Understanding Life in 1800 When You are 12
https://www.pinterest.com/Lugsail/merchant-ship-1750-1800/ This week I am wrapping up a project with my 7th graders that is about traveling to Texas in the year 1800. All of my design students take either French or Spanish and I have them in corresponding “delegations” with a student governor. Within the delegations are groups of students (3 to 6 in […]
Design Thinking or PBL, A Chicken/Egg Scenario? My journey.
http://www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/chicken_and_egg_problem_view_evolution-107927 Last night I missed a great conversation during a Twitter chat hosted by #MeritKCI and involving my friends who frequent the #dtk12chat. As I was scrolling through the tweets from the chat I noticed some discussion of PBL and how different Design Thinking (DT) is from PBL. A blog post that was referenced (and […]
Using An Old Challenge to Teach Project Management
http://goo.gl/AK0vs When I talk with teachers about getting started with PBL I often tell them to think of something they have seen done before and take the idea and make it their own. But I also caution them to think of their content first – what are the verbs and nouns in their standards? Unless […]
I Go From Project Idea to Project Launch (PBL with a DT Feel)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/ I’ve just completed a pretty darn nice 2 weeks off for the holidays. Tomorrow I head back to 2 days of PD before the students come back to me on Wednesday. I’ve been spending the last couple of hours fine tuning my first design project of the year. This is my first year of […]
Building Empathy Through Interviews
www.floridamemory.com/items/show/32039 7th graders are all over the map when it comes to emotions. So, on one level, you might think that it isn’t hard to get them to develop empathy. But how many of your students, at any grade level, have conducted interviews to gain knowledge of their interviewee? My first semester at Meridian school […]
Early Forays Into Empathy (7th Grade)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/apelad/ Today my 7th graders created questions about “Empathy.” This was their first week of school and today was the second day of class for them (they are on an A/B Block schedule). As a Design class I want them understanding the idea of Empathy. As an International Baccalaureate (IB) school the students are expected […]