The information in these slides was shared by Louise Maine, TeachersFirst Contributor and MySciLife EdTech Coach, during PETE&C's 2017 Annual Conference held in Hershey, PA, February 12-15, 2017. PRESENTATION OVERVIEW Although project-based learning has been around for some time, design thinking is relatively new. It offers a type of scaffolding for the teachers in crafting lessons for students that offer collaboration, critical thinking, choice in the demonstration of knowledge, and empower a new generation to envision a difference to their community. ABOUT TEACHERSFIRST TeachersFirst offers a wealth of K12 teacher-reviewed tools, sites and apps to help teachers infuse technology into their classrooms. Visit www.TeachersFirst.com to discover a wealth of free K12 curricular resources, exclusive lesson plans, and more!

1. A focus on PROCESS
and not the product
Prepared by
Louise Maine
TeachersFirst Contributor and MyScilife EdTech Coach

2. Disclaimer
Not just one or two
projects but a way to
step through the
content material.
Every move towards
project based and
inquiry will provide
great benefits.

3. Goal: Change the education experience
● Guide problem
solving
● Collaboration
● Critical thinking
● Voice and
choice
● Empower
students

4. PBL vs. Design Thinking
PBL
● Encourages inquiry
● Used for students to question and
learn info along the way
Design Thinking
● Nebulous definition
● Encourages inquiry
● Process not the product
● Begins with empathy
● Solution focused

5. Design Thinking for Teachers
● Problem in curriculum
● Generate ideas
● Test solutions
● Develop new plans

6. Backward design - what should students know?
● Look at Big Ideas or
standards
● How is content grounded
in life?
● What should they really
understand?

7. Identify question or problem
● Meaningful
● Expand open ended questions,
essays, or debates
● Introduce project first
● Requires collaboration
● No right answer
● Need to learn content to have
more info to answer
● Reframe the question

8. Design your class
Project students will work for
● Anchors the unit
● Essential question
● Project information
● Include resources
● Balance of team and individual work
Unit content
● Playlist of content to learn
● Scaffold
● Create Hands-on Challenges to use content
Assessments
● Formative
● Metacognition
● Summative - Self and group

9. Collaboration
-Inclusion
-Equity
-Fluid groups
-Individual work informs
group work
-Modeling
-Teach how to rely on
each other as sources of
information
-Build check ins

10. More than content learning
● Problem-solving
● Decision-making
● Critical thinking
● Creative thinking
● Organization
● Communication
● Collaboration
● Leadership
● Self-direction
● Curiosity
● Ownership

11. Assessment
● Identify the skills
and content
required
● Formative
● Summative
● Self-assessment
● Peer assessment
● Metacognition

12. Reflection
● What have you learned
so far by doing this
project? What skills and
attributes have you
developed which you
can use elsewhere?
● How do you feel about
your project?
● What are you most
proud of?
● What are you least
proud of?
● What would you do
differently next time?

13. Issues
Teamwork
● Balance choice vs. choosing students
● Skills, ability, motivation
Motivation
● Grades
● Focus on content more than product
● Create challenges to meet
Focus on Skills
● Writing clearly
● Speaking clearly
● Organizing information

14. How to help students
Identify issues
● Areas of interest
● Concerns
● Skills they need
Process
● Scaffold
● Provide info to start
● Caution jumping to early decisions
Product
● What will it look like?
● Options
● Feedback and critique

15. Creating a Design Thinking project
What will students learn?
What can they create or solve?
What are the interests or passions?
How can they make an impact?
Provide settings and people that are
interesting. Focus on empathy.
Redesign the ___(situation)___
experience . Design a way for
___(specific group of people)___ to
better ___(situation)___ . How might we
help ___(achieve some goal)___?

16. Examples of Design Thinking project
● “Welcome to Middle School
challenge”
● “Design houses for animals”
● “Design a wallet for your partner”
● “Redesign the morning routine”
● “Determining rules to live by”
● “How might we tackle a problem our
community faces?”
● “Apply the history of immigration with
the problems of today”
● “Propose your own monument”
● “Create your own state”
Require questioning, empathy
(put yourself in another’s shoes),
and solving another’s problem.

17. Designing a unit or module
● What is a problem that they need to
solve that they can be engaged in?
● Provide the problem and the
parameters at the beginning of the
unit. Student work informs them of
the content.
● Identify content and activities they
work on to acquire the necessary
knowledge.
● Create hands-on challenges to put
the content into practice.
● Provide scaffolding and
differentiation as needed throughout.
● Encourage thinking differently,
brainstorming multiple ideas first

18. Biomolecule module

19. Design a Food Project

20. Design a Food Project

21. Cladogram Project

22. Ecological Issues/Tombstone project

23. Scientific Method

24. Greenspace Redesign

25. Greenspace Redesign

26. Biome “Amazing Race” Survival

27. Cell Model
Choose items to
represent cell
parts by matching
the structure or
the function of the
cell parts with the
materials that you
choose. Defend
your choice.

28. Mission to Mars

29. @TeachersFirst
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