ADST: Design Thinking/Human Centred Design Thinking

The ADST Curriculum, Design Thinking and Human-Centred Design Thinking all support learning through the development and practice of hands-on problem-solving. In the inspirational story about King Middle School in Maine (PBS Newshour) shows how the school has designed their curriculum learning around project-based problem solving to engage students. Initially, the students expressed apprehension with this new project-based problem-solving curriculum but as the story unfolds you see the students going from a fixed mindset about their learning capabilities to challenging themselves to explore other ways of thinking. In developing an internalized design process student, experience a constant evaluation and revision process. Through this revision process, students experienced the culture of receiving feedback and making mistakes and the knowledge that taking risks is part of the learning journey. This culture of revision removes students' fear of failure and exposes students to try new things they previously thought they could never thus develop a growth mindset. I learned that it is important to consider when using “maker thinking” or “maker spaces” that you bring human-centred thinking by adding other materials and technics to incorporate “Plus- Up” thinking to cover all aspects of the ADST curriculum (Averill & Bernie, 2017).

References: Averill, S. (n.d.). ADST Design Thinking K-9 [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/400420774. Averill, S. & Bernie, S. (2017). Applied Design Skills and Technologies K-9. ISSUU platform. https://issuu.com/av3rill/docs/applied_design_skills_and_technolog.

PBS Newshour. (2013, May 6). Maine school engages kids with problem-solving challenges. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i17F-b5GG94.