Today, students from Studio D9 took a trip to Catwaba Trail Elementary school to work with their Quest 4th graders on a design challenge. I met Mrs. Thompson at a professional development I did on design thinking and she and I made plans for our students to collaborate. We liked the idea of it benefiting both my students as well as hers.
I planned for students to redesign the report card, which is a challenge that I had previously given to D9 early on in the semester. I wanted the material of the challenge to be understandable for the 4th graders, but still challenging enough to require them to work through our design process.
Charles, Kayshon, Emma, and Chelsea all came with me to Catawba Trail and led their own project groups. I must take a minute and applaud these students for their great work today. They were wonderful leaders and led by example, working with their group and modeling all our techniques while teaching the 4th graders, as well. They were professional and the students in QuEST noticed, and commended them for their work.
When we arrived, the 4th graders had already brainstormed what they thought should be included in a report card. They were very thorough, and the students and I were all really impressed with how well thought out their list was. The students were all inclusive with things like grades, progress, attendance, social behaviors, and communication all included in their list.
Next, our students each joined a group and were then given a student for whom they would design a report card. Each group was given a current report card and interview, complete with picture, from their student. Each interview contained information such as their likes and dislikes, educational goals, strengths, weaknesses, and what they would like to see on their report cards. The QuEST students read through those interviews and highlighted information they thought might help them create their new designs, and this completed the Gather Stage of their project.
To move on to Glean, each group had to decide which information they highlighted, along with information they had compiled onto class lists before we arrived, was the most important to include in their new design. Everyone wrote down their ideas and after we had some time to read over our entire group's input, we chose a few things to focus on. After each group had some 'non-negotiables', we began a silent prototyping time. Students were quick to identify this as the Generate stage, because they were coming up with their first ideas/drafts of a new report card for their student.
We reminded students that during the Generate stage, wild ideas are good things, not to worry about whether or not they thought they could bring their idea to life, not to criticize other people's ideas, and to be open-minded. After a great production stage, students had some good ideas that incorporated information they had gathered about their user. We talked quickly about how to critique someone else's work, and reminded the students to always be kind, specific, and helpful whenever they are giving their input on someone else's work.
To make their feedback more honest, we made it anonymous by allowing students to write their comments on post-it notes and place the post-it on the draft. We each took turns writing our feedback about each design on the post-its and took some more time later to make clarifications on feedback, ask questions about comments that had been made, and decide as a group which parts of our individual design would we pull into our first group effort.
These guys were feedback wizards! Their feedback was to the point, specific, kind, and helpful. I was really impressed by how well they were not only able to give criticism, but also how well they received it.
Wrapping up the Generate stage, we found we were out of time. Students in Mrs. Thompson's class were going to move on to the Gauge and Go stages without us for now, but we made a point to say that we'd love to see their final designs. I had such a great experience working with those bright 4th graders. They are students I'd be proud to have in Studio D any day! My students also had a great time, and loved getting to share their love for the design process with other, albeit younger, designers. Thanks so much to Catawba Trail Elementary, Mrs. Thompson, and the QuEST students for having us today. You guys are awesome!
