Rethinking by Design: Beta Testing in the 7th Grade

During the last two weeks, 7th grade students have been seeing rainbows as they took up the challenge of refining and designing elements for the class activity for County Fair. As part of the team’s interdisciplinary design project, the class was tasked with designing elements for the grade’s activity, using design thinking to further develop last year’s impressive Obstacle Course debut.

We began our work by looking at all the data the class of 2022 gathered last year as part of the inaugural design project. They determined which elements from last year’s course were destined to stay in the lineup, which elements needed some adaptation and refining before their second rollout and which elements were unsuccessful and should be dropped from the activity. The students analyzed each element to determine who it was designed for and what skills it challenged.

Seventh graders continued data gathering by interviewing students in the Lower and Intermediate Schools to discover the kinds of challenges they would like in an obstacle course. Diane Berin’s 4th grade gave one section of students important feedback about last year, Greenie’s 1st graders described some favorite challenges, and Kathy Wild’s 2nd grade and Dana O’Brien’s Senior Kindergarten were enthusiastic partners in thinking of ways to run, jump and dive.

From these observations and conversations, 7th graders designed and refined course elements. They built models to test ways of constructing the obstacles. After two intensive days of designing and planning, students created detailed plans and lists of supplies, and on Tuesday, the building began.

Middle School Technology Facilitator Steven Files, 7th grade Spanish teacher Liz Villagomez and Science teacher Adam Colestock centered the work in the CollabLab where students designed and refined the balance beam; three designs would be constructed with PVC pipe: redesigned hurdles, the enhanced “laser” cube and a new element, the Rainbow Toss. Students thought through and created cones and cubes that aimed to solve problems with last year’s design. Physical Education Department Chair Jan Zoufal shared her expertise in determining the order of the elements in the course. Once again this has been a meaningful process. We are always happy to learn about our students’ strengths and abilities, and a project like this at the beginning of the year informs our teaching the rest of the year.

Data collected by last year’s 7th graders was integral to designing this year’s course, and the next iteration of the obstacle course will be based on data gathered during County Fair 2017. This project is the second design thinking challenge that the 7th grade has worked on this year and the first to ask them to deliver their designs from brainstorming to reality. The team is already looking forward to the next phase in this year-long interdisciplinary design project.

Click here for photos from this 7th grade project.