Design Thinking is a process for designing something to solve a problem. It shares a lot of similarities to the Engineering Design Process you might learn in a STEM class and the Scientific Method you learn in science. However, it tends to work really well with creating solutions to problems that impact humans, also known as Human-Centered Design
In this activity, you’ll work with a team to identify a problem, come up with ideas to solve it, make a prototype of your best idea, test it out and ultimately share it. Your goal is to make a positive impact on the problem you choose.
When you have completed this activity you will:
be able to use research skills to understand real-world problems and develop ideas to solve them [Innovative Designer, Knowledge Constructor]
know how to use a design process to solve a problem [Innovative Designer]
be able to create and test prototypes to improve on a design [Innovative Designer]
be able to choose appropriate tools to organize and manage a process with team members [Innovative Designer, Global Collaborator]
be able to choose appropriate tools to share my ideas with a target audience [Innovative Designer, Creative Communicator]
understand Tinkercad design software basics [Empowered Learner]
know how to use Tinkercad software to design their own invention that solves a problem or changes how we interact with the world [Innovative Designer]
know that technology is something that solves a problem or changes how we interact with the world [Knowledge Constructor]
Have you ever had a complex problem that you needed to solve? This could be a math problem, science experiment, an essay you need to write, and coding and game design. It could even be as simple as planning the best route to school or baking your favorite cookies!
Computational thinking can be used to take a complex problem, understand what the problem is and develop possible solutions to solve or explain it.
Students will complete Quests to learn about the four stages of computational thinking:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Digital storytelling is one of the greatest ways to share and present your story using a variety of media to enhance it. Digital stories can include images, photos, audio, and video. Your task in this Thing is to research digital story examples and think about the story you want to tell. You will also begin to think about the media you might want to use.
create an original story with different media elements [Knowledge Constructor]
In Art, students create animations, interactive artwork, photograph filters, and other exciting, artistic projects.
Art is a complete theme designed to be completed over eight, 45-75 minute, sessions. For each Activity, students will watch a series of videos and create one coding project with opportunities to personalize their work using “Add-Ons”, which are mini-coding challenges that build on top of the core project.
Be sure to review the Materials tab for the lesson plan, starter guide, and more.
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In Game Design, students learn basic video game coding concepts by making different types of games, including racing, platform, launching, and more!
Game Design is a complete theme designed to be completed over eight, 45-75 minute, sessions. For each activity, students will watch a series of videos and create one coding project with opportunities to personalize their work using “Add-Ons”, which are mini-coding challenges that build on top of the core project.
Students will use the design circuit boards and create an app of their own design.
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Students take what they've learned through Unit 6 Chapter 1 and develop an app of their own design that uses the circuit board to output information.
To conclude this unit, students design a recommendation engine based on data that they collect and analyze from their classmates. After looking at an example of a recommendation app, students follow a project guide to complete this multi-day activity. In the first several steps, students choose what choice they want to help the user to make, what data they need to give the recommendation, create a survey, and collect information about their classmates' choices. They then interpret the data and use what they have learned to create the recommendation algorithm. Last, they use their algorithms to make recommendations to a few classmates. Students perform a peer review and make any necessary updates to their projects before preparing a presentation to the class.
Students, working with a partner or team will brainstorm physical devices they wish to prototype. Students have the option to design a new creation or recreate a device they have found in the "real world". Students will complete a planning guide to determine the resources (physical and digital) they will need to create their prototype. Students will design a user interface (typically an app or circuit board) that may control some output device (like a circuit board). It will be necessary for students to develop pseudocode or algorithms to aid in the coding process. Students will need to complete the problem-solving process during this lesson plan which will include testing a revising the prototype.
In this lesson, teams test out their paper prototypes with other members of the class. With one student role playing the computer, one narrating, and the rest observing, teams will get immediate feedback on their app designs which will inform the next version of their app prototypes.
Having developed, tested, and gathered feedback on a paper prototype, teams now move to App Lab to build the next iteration of their apps. Using the drag-and-drop Design Mode, each team member builds out at least one page of their team's app, responding to feedback that was received in the previous round of testing.
Building on the screens that the class designed in the previous lesson, teams combine screens into a single app. Simple code can then be added to make button clicks change to the appropriate screen.
Teams run another round of user testing, this time with their interactive prototype. Feedback gathered from this round of testing will inform the final iteration of the app prototypes.
The class plans and builds original games using the project guide from the previous two lessons. Working individually or in pairs, the class plans, develops, and gives feedback on the games. After incorporating the peer feedback, the class shares out the completed games.
Up to this point, the users that the class has considered have all been remote, and the only information from users has come through text or role-playing. Now the class will rely on each other as potential users, and pairs will get to interview each other to identify needs that could be addressed by developing an app.
Using the interview information from the previous lesson, the class comes up with app ideas to address the needs of their users. To express those ideas and test out their effectiveness, each student creates and tests paper prototypes of their own.
This lesson continues the introduction to HTML tags, this time with headers. The class practices using header tags to create page and section titles and learns how the different header elements are displayed by default. Next, the class plans how to organize their content on the personal web pages that will be built across the unit and begins the first page of the project.
This lesson takes a step back from creating the personal website to talk about personal information people choose to share digitally. The class begins by discussing what types of information are good to share with other people, then looks at several sample social media pages to see what types of personal information could be shared intentionally or unintentionally. Finally, the class comes up with a set of guidelines to follow when putting information online.
The class works in groups to design aluminum foil boats that will support as many pennies as possible. At the end of the lesson, groups reflect on their experiences with the activity and make connections to the types of problem-solving they will be doing for the rest of the course.
To conclude the study of the problem-solving process and the input/output/store/process model of a computer, the class proposes apps designed to solve real-world problems. This project is completed across multiple days and culminates in a poster presentation highlighting the features of each app. The project is designed to be completed in pairs though it can be completed individually.
