ImagineIT Timeline: Spring 2016
I can’t believe it’s been over five months since I’ve implemented my ImagineIT project. As I re-read my last reflection, I am encouraged about the direction we are going. Last semester, I had difficulty of balancing my duties as a technology teacher, technology coordinator, and graduate student. I don’t foresee this being fixed right away, but hope to have a handle on everything in the near future.
For the past five months, my students have been doing engineering design challenges from our partnership with Northwestern and through me. Through these challenges, my students have been introduced to the design thinking process. As we proceed through my ImagineIT project, I hope my students have a better grasp on what it means to be a maker. For this next semester, I’m hoping my students will start to think of their own design challenge problems in the world and start thinking of ways to solve those problems. Now that I have built a backbone to their knowledge of making, I want to enrich their experiences this semester by offering a deeper level of understanding in each of the different stages of the design thinking process.
Over the next several months, I envision my students taking charge of their learning. I will no longer have to be the lead teacher and my students will begin to start asking each other questions before looking for me as source of all information. I hope to have my students grow in their thinking in the design thinking process and I hope for my students to develop their own prototypes of product designs that solve problems in their every day life. In the end, my students will showcase their learning and experience at our STEM fair in April. Beyond this project, I hope to have students who are design engineers who look at problems and have the gumption to work with one another to solve these issues.
For the past five months, my students have been doing engineering design challenges from our partnership with Northwestern and through me. Through these challenges, my students have been introduced to the design thinking process. As we proceed through my ImagineIT project, I hope my students have a better grasp on what it means to be a maker. For this next semester, I’m hoping my students will start to think of their own design challenge problems in the world and start thinking of ways to solve those problems. Now that I have built a backbone to their knowledge of making, I want to enrich their experiences this semester by offering a deeper level of understanding in each of the different stages of the design thinking process.
Over the next several months, I envision my students taking charge of their learning. I will no longer have to be the lead teacher and my students will begin to start asking each other questions before looking for me as source of all information. I hope to have my students grow in their thinking in the design thinking process and I hope for my students to develop their own prototypes of product designs that solve problems in their every day life. In the end, my students will showcase their learning and experience at our STEM fair in April. Beyond this project, I hope to have students who are design engineers who look at problems and have the gumption to work with one another to solve these issues.
