“ Designed By Dawson ” Creating Changemakers Through Our Authentic Design Program

By Rich Lehrer, Director of Academic Innovation & Design

Real-world problem solving, critical thinking, student agency…. Schools know they should be teaching these things, but how do they effectively incorporate these crucial, “future-ready” skills into their curriculum? At Dawson, our design program teaches students how to use design to make the world a better place while providing authentic opportunities to practice doing so. Take a trip around our school and you might see kindergarten students creating LEGO prosthetics, third graders designing and laser cutting signs for our organic garden, sixth-grade students developing games for Early Childhood buddies, and Middle School Tech for Good students solving problems posted by Dawson teachers to their Problem Bank. Dawson students are learning how to think and act like designers, becoming changemakers in the process.

Last year, we launched our K-4 Design Lab and implemented a Lower School design curriculum. Students from kindergarten through the fourth grade spend time in the Design Lab each cycle learning the “tools of the trade” and applying them within the context of engaging and genuine Project-Based Learning projects. The K-4 Design Lab program gives students the opportunities to experience the power of the iterative design process, become familiar with a variety of design technology devices and their applications, use the design process and technology to solve real-world problems, create a positive impact on their community, and learn to love the act of designing. Each grade level has its own specific focus on a different design theme that explores the use of various design technology instruments and equipment all related to real-world problem-solving.

In addition to building our Lower School students’ design skills and mindsets, the K-4 Design Lab program aims to prepare students for design technology experiences embedded throughout the Middle School. A suite of electives and insights classes such as fifth-grade design lab, sixth-grade game design, seventh-grade genius hour, and two seventh and eighth-grade design technology electives, Tech for Good and 3D modeling, allow students to continue their design journeys throughout their later years at Dawson. Tech for Good and genius hour specifically provide authentic problem-solving opportunities for students to learn how to improve schools, communities, and the world.

In addition to spending time iterating ever-progressing solutions to problems, students further explore the concept of “changemaking”, an approach through which they learn to develop agency and see themselves as agents of positive change through the solving of immediate problems within their school community.

Dawson’s scaffolded design program allows students across divisions to first experience design from no- and low-tech perspectives, and then later prepares them to use CAD programs to design and fabricate their work using emerging high-technology tools such as vinyl cutters, laser cutters, and 3D printers. The common thread woven throughout the fabric of this program is our newly created Dawson Design Process. Design and science teachers collaborated on the creation of this process to ensure consistency in how our STEM teachers educate students on using design to solve problems. The kids are encouraged to see problems as “design opportunities” and are taught to thoughtfully and logically approach the solution to problems with positivity, empathy, empowerment, and enthusiasm.

After investigating problems and brainstorming ideas, students propose potential solutions and enter an iterative cycle of improvement, during which they revise their designs, test them, receive feedback on their efforts, and then redesign until completion. Once students are satisfied, the finished designs are openly shared with their clients and the community. Public exhibitions of student work help us understand more completely what students know and can do, and throughout the entire Project-Based Learning experience, students are asked to reflect upon their work, how they performed as learners, and how they can continue to Level Up.

In addition to the “hard skills’’ students learn through this work – sketching, modeling, CAD design, digital fabrication – the fact that they often collaborate with actual clients imbues the experience with a legitimacy that encourages them to take pride in and strive for excellence in their work. Furthermore, they develop important habits of mind such as persistence, resilience, collaboration, and risk-taking. The potential to connect this work to our broader community holds great promise, and we look forward to extending our “problem-finding” exploits beyond Dawson’s school walls and increasing parent understanding of the work our students are doing. Such progress included a special Parent University this past October when we opened our K-4 Design Lab to a group of parents interested in learning more about our digital design and fabrication endeavors. The adults became the students, guided through the same processes their children enjoy on a daily basis to create introductory designs using Dawson’s lab equipment.

The Dawson Design Process

Two recent Tech for Good student-designed projects do a particularly excellent job of illustrating the power of our Dawson Design Process in action. In the first, Tech for Good novice students were presented with a problem: Mr. Lehrer’s thirsty cat, Athena, was constantly knocking over his family’s cups of water. The students’ design challenge was to therefore create a system that prevents this from happening. After conducting research, students brainstormed solutions, proposed one they could design, and created cardboard prototypes that were tested by a swinging bag of LEGOs. Once they had a functioning conventional prototype, they turned their attention toward translating their ideas into CAD designs, which they fabricated using a combination of 3D-printed holders and laser-cut supports. The following photos show seventh-grade student Shaan’s “Spill Protector”.

In a second project, a more experienced group of eighth-grade Tech for Good students undertook the problem that our school was lacking an adequate way to showcase students’ 3D-design work. Cami, Genevieve, and Pepper used the Dawson Design Process to generate and refine their idea of a mountable shelf and created a cardboard prototype to test. They CAD designed using the program Tinkercad, and after more than five laser-cut iterations, the group arrived at a functional solution. They then fabricated and mounted 12 shelves that allowed our 3D-modeling students to effectively showcase their work during Dawson’s Middle School visual arts show in November.

At Dawson, we believe one of the best ways we can prepare our students for an uncertain future is to teach them to meet challenges head-on with confidence, competency, and positivity. Our authentic design program, therefore, provides students with the skills, dispositions, and knowledge that allow them to make a constructive difference in their lives, schools, community, and world…not at some future, undefined point in their lives but right now! From kindergarten through the eighth grade, we teach students how to approach problems; give them authentic, meaningful, and public opportunities to practice solving problems; and encourage them to grow as reflective learners open to feedback. We believe strongly that a child who is not afraid of a challenge learns the value of improving upon their work, sees the importance of persisting and pushing through to achieve something important, and repeatedly experiences what it means and feels like to truly solve a problem is a child prepared to make a difference. In short, a “changemaker”.

Learn more about Dawson’s Problem Bank by scanning the QR Code:

See how Shaan created his “Athena Proof” Spill Protector and how Pepper, Genevieve, and Cami created their 3D Modeling Display Shelves using the Dawson Design Process by scanning the QR code: