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Our students were stars on the day of the final pitch! We couldn't have been more proud and awed by their professionalism. Despite their nerves every student spoke publicly with confidence and pride in their work. Our teams supported one another and even showed enthusiasm and curiosity for their competitors' presentations as well. In addition they all looked absolutely beautiful all dressed up! I texted Mr. Lawson during our morning and couldn't place enough exclamation marks on my notes of wow to him! While each team performed wonderfully, we had one team--Iris, Patton and Riley-- that was announced as advancing to the next competition on Friday February 27!!! This is so exciting!

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Students presented their ideas during our visit to the Careerline Tech Center. Our team was able to receive feedback on how to articulate their ideas so that the solution is clear.

This experience helped students prepare for the presentations with parents and for the competition.

While students admitted to being nervous to be in front of other adults and high school aged students, they felt like they received great feedback...which allowed them to highlight at few areas of their presentations as well as "talk less" in some areas.

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Sometimes students feel bored or lonely at lunch. Suddenly your principal sets up the Dance Max 3000. Using the Name Randomizer 2000, students are paired up on the dance mat ready to dance mystical magic! This dance off allows you to meet new students in your school; helps you feel entertained during lunch; and connects you with others through a fun shared experience. If you happened to be called by the Name Randomizer 2000 and you don’t want to dance, that is ok! You can come and cheer on your peers!

The dance max 3000 is what you need. This was created after many interviews and brainstorming. Common themes from our stakeholders were social connections built through competition, music, shared experiences, and movement.

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There are a few parts to the Mind Mingle Maze. The first is the name randomizer. This would choose students in grades 2-4 to be partnered up. If students were picked, they would complete the maze with new peers or they may choose to cheer teams. Isn't that a-MAZE-ing?

We have carefully considered students with disabilities. There are ramps for persons with disabilities so they can participate in the maze. There will be safety precautions  to make sure everyone is safe. Examples include rubber flooring, a harness for the rock wall and arrow lights that would show the students the way out of the maze if they take too long.

Lastly, if younger students are picked, fourth grade safeties could be placed within the maze at hard spots in order to help the younger students.

The materials we are going to use are wood and concrete structure. We also are going to use rubber flooring. We don't want anyone getting hurt.

Mind Mingle Maze improves social connection because it has obstacles that require teamwork. Teammates would rely on one another because they would need help getting over obstacles, swimming through the ball pits, and dodging cat lazers. This experience would increase cooperation among students. Students would need self control to successfully get through the maze with a teammate.

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The Inspiration Station Interactive Wall will be in the hallways in order to provide well-being and social connections among students in our elementary school. If a student is feeling down or needs a break from class they could go to the interactive wall and hang out with another classmate or create by themselves. (Students would have a time limit from their teacher of 8-10 minutes.)

The Inspiration Station Interactive Wall would have several panels. One section would be a marble maze. The students would use different pieces of tubes to attach to the wall and send a marble down. This section could include Rube Goldberg type challenges. Additionally a Lego panel could be added for students to use their imagination!

Another panel would be a Tetris wall. Students would especially like this because they play other games like Roblox and Minecraft in which you need building and math skills. Other panels could include games for partners like Tic Tac Toe and Simon says. In Simon Says the wall will light up a color, students would then have to tap the color and follow the pattern.

Lastly, the Inspiration Station Wall would have a compliment section with sticky notes. This would help students feel like they belong because school mates would be sharing affirmations for others.

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Following our interviews, students shared their notes with a partner. They remarked on themes and trends. Students then shared in a whole group setting and we recorded repeated phrases, words and ideas shared by our interviewees.

Students spent 10 minutes developing solutions that could benefit our interviewees as well as anyone that could share a public space. Proudly, our students generated 96 ideas!

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Interview Process & Principles in Design Thinking - EduShort

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Interview Process & Principles in Design Thinking - EduShort

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Students viewed this short video on the Interview Process and Principles in Design Thinking. Next, they practiced interviewing one another. The process prepared us for some in person and phone interviews with community members. Students brainstormed stakeholders that we could interview: Fleetwood Furniture partners; a nurse; a lawyer; a teacher; a child psychologist, and students!

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Student interviews with stakeholders.

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During our first day together, we jumped on a bus and headed to Grandville Robotics and Engineering Center to learn about our West Michigan Challenge. Students learned the expectations, design process, and saw the high energy around this exciting Academy experience. We enjoyed participating as guests at the Student Tech Showcase.

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During the observation stage we took time getting to know one another through team building activities such as: "Instagram Challenges," creating a social contract and taking a Creative DNA assessment.

Lastly, we introduced the driving question and launched into the investigation stage.

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Front Row: Riley, Nate, Patton, Iris

Second Row: Adelyn, Smith, Liam, Olivia, Gwen, Ellie

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Fleetwood Furniture

Alan Rheault, Matt Marzolf, Mark Vander Veen, Phil Brechting

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I loved the fresh baked cookies from the culinary class at the tech center! -Smith

We enjoyed the field trips to the Robotics Center and Career Line Tech Center. -Liam, Adelyn, Smith and Nate

I liked the extra learning! -Adelyn

The teamwork challenges with classmates were fun. I liked the pool noodle challenge and chair challenge. -Olivia

I enjoyed learning about my creative DNA through the assessment scenarios. It was nice to see the strengths from my classmates. -Gwen

Brainstorming and narrowing down our ideas was exciting. It was also neat to take time to improve our ideas. -Ellie

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In all honesty, after our meeting with Denise, our group felt that while our ideas would make great additions to our school, the solutions just didn't fit the driving question. We went back to the driving question to place emphasis on "improve social connections within our schools to support well being and a sense of belonging?" Our student's initial solutions were centered around experiences/events. We were concerned that their ideas would be short lived...a one and done experience that would cultivate memory making but not necessarily a sustainable sense of belonging.

SO...they went back to the incubation stage. This period of time was RAPID. We used the same protocols as before. However, students had a new lens to consider when creating ideas.

With great success, our teams agreed upon three NEW ideas that they thought would better fit the driving question. Due to time constraints, students worked quickly to prototype; craft a presentation; and rehearse. It was a very stressful time. However, our students rose to the occasion by delegating roles and responsibilities. They applied their creative DNA strengths to pitching in where the team needed them most!

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After generating solutions, students grouped together similar ideas into themes. Using affinity mapping to show related concepts allowed students to place topics into categories. This prompted students to notice where the excitement was being placed for solutions.

To narrow solutions, students took time explaining some of their ideas to their peers. Following this, we had the students leave the classroom to dot vote on top ideas.

Three winners were announced before our session ended. We spent the next session preparing to pitch the initial ideas to Mrs. Smyk during an upcoming visit.

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The West Michigan Design Challenge and our experience with Academy was positive! We enjoyed trying a new challenge with new students. The entry event at the Grandville Robotics Center excited our learners. It was a fun afternoon!

We appreciated our time with our students. This allowed us to develop our team; noticing the strengths and talents each member contributes.

Our students were invested in their work. They enjoyed the investigation stage. Our interviews--grouping and saturating our ideas were flawless! The students took their work seriously each week. It was so neat listening to them interview adults in our community.

Our students pitched three ideas using the NUF test to Mrs. Smyk. While the ideas were well thought out and would make beautiful contributions to our community, they wouldn't be ideas that could be sustainable. The ideas would require "overhead" and continued support.

We redirected our students back to the driving question to consider if our solutions would connect our school community to enhance belonging, well being and social connections--that was FEASIBLE! Students rapidly generated three new ideas and decided to prototype these solutions.

The last few sessions were fast and furious! Students delegated roles to teammates for design and presentation.

We had a wonderful last session with our families. Our students performed a dress rehearsal of their presentations. They received feedback from their families. Additionally we used the one word strategy to have students reflect publicly regarding their experience. Our students were so brave, articulate and mature. We then gifted our students with mini awards based on their character, leadership and growth.

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How might we improve social connections within our school to support wellbeing and a sense of belonging?