Houghton, MI – University Innovation Fellows nationwide are changing the way students think. UI Fellows at Michigan Technological University and across the country are teaching a fresh mindset known as “design thinking,” a methodology that helps users identify human-centered problems and imagine and implement innovative solutions through experimentation.
Michigan Tech’s UI Fellows introduced design thinking to incoming first-year students during last fall’s orientation week. Now they’re reaching down into the elementary and middle schools, offering after-school classes called “Discovering Your Creative Confidence and Inner Maker.”
Magann Dykema, a second-year civil engineering student, taught the class for third through fifth graders. Brad Turner, a third-year software engineering major, taught sixth through eighth graders.
How do you teach 8, 9 and 10-year olds design thinking?
Focusing on the word “define” during week 2, Dykema had her students define a design problem they see in every-day life. After exploring some every-day problems, Dykema had her students imagine that the Portage Lift Bridge was falling down, and the students had to define some problems that might arise because of this. Then their assignment was to redesign the bridge to include one new element that solved a specific problem they had identified. One of the elementary school team’s redesigns ran a road under the bridge, to accommodate snowmobiles in winter and ATVs in warmer weather.
For the full story, see http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2016/february/university-innovation-fellows-bring-design-thinking-campus-school-children.html
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