Students enjoyed the week overall and had a great time. Us teachers went through this program for the first time, so it was us learning to see what worked with the students, and what needed to be changed as each day happened. Overall, it was a great learning experience for both the kids and us!

After lunch, students were prompted to come up with a “bug list” of things that bugged them about school. Many students found that their lockers bugged them.

Quotes from today:

Evan - “I thought of something when I was at home last night that we could create.”

Maggie - “I learned that we all have a lot in common from our bug list, especially about lockers.”

• We used the Crazy 8 map, the NUFF test (where students were able to vote on ideas for each other), and Chromebooks to begin research for their final presentation.

• the students were SO engaged with both tours. They asked the tour guides great questions and were very interested in how everything worked at each facility.

What surprised you?

• how great the first day went, how well the kids are getting along, how engaged they are, and how respectful the students have been. It was a great first day!

What would you do differently?

• today has been a great day, so there is not much we would do differently. However, we would probably prepare some questions the students could ask at the tours if they got stuck, (even though they were very energetic and had many questions on their own!).

Nolan: While touching recycled plastic at Haworth (to show how they use recycled materials), “Oh wow that’s pretty nice.”

Lydia: touring Haworth’s “museum”, “can you buy this furniture?”

• When the students had to create crazy ideas to dream up their "perfect" locker, they came up with amazing ideas. They also worked great together when they had to combine their ideas and had to choose the "best" one.

What surprised you?

• How quickly students were able to come up with ideas to create their perfect locker. Students had to come up with 8 of their craziest ideas and only had 2 minutes per idea. They all did an amazing job with this.

What would you do differently?

• This was a fast paced day from all of the investigating from yesterday. Yesterday was a lot of brainstorming and finding how things worked, while today was majorly based on creating ideas. This was a day that went well, but a large problem we ran into, was reminding everyone that we are a group and need to make sure we all keep an open mind throughout this whole process.

• Sticky notes, paper, notecards, Chromebooks, sheet paper.

Keli - “I loved getting to know the students before heading out for tours, such a great group of kids.”

We interviewed Mrs. Faris, she is our ambassador.

We created an empathy map to help put us in the minds of our student.

Students were asked to solve an issue in the mindset of Fleetwood furniture and Haworth.

- Students were able to come up with some great interview questions for Mrs. Faris.

We created an empathy map. We drew a student and named them. We then wrote what our student might be seeing, thinking, saying, doing, or feeling about our driving question.

What surprised you?

- We were surprised and excited about how willing the kids are to work together to solve our problem.

What would you do differently?

• today was a lot of thinking and brainstorming. The students did an amazing job at coming up with questions and ideas. If we could do something differently, it would be take a 5 minute brain break before jumping into the next set of brainstorming/list making.

• Students had to pivot really quick from this morning to find a new direction to take. Students worked really well together and divided and conquered to complete their presentation for tomorrow.

What surprised you?

• How willing the students were to start working together and how quickly they came up with new ideas to run with with less than 24 hours on the clock.

What would you differently next time?

• Students completed a protocol today called "100 ideas in 10 minutes". This protocol allowed them to generate so many ideas for a solution to their driving question. After this, they took 10 of those ideas and completed a dot voting on those 10 ideas. Doing both of these protocols would have been a better idea to do on Day 2 instead of Day 4.

• Notecard voting, referencing NUFF tests, completing research on Chromebooks.

Keli Olson - 8th grade English at Spring Lake Middle School. Keli with her daughter.

• Feedback from judges to reflect on, sticky notes to use for Two Stars and a Wish, and sheet paper.

• Students took a stance in what they believed in what made the "ultimate" locker better. They came up with many ideas and were able to combine their ideas with each other to create an even better idea.

What surprised you?

• At first students were hesitant to give up their own idea because throughout the morning, they were asked to come up with their best idea and share it with their peers. However, after some time and discussion, students were open to creating a combined solution using all of their ideas.

What would you do differently next time?

• If time allowed, we would add in more time for solution finding to allow all students to have an opportunity to find a solution that includes everyone's ideas from the start.

Students will be eating lunch at McDonald's.

• Students did an amazing job at their presentation. They handled the feedback from the panel very well, and answered all questions from them as a team.

What surprised you?

• How receptive they were about the judges feedback.

What would you do differently next time?

• Students were asked to complete a reflection called, "two stars and a wish", where they reflected on the week. A large re-occuring "wish", was that they wish they would have had more time on the bubble chair and not the lockers. We think we would switch gears sooner so the students could have more time to work through their idea and come up with a presentation.

They then answered questions about what their middle schooler goes through, such as the good and bad things. This helped them understand all of the different ideas they each can come up with, and how they can combine their ideas together as one.

Day 2: Investigation - begin thinking about how things work and how they can create something

Day 3: Incubation - begin narrowing down ideas to begin finding one possible solution

Day 4: Solution - finalize solution and prepare for presenting in front of authentic audience

Day 5: Validation - take time to reflect on what went well and what did not

Students had to understand what could benefit middle school students, what groups of students needed a solution to a problem, what already existed, and what could be created/or made better.

They also got to play hula hoop rock, paper, scissors.