Inquiry- Design thinking!

Grade 6 Term 3 Inquiry! - "I Want To Live Forever!"

What is Design Thinking? - According to NoTosh

Design Thinking can be a powerful vehicle for deeper learning of content, more divergent thinking and building the thinking skills capacity of learners. Key to the process's success in learning, is that it provides the platform for learners to become problem finders. At a time when design thinking tends to come across as "shop" class and post-it notes, NoTosh have spent four years developing medium- and long-term professional development programmes with schools around the world, which marry design and education research with classroom practices that work in any part of curriculum. We've seen schools increase student engagement, content coverage and attainment thanks to the challenging way we frame design thinking and formative assessment, together, as a vehicle for creative and robust learning.

In schools, we use design thinking as a framework onto which we hang specific thinking skills to achieve specific learning tasks. The thinking skills are those identified by ongoing education research as having a more-than-average impact on student learning and outcomes. Teachers already practice many of these skills - so we help find consistency, share more internally, and identify what skills work best at which point in learning. Often, we work with schools to develop their own language to describe the design thinking process.

• Immersion: a deep and divergent period of research, observation and understanding issues from different perspectives. The resources, experiences and activities are initially curated by the teacher, and students take on independent and collaborative roles in bringing prior learning and experience to further deepen the context of learning. The concentration here is on transferring work and thinking normally done by the teacher - defining success criteria and learning objectives - to share it more with the student him- or herself.
• Synthesis: students deduce interesting gaps to explore, problems to solve or opportunities to solve, using the information they have gathered from the collective research of the class, and specific thinking skills, with an emphasis on making their thinking process visible.
• Ideation, Prototyping and Feedback: this cyclical process helps students create and test many potential ideas for showing understanding or solving a problem, rather than settling too early on "the right answer". This part of the design cycle help them to 'hold their ideas lightly' in order to solicit and receive early feedback. The emphasis is on thinking skills and mindsets that allow students to create early and often, adjusting the course of their learning with feedback from peers and the teacher.
• Implementation or Display: how do we celebrate the thinking of students in school - not just the finished products of learning, but the process that went into it? Here, we explore the role of sharing, not just setting, success criteria, and the scope for adjusting those criteria upwards as students progress in a project.

Click on this link to view the Inquiry Planner - Inquiry Planner Term 3



I Want  To Live Forever!

Immersion/Tuning in

 Week 1 - Physical Health

BTN - bitter sweet - the effects of sugar

Guest Speaker - Kris (Personal Trainer and Chef)

Photo chat

Week 2 - Spiritual Health

BTN - Dalai Lama

Guest Speaker - Jo (School Chaplin)

Appreciation Box

Click on this link to view the 6W Spiritual Health Padlet - Spiritual Health Padlet


Week 3 - Social Health
BTN - Cyber Bullying
Guest Speaker - Rachael Moloney
Writing - Explanations on a body system
Reflection on talk - Padlet social health padlet
Drama - Social health role play situations