My experience teaching design in the IB MYP program continues to inform the way I develop instructional design (and finds a way to creep into my everyday outside of the teaching profession) because it serves as a framework for problem solving through identification and ideation. When we're tasked with finding solutions to large problems, the seemingly-insurmountable is often best approached by breaking things down into smaller parts, or what we call decomposition in the computational thinking field.
At the beginning of my teaching career, I didn't realize that the design process was inextricably linked to problem solving. It seems so obvious now, but design as a term felt like something that was used to chase an aesthetic ideal instead of unlocking solutions for problems. I was conflating the terms. Design was for artists, not engineers, right?
What has cemented the notion that design is about both solutions and aesthetic presentation is the concept of human-centred design. Design has become a place where we interact with our environment in an intentional way, leveraging the beauty of solutions to improve our world at the nexus of our interaction with natural spaces and each other. Any given problem might have many solutions, but the elegance and economy of those solutions could vary wildly.
Problems and design challenges emerge from contexts as varied as the solutions they require, so inspiring students to rise to the challenge of design will be about making the problems relevant to their context. The re:volt challenge presenting at King Middle School in Portland, Maine tasked students to find a way to leverage the untapped energy resources of their local environment in design-thinking solutions. The human-centred perspective of this challenge was about more than simply designing for design's sake. It asked the students to imagine solutions for people who were without access to energy abundance. A cross-curricular approach started with empathy, akin to the language of BC's own ADST curriculum. The students interviewed in the video describe their experiences of achievement and empowerment through the lens of making a difference for others in the world.
For successful design projects to take hold in our own school contexts, students should have a voice in determining the design parameters (including the problem to be solved) to help foster a space of empathy and connect them directly to their learning, their community, and their process.
Works Cited Averill, Sandra. “ADST Design Thinking K-9.” Vimeo, 24 March 2021, https://vimeo.com/400420774.
Averill, Sandra, and Stacey Bernier. Applied Design Skills and Technologies K-9. 2017. Accessed 5 July 2021.
Government of British Columbia, Ministry of Education. Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies 8. British Columbia BC's Curriculum. curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/adst/8/core. Accessed 4 July 2021.
PBS Newshour. “Maine School Engages Kids With Problem-Solving Challenges.” YouTube, commentary by John Tulenko, 6 May 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=i17F-b5GG94.
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