Kevin Brookhouser

Some of you may know that one of the central components in my Code+Design class at York is the design thinking process. For those unfamiliar with that, it is a system developed out of Stanford University and other design studios to solve problems. This is Wikipedia’s definition : Design thinking encompasses processes such as context analysis, problem finding and framing, ideation and solution generating, creative thinking, sketching and drawing, modeling and prototyping, testing and evaluating. Core features of design thinking include the abilities to: resolve ill-defined or 'wicked' problems adopt solution-focused strategies use abductive and productive reasoning employ non-verbal, graphic/spatial modeling media, for example, sketching and prototyping. Wicked problems Design thinking is especially useful when addressing problems which are wickedly difficult, in the sense of being ill-defined or tricky, not malicious. Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber contrasted these with "t...

Last year, in an attempt to open our minds to what a 20% Project could be, we took part in The Bad Idea Factory. Here's the original post . Since then, I 've been sharing TBIF with other teachers, and others have found it to be a useful activity including Karl Lindgren-Streicher . This week was TBIF week for York 10th graders again. Here is a sample of some of their worst ideas.

Over the past five years, I have spent a great deal of time shifting 20% of my class from being teacher-centered to student-centered. That was a fail. I've written a fair amount about the 20% Project  and why I believed that it was important to have class time when the teacher is off center stage while shifting emphasis on the students. This model energized and liberated many of my students, while it confused and terrified others. Either way, I was committed to establishing a project where students can take on challenges and solve problems any way they saw fit. As a result, my students are currently wrapping up some amazing projects. The problem, though, is that a 20% Project should NOT be a student-centered project. It should be a human- centered project. OK, I don't really like the term human-centered  either. Last I checked, most students and teachers at least resemble humans. I mean, what else would it be, pistachio-centered ? I'm reminded of when writers begin a ...