Design Thinking: Improving Schools, Empowering Students

What is Design Thinking? Design Thinking for educators is a creative process that helps students and teachers design meaningful solutions in the classroom, at your school, and in your community. According to Thomas Riddle, Assistant Director of Roper Mtn. Science Center, “design thinking is a human-centered approach to problem solving that begins with developing empathy for those facing a particular challenge.” In a nutshell, design thinking is a problem solving framework that allows students and teachers to take action, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes.

In his article, Improving Schools Through Design Thinking, Riddle describes five main stages of Design Thinking that have been used in the business community, but can also be easily transferred to the education world:

1. Empathize - This is the foundation of design thinking. Empathy allows us to see and understand the needs of others. It forces us to look away from ourselves - seeing other viewpoints and demonstrating understanding towards those often differing views.
2. Define - Listen carefully to the problem at hand. Get input from those directly affected. Riddle explains, “Clearly defining the problem gives you a better chance at creating a clear solution.”
3. Ideate - This means to form an idea; to imagine or conceive. Oftentimes we call this the “brainstorming” phase. Students can be particularly innovative and excel at “thinking outside the box”.
4. Prototype - Putting the idea into a preliminary model - knowing that it may go through several changes and adaptations.
5. Test - Test the prototype and make adjustments. Be flexible and open to change.

Design Thinking can be a powerful tool for both students and schools overall. As educators and administrators, we too can use the design thinking process for learning and making improvements within our schools and communities. Riddle has an excellent follow up article on Edutopia titled Empowering Students with Design Thinking. Here he gives concrete examples of how he’s using design thinking with students.
Susie Wise, Director of the K12 Lab Network at the Stanford d.school, also notes that the last few years have shown an “explosion of interest in design thinking”. The spread of design thinking is showing up in both professional development opportunities for teachers and as challenges for students. Design Thinking in Schools provides a directory of schools and programs that use design thinking in the curriculum for K12 students.
Design thinking is a mindset. Your Pepper Professional Development Courses and Workshops can help you create a more engaged and active classroom that includes Design Thinking strategies and processes. We’re adding new courses and workshops regularly, so be sure to check them out.

STEAM = STEM + Arts

A couple of weeks ago we focused on the importance of creativity in the classroom - both for teachers and students. Creativity is not just reserved for arts education, but is widely being integrated throughout curriculum. Additionally, it’s a 21st century skill employers are looking for in its employees. Creativity - in the form of arts education, is making itself known in the world of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). There's a new letter in the acronym - A, for Arts - that changes STEM to STEAM. Many believe that educating our students in these areas will be crucial to both their future and the future of our country.

According to Edutopia article, Creativity is the Secret Sauce in STEM, “Researchers have found that play is important for productive thought. Playing with ideas also increases learning. We must encourage playing with concepts to nurture creativity in students. Playing with concepts provides multiple entry points and multiple ways of engagement.” STEAM proponents are all about creative thinking. Students who work and think scientifically must also work creatively and be willing to experiment and try new ideas and ways to make things work. Students must be comfortable with working old concepts in new ways. Careers for the 21st century will require creative, smart-thinking students.

Pepper offers a variety of Science courses to sharpen your STEM skills and allow for creative arts integration, including our Engineering K-2 course. Our Language Arts and Writing and Poetry courses also provide opportunity for integration into Science and Art. We would love to hear how our Pepper teachers are using courses to change the way they teach in the classroom.

Courses available through Pepper will provide a foundation for concepts that will allow teachers to implement a creative classroom approach. Check out our wide range of Pepper Courses and our Pepper Resource Library to further your own professional growth.

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Photo Credit: Terry Williams Graphic Art

The “E” in STEM: Engineering and Design for K-2

STEM, the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, has become an important topic in education circles. Many believe that educating our students in these areas will be crucial to both their future and the future of our country. When many think of STEM classes and activities they tend to think primarily of middle and high school courses. However, STEM education is vital to elementary learning as well. According to an article on WeAreTeachers, STEM: It’s Elementary, studies on STEM education have shown “that kids who experience STEM early through hands-on learning are the ones who will be best equipped to develop a strong understanding of STEM concepts as they get older.” This article provides four ways for teachers to get started with STEM in the elementary classroom:

• #1: Change Your Lens - Look at lessons and activities you’re already teaching and see how they can incorporate STEM principles.
• #2: Enlist a Village of STEM Educators - Work together. Collaboration with fellow teachers can ease the transition.
• #3: Integrate STEM Across the Curriculum - One of the goals of STEM education is that it is not taught separately, but is weaved throughout the all subjects.
• #4:  Give Kids More than Just Access to Technology - Students need to understand that technology is more than just a place to gather information, but can be an important tool for creating and designing.

Pepper has recently released a new course, Engineering Design - K-2, that will help early elementary teachers as they incorporate new standards in Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science (ETS) as a disciplinary core idea. This course focuses on the topic of Engineering Design as students ask questions, make observations, and gather information. Participants will work to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool. Course activities are divided into five features:

1. Big Question
2. Exploring the Evidence
3. Constructing Explanations
4. Comparing Explanations to Scientific Knowledge
5. Communicating and Justifying Explanations

Find out more about this course by viewing the Course Detail.

Your Pepper learning community can help you effectively implement STEM concepts and ETS standards. Check out our new Engineering Design - K-2 course as well as all our other Pepper Courses and our Resource Library as you learn with the collaborative support from other inspiring educators like you.  

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Pepper Resource Library Highlight - STEM Builder

What’s the value in the Pepper Resource Library? Having great resources in a convenient, easy to get to place. In a recent conversation about the Resource Library, I used the analogy that I could check out a Harry Potter book from any library, but the one up the street was the most convenient so that’s where I go. Pepper’s Resource Library is just like that. There are great resources all over the Internet, but teachers don’t have time to scour the Web for great resources. The value in Pepper’s Resource Library is that great resources are collected and categorized for educators in an easy to get to location.

We’ve been focusing on Science lately and a great resource available to teachers is STEM Builder. STEM Builder provides thousands digital resources in science, math, technology, and engineering in the form of of online animations, experiments, and videos. STEM Builder is focused on strengthening student vocabulary, conceptual understanding, and problem solving skills. Users can search for information in any of the STEM categories (science, math, technology, and engineering) or search by keyword, grade level, or standard. Teachers can also narrow down their searching by using the links across the top of the page which include: Guided Practice, Videos, Activities, Experiments, Games, Graphing Tools, Modeling, Demos, Virtual Reality, and Science Experiments. 

The site’s vocabulary tools are exceptionally strong with a dynamic visual component that aids users by having mouseovers or clicks to include additional images, labeling, and in some cases, animation. Many words have Spanish translation and some also contain audio. Teachers can use STEM Builder to preview online experiments, create self-paced math lessons, and find instructional videos for content teaching. Practice exercises and games are also available for teachers to use with students for re-teaching, follow-up, and challenge activities.

Be sure to visit and explore STEM Builder in Pepper’s Resource Library. Also, be on the lookout for new Science courses geared around the Next Generation Science Standards. You can see all of our Pepper course offerings on our website.

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STEM: Why it Matters

STEM is an education curriculum based on teaching students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  What makes STEM unique, however, is that rather than teach the four disciplines as separate subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning program with ties to real-world applications. According to the STEM Coalition, by 2020 there will be a demand for STEM professionals with over 1 million jobs in STEM-related fields.

STEM education is different from traditional math and science teaching in that is uses a blending learning approach. This approach shows students how science, math, engineering, and technology are central to everyday life and integrated into all that we do. According to an article from Live Science, “What is STEM education?”, the goal is to gain student interest in these fields so that they will want to pursue them as careers. STEM education begins in the elementary school with introductory courses and subject awareness. In middle school courses become more rigorous and students begin to explore career opportunities. By high school, students are focused on application and are exposed to career pathways and exploring post-secondary options.

According to the US Department of Education, “all young people should be prepared to think deeply and to think well so that they have the chance to become the innovators, educators, researchers, and leaders who can solve the most pressing challenges facing our nation and our world, both today and tomorrow.”

(US Dept. of ED)

Go to the Pepper Resource Library and visit STEM Builder for STEM curriculum resources. Be sure to check out all our Pepper course offerings.

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Finding the Right Math Content for your Common Core Aligned Lessons!

The good news is that there are already thousands of great resources to be found online for math teachers who want to create fantastic lessons that are aligned to CCSS. The bad news is that there are thousands of great resources out there! How should you sort, sift, and dig through them all to find the resources and lesson ideas that are exactly right for your students and your classroom?

Check out ck12.org, a website run by the CK-12 Foundation, a non-profit committed to creating and aggregating top-quality STEM content. They have developed a Common Core Math Standards browsing tool that allows teachers to browse the standards and find aligned concepts, and then mine free, vetted resources to build out lesson plans for those concepts.

It may take a bit of practice to get comfortable with the tool, but it's a powerful resource that can help teachers find exactly the content they want to teach!

CLICK HERE TO TAKE A LOOK!

Calling All Math Teachers—Upcoming Free Webinar on April 30th on Standards of Mathematical Practice!

Curious about the role of Standards of Mathematical Practice (SMPs) in Smarter Balanced Performance Assessments? Looking for more information about mathematics classroom practices on the ground? Look no further—and register for this free, 2-hour webinar led by Cathy Carroll of WestEd’s STEM program as she walks you through an overview of SMPs. The webinar will take place live on April 20, 2014, at 4 p.m. PST. Click here to register!

Can’t make it? Don’t worry—the webinar will be archived on the WestEd website for viewing anytime!