Design-Minded Thinking Across Content Areas

not need constant head pats. A designer moves forward with a well-thought-out plan, and when problems appear, a designer evolves the design to adjust to those problems. A designer still asks for help and works collaboratively. If anything, a designer might need a subtle nod and smile from the teacher at the start.

Once you feel your students have embraced being design minded, you can start throwing curveballs at them in the middle of their build to see just how flexible they can be. If they have been building cardboard arcade games and you’ve noticed all the games seem fairly static (nothing on the games moves), add a new requirement like this: “All games must have some moving component.” Say nothing more and let them discover; unless you’re giving them robotics kits or something (which would be really cool), this means cutting slits in the cardboard and having someone hide behind or beneath the game to move a piece back and forth. These curveballs, or challenges, ensure students are always thinking flexibly and actively and, thus, learning.

Thinking Like a Designer

It is our job to point out what the students have done and use it later in other subjects. Iteration and revision are essential parts of the learning process (Berger et al., 2014; Schlechty, 2002).

Design-Minded Thinking Across Content Areas

There is academic value in the mess. The build phase is about as far away from largegroup direct instruction as you can get. Some of your teacher colleagues will not get what is happening in the room. I have had conversations with teachers where I sat down and explained all the thinking behind every step of what happens in my room (basically the nickel version of this book). One teacher replied, “Oh! I thought you all were just, you know, building stuff because it’s fun in there.” I worked next door to that teacher for years prior to this conversation. After the conversation, she was much more open to trying new stuff.

Some people will not see the academic value in the mess. It is up to each person to decide how much the mess bothers them. The principal is the only person who needs to get the purpose as a whole and understand teachers are in control of their room, even when they’re not in control; principals can make or break the project time. The guardians around students need to understand what’s happening, so spend time during parent conferences having students show off what they are building. Most parents love nothing more than seeing their child excited to show off something they’ve done at school.

If this process is truly student driven, teachers do not interfere even if they want to. I specifically mean teachers don’t interfere with designs and plans, but also, remember rule 10: don’t forget to teach (page 62). The goal is to find a sweet spot between chaos and control, between play and productive learning. The following sections detail how the build phase in the design process translates across content areas.

English Language Arts

The first official five-paragraph essay students write is unclear, disorganized, and in dire need of an editor and a citation check. I teach fourth grade as I write this, and by fourth grade, some students already think they can’t write. They can’t see writing as creation. Your job is to help students see they are creating something when they write. They are building with words (Stockman, 2016). Once students can connect a blueprint to a build, they have the pathways to connect an outline to a finished essay. They have done the process, and they have a better understanding of the work it takes to go from one to the other.

Mathematics

There is confusion the first time students divide fractions. As with making measurements, the mental models needed for dividing fractions can be difficult to develop (Carpenter et al., 2015). During this time, there is hair pulling and tear shedding, gnashing of teeth and rending of workbook pages, not to mention how the students react to it. In the build phase, my students learn they can both literally and abstractly construct mathematics problems; they can take the problem-solving design they came up with and give it form. Mathematics stops being this abstract thing and becomes something students can see on paper or create with manipulatives. Anyone who has taught adding or subtracting fractions (let us leave multiplying or dividing aside, because who has the time?) knows we all start by drawing fraction bars. That is building the problem. Even if you say, “No, it’s not, because I did fraction bars before reading this brilliant, wonderful book,” that just means the soul of a design-minded teacher is within you. It means the best way to teach something is already by using design thinking, and the design in this case is drawing a fraction bar to represent one whole, then drawing lines (or cutting out pieces) to represent fractions. Your students are making something. Not all design thinking involves big projects, remember. Design mindedness describes where your head is at.

STEAM

The first science experiment students will try in my class is a baking soda volcano, which teaches them exactly nothing about science, experiments, or volcanoes. But the build phase helps my students see what a science experiment could be and gives them the confidence to make something worth testing. My students have tested regular fourthgrade things like how a plant grows with x, y, and z (variables such as type of soil, amount