Cultivate a Design Mindset Through ProcessOne great collaborative activity through process is designing a new park for your community. First, students are asked to think about all the groups that would use a park they need to consider the multiple points of views including, but not limited to, toddlers, teenagers, seniors, dog owners, and those with physical disabilities. In considering the different points of views through interviews and conversations, students can begin to define how they address the many points of view within a budgetary constraint. As they work through the process using a design lens, groups collaboratively iterate through the stages, getting feedback from their designs and ideas. Through the process they need to use skills from Math, English, Social Studies, Physical Education, Careers, and even Science as they consider such variables as the environmental impacts and the concerns of those who value the natural environment. Activities such as this put the much needed “why” in to the curriculum, allowing middle school students to see the connections and experience them in ways that are engaging and grounded in real-world problem solving (Alley, 2019; Bishop & Harrison, 2021; D. F. Brown & Knowles, 2014). Learning through the successes and failures of process allows for not only the cultivation of a designer mindset, but also the ownership over the learning journey. Ultimately valuing process over product, with learning about self and applying knowledge as the focus, not the regurgitation of facts.
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