Once you give students a taste for design thinking, they clamor for more. Many students who enjoyed their design thinking work last year in Mrs. Berry's class are in the Pfautz/Regan cohort this year, and were asking for projects.
So, this year, students have been engaging in design sprints. They recently engaged in two projects that called upon their empathetic thinking skills. The students also employed our Benchmark-specific design thinking language that we developed as a whole school last year.
Benchmark School's design thinking model.
In their first project, students set out to create the ideal cookie for a classmate. They interviewed their classmate about preferences, sketched a prototype, and then "baked" the cookie. This being a COVID year, the students couldn't actually hand their classmate a cookie, so the cookies were created from play-doh, and their cookies' special attributes were described and shared in a FlipGrid video.
In their second project, students had to design the ideal vehicle for certain characters, based on "wondering and connecting" what they know about those characters. In this case, students considered vehicle design for characters from Harry Potter and Star Wars. They carefully considered these characters' needs, made several sketches, and then prototyped. After prototyping, they completed the "reflect and revise" stage by presenting and explaining their prototype with another student, asking "What do you like?" and "What would you add or change?"
What would Hagrid drive?
As the modifications required during COVID times spurred even more creative thinking, it was clear to the students and teachers alike that the design thinking process is durable and applicable regardless of circumstances.