websites using HTML, and will continue their journey with other coding languages such as CSS, JavaScript and Python. Knowing that computers are now the norm method for submitting assignments in high school and college, scholars are also developing their typing skills every single week.
Our school also offers Design Thinking, a class where scholars are expected to tackle complex problem through five stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Through these two courses, our scholars will be able to reach their goals in high school, college and career.
My Project
Design Thinking is a core component of the curriculum at Resurgence Hall. Our Scholars engage in a variety of design thinking challenges by using five steps: define, empathize, ideate, prototype, and test. Scholars have already completed many design thinking challenges this year, and are eager to complete more challenges before they enter 7th grade.
Our scholars need materials like tennis balls, tape, binder clips, balloons, and magnets to create their prototypes for our design thinking challenges.
We will complete five design thinking challenges before the end of the school year: Seismic Shake-Up, Inspector Detector, Headphone Helper, Soft Landing, and On Target. These challenges are designed to engage critical thinking and creativity skills to prepare our scholars for high school, college and life success.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Pritchett and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
