Eighth grade science teachers, Amanda Siegel and Stephanie Newblanc decided to do something different with the Flyoffs this year. They have been learning about Design Thinking and decided to integrate what they learned into the 8th grade aviation unit.
Using students' Chromebooks and the teacher dashboard application Hapara, the teachers shared out design process logs and assigned students to work in small groups to build a custom plane and document their learning. Students recorded brainstorming, prototyping, design inspiration, daily process logs, flight logs, and goals for their next steps. They used their Chromebooks to collaborate on this research and documentation and the teachers were able to track each group's progress through shared documents. Mrs. Siegel and Mrs. Newblanc found that the students were fully engaged with their learning during this project. They were able to work together to troubleshoot issues and solve problems and the Chromebooks allowed ease of access to research information, assignment documentation and ongoing teacher feedback that help direct their learning experience.
