Design-Based Learning Activity #1 Sneaking Up on Homework

Design-Based Learning Online Learning in a Never-Before-Seen World

Design-Based Learning ACTIVITY #1 Sneaking Up on Homework

Observing and Writing a Description about an Experience ©Doreen Nelson

Never-Before-Seen Homework was a way for me to trick my students into writing. In the late 1960’s when I was teaching the fifth grade in Venice, California, I could not get my students to do homework and I could not get them to write original stories. I told them to invent their Homework, but gave them a few conditions: they do an activity of their choice for 30 minutes, write one page with the details about what they did, and draw a picture to go with their writing. Jack, who was a Winnebago Native American, thought I was nuts and said he would “show” me. He wrote about sitting in front of a tree and looking at it for 30 minutes. Not only did he describe in detail what he saw, but he wrote a poem about it. He was right, I was “nuts,” but I got exactly what I wanted.

Purpose: To teach how to observe and document a description about a self-selected, sustained experience.

The Sneaking Up on Homework Activity: Have your students choose an activity to do at home. Have them do the activity for 30 minutes then write about it. (Note: The more time they spend selecting the activity, the more invested they are and the more learning takes place. Younger students can spend less than 30 minutes on the activity.)

Essential Question: How can students participate in their own education?

Problem: How do you involve students in an activity and have them to write about what they learn?

Design Challenge for Students: Design Never-Before-Seen Homework of Your Own Making.

Criteria List

This Criteria List is given as a guide for Never-Before-Seen Homework. Have your students read or listen to the list and check to see if they do everything.

Design-Based Learning Activity #2 Sneaking Up on Creativity

Design-Based Learning at UCLA Center X Online Learning in a Never-Before-Seen World

Design-Based Learning ACTIVITY #2 Sneaking Up on Creativity A Physical Object Becomes a Never-Before-Seen Creature

(Metaphoric and symbolic thinking comes alive through an inanimate object) ©Doreen Nelson

Never-Before-Seen Creature: Pretending that a physical object comes alive and becomes a Creature is a way to teach personification and empathy. The physical object becomes a student’s avatar that is used to launch self-expression in a non- threatening, seamless way.

In one 3rd grade class, 8-year-old Doug was a yellow M&M candy. When he was interviewed as an Object Creature, he described how happy he was when he was born at the factory and how he had come from a long line of sweets that had made people happy since the beginning of time. Doug said that his relatives ranged from fruit to sugar and that while he loved his M&M family, his favorite thing was to have his owner reach into the bag and choose him. When asked when the M&M would die, Doug put his hands on his head and said, “Oh my god, I was born to die.” He later wrote a skit about the life cycle of an M&M.

(He still remembers being a yellow M&M! Doug now practices medicine at the Yale Hospital Emergency Clinic, trains resident emergency room physicians as an adjunct faculty member of the Yale Medical School, and started a leadership training program in Yale’s School of Business Management).

Purpose: To teach metaphoric and symbolic thinking

The Never-Before-Seen Object Creature Activity: Have your student choose a favorite object or toy at home that fits in the palm of their hand so they have it in front of them for the whole activity. The more they are invested in their object, the more learning takes place.

Essential Question: How does metaphoric and symbolic thinking make information relevant and reusable?

Problem: How to get students to personify an inanimate object.

Design Challenge for Students: Bringing to Life a Never-Before-Seen Object Creature by identifying the characteristics of the Object Creature and how the Object Creature lives.

Criteria List

This Criteria List is given as a guide for selecting and getting to know their Object Creature. Have your students read or listen to the list and check to see if they do everything.

Teachers: After the Design Challenge of personifying a physical object as a Never- Before-Seen Creature is done, guide students through the following lessons so they learn required grade level and subject matter standards and curriculum in an engaging, hands-on way.

Object Creature Interview 

Pretend the Never-Before-Seen Object Creature is alive, and make up the answers to the questions based on the characteristics of the physical object (there are no wrong answers as long as the students can justify their response). 

Write or say the answer to each of these questions: 

1. Where is your Creature’s original habitat?

2. Who are your Creature’s ancestors? 3. Who is in your Creature’s family?

3. What are your Creature’s hopes and dreams for the future?

4. What was your Creature born to do (its purpose or function)?

5. What are your Creature’s fears?

6. Who are your Creature’s enemies?

7. Make up a few questions of your own to ask your Creature. 

Never-Before-Seen Object Creature Biography — Descriptive Writing 

Use the Never-Before-Seen Object Creature interview questions as a guide and write about the life of your Creature. (Teachers: This could be completed independently or in partners/small groups. It might be called The Origin Story of the Never-Before-Seen Object Creature.) 

1. Introduce your Never-Before-Seen Object Creature, including its shape and size and purpose.

2. Explain where the Creature originally lived and where it lives now.

3. Tell about the things it likes and fears.

4. Describe your Creature’s ancestors.

5. Include any other important details and information you can think of . 

(Teachers: Students who are old enough can conclude with a summary about what they wrote, they can write a journal or diary about the life of their Creature or animate their drawing into a comic) 

To review and apply various Math concepts, the following lessons could be done by students independently or in small groups: 

1. Discuss and compare the materials used in your Never-Before-Seen Object Creature(s).

2. Identify the shapes you find in your Object Creature(s).

3. Compare the sizes of a group of Object Creatures.

4. Order the Object Creatures from shortest to tallest, lightest to heaviest, etc.

5. Count the number of syllables in your Object Creature’s name.

6. Write and complete word problems involving your Creature.

7. Create a daily schedule for the main things your Object Creature needs to do each day using increments of time (waking up, eating breakfast, visiting other Object Creatures, getting ready for bed, going to bed, etc.). 

To review and apply various Science concepts, the following lessons could be done by students independently or in small groups: 

1. Discuss what characteristics you have given your Never-Before-Seen Object Creature to help it survive.

2. Discuss and compare the traits that your Creature has inherited from its parents, and how these traits are influenced by the environment.

3. Discuss the life cycle of your Creature. Compare your Creature’s life cycle to the life cycle of an animal in the real world.

4. Organize several Creatures into like groups based on traits and tell how forming these groups help them survive. 

Design-Based Learning Activity #3 Never-Before-Seen Three-Dimensional Symbolic Object as a Book Report

Design-Based Learning Online Learning in a Never-Before-Seen World

Design-Based Learning ACTIVITY #3 Never-Before-Seen Three-Dimensional Symbolic Object as a Book Report

Identifying and Summarizing the Main Idea(s) of a Book ©Doreen Nelson

Students learn to identify the main idea(s) of a story by reading picture books.

What is a picture book really about? Why did the author write it?

Kiera was 10 and she wasn’t at all interested in the books read by her younger siblings. She would read to them from time to time only if she had to. She liked the drawings in those “baby books” and sometimes wondered why “grown- up” books didn’t have pictures. A project at school had her 5th grade class reading to the little kids in a way that she will never forget. She had to select a book, read it and then reread it to see if she could figure out the message that the main idea that the author was presenting. Then she had to reread it again and name three details that supported the main idea she had identified.

Kiera’s favorite picture book was “Crazy Hair Day,” by Barney Saltzberg, about a little boy who is excited because it was “crazy hair day” at his school. He styles his hair with gel, rubber bands and orange and blue spray, but when he gets to school, he finds out that it’s not “crazy hair day” at all. It’s school picture day. Stanley’s best friend teases him in front of the class, everyone laughs, and Stanley is so embarrassed he hides in the bathroom. When he finally decides to go back to class, he sees that everyone has given themselves crazy hair, too.

Kiera was bewildered trying to understand what the author was really telling “little” kids. She had seen it as just a funny story “Oh,” she finally said, “this story is teaching kids that when someone is different, they shouldn’t be made fun of and that everyone should be nice to each other.

Kiera's interest grew as she tried to find three supporting details that explained the main idea she had identified. In the end, she wrote, “ ‘Crazy Hair Day’ is mainly about teaching kids to understand what it is like when someone feels different.” Kiera said that the author showed this by:

1. Having Stanley accidentally make himself look different from the other kids when he came to school with crazy hair.

2. Having Stanley’s best friend apologize for teasing him.

3. Having the rest of the kids make Stanley feel even better by giving themselves crazy hair, too.

Kiera wrote her conclusions, and to lock in what she had learned about naming a main ideas and its supporting details, she came up with an idea for her Never-Before- Seen Three-Dimensional Book Report. She made a tree trunk out of a rolled-up piece of brown paper, and for the branches, Kiera used three toilet paper rolls, drawing pictures or pasting things on them to illustrate each of the three small topics she had identified to support her big topic.

“The trunk of a tree is the strongest part,” Kiera said. “Kids have to be strong to understand how someone else feels, and they have to remember to be nice to each other instead of making fun of someone because they are different.”

Kiera said that a tree trunk grows branches that look different so each of the branches she put on her tree show that there are lots of ways to make somebody feel good about themselves. One of Kiera’s branches represented the strength Stanley showed when he returned to class. Another showed how his best friend helped him. On the other branch Kiera pasted several green leaves, saying they represented the kids in Stanley’s class making him feel better.

Purpose: To teach students how to identify and summarize the main idea(s) and the supporting details of a book.

The Never-Before-Seen Three-Dimensional Symbolic Object as a Book Report Activity: Have your students choose a picture book to read. After they read it, have them identify and say or write the main idea(s) and three supporting details that support the main idea. Then have them make a Never-Before- Seen three-Dimensional Book Report to symbolize their conclusions.

Essential Question: How can the message of a book be understood?

Problem: How to get students to comprehend that books are written about a theme or main ideas and that smaller details within the story support the main idea.

Design Challenge for Kid: Make a Never-Before-Seen Three-Dimensional Book Report

(Teachers: have your students say or write a summary of what they learned, then have them make a physical object to represent why they think the author wrote the book).

Criteria List

This Criteria List is given as a guide for making a Three-Dimensional Book Report. Have your students read or listen to the list and check to see if they do everything.

Backwards Thinking Explained

What is Backwards Thinking?

K–12 classroom teachers learning the Design-Based Learning methodology find that using Backwards Thinking™ doesn’t require a whole new series of lessons or a new curriculum. All that is needed is to rethink the sequence of lessons to amplify any mandated curriculum and “sneak up” on learning.

To facilitate teachers’ understanding of the Backwards Thinking™ process, Leslie Stoltz, a teacher at Chaparral Middle School in the Walnut Valley Unified School District in Diamond Bar, California, who taught Design Based Learning to hundreds of teachers, worked with Doreen Nelson to develop the 6 ½ steps of Backwards Thinking™ graphic shown below. These 6 ½ steps are not rigid. To achieve the teaching of creative and critical thinking, however, the following three steps are essential: Step 3, “Set Criteria for Assessment,” based on the required curriculum; Step 4, “Give It a Try,” the springboard for Step 5:“Teach Guided Lessons.”

The 6½ Steps of Backwards Thinking

Step 1: What Do I Need to Teach?  Themes, Concepts, Standards

Each Design Challenge is derived from an Essential Question organized around a topic or a theme that comes from the required Standards. Example: migration.

Step 2:  Identify a “Problem” from the Curriculum

Examples: Why do people migrate? How do natural resources define cultures? Why did cities come into being?

Step 2 ½: State a “Never-Before-Seen” Design Challenge

Step 3: Set Criteria for Assessment

• List “DON’T WANTS” and “NEEDS” based on curriculum, standards, and content.

• Plan evaluation

Step 4: Let students “Give It a Try”  (Duration: 45 minutes to 2 hours)

Students:

• Build instant 3-D models

• Present and get feedback

• Learn to ask “how“ and “why”

• Learn to self-assess according to pre-set criteria

• TALK, TALK, TALK, WRITE: Students learn to describe their designs

• through presentation and discussion as preparation for writing.

Step 5: Teach Guided Lessons  (Duration: one week to a month)

Teach Guided Lessons in any subject using students’ personal connection to their Never-Before-Seen artifacts as a tool for learning. Examples: the mathematics of the artifact’s size, shape, and volume; its scientific feasibility, the language and art skills of reading, speaking, writing, and drawing.

Students:

• Research information

• Speak

• Write

• Compute

• Make comparisons

• Chart, diagram, and map results

 Step 6: Students Revise Design

 Students:

• Rebuild Models

• Apply lessons

• Assess

• Synthesize

Here's an example

An Example of the Design-Based Learning 6 ½ Step Process of Backwards Thinking™, Taught as an Integrated Curriculum at the 3rd Grade Level

Students Design Never-Before-Seen Creatures

Duration: One Month

Materials:

• Paper

• Recycled materials

• Criteria List

Step 1: What Do I Need To Teach?

The Essential Question: How do humans protect themselves and their world?

Step 2: Identify The Problem

Students’ Never-Before-Seen Creatures (built in a previous Design Challenge) need a way to protect themselves from the elements and enemies in their city.

Step 2 ½: State the Design Challenge

Build a Never-Before-Seen Shelter. (“Our creatures need to protect themselves. Invent how they will do it in a Never-Before-Seen Shelter that you build.” To promote originality, the teacher emphasizes, “your designs need to be something that you have never seen before.”)

Step 3: Set Criteria For Assessment

Introduce the Criteria List for the Never-Before-Seen Shelter Design Challenge. The words on the List come from the Social Studies and Science curricula that require the teaching of how humans have protected themselves from extremes of nature and other dangers. (This vocabulary prepares students for the Guided Lessons ahead.) The Don’t Wants on the left side are in red, meaning “stop” or “no,” prompting students to air their opinions about what should be avoided and why. The Needs on the right are in green, meaning “yes” or “go,” adhering to curricular requirements. Check for understanding of the words on the Criteria List by having students read the list and ask questions for clarification.

Step 4: Let Students Give It A Try  

Working alone or in groups, after selecting a variety of materials, students have 20 to 30 minutes to build their solutions, adhering to the Criteria List. If they start building forts or houses, referring them back to the Criteria List stops replication. After building their rough models, students are taught to talk about them in different settings. They learn to give oral presentations explaining their reasoning for their Never-Before-Seen Shelters and to listen to and question their classmates’ presentations. They TALK, TALK, TALK, WRITE. Small groups of students vote on the best design in their group; each group presents a summary of its chosen design to the whole class. Students then draw and write about the details of their Never-Before-Seen Shelters.

Step 5: Teach the Guided Lessons

Students are guided to:

• Collect and compare scientific data to their Never-Before-Seen Shelter solutions for weather events and earthquakes.

• Determine the geometric shapes and volume of their artifacts.

• Diagram their Never-Before-Seen Shelters, labeled with exact measurements.

• Differentiate how humans throughout history have protected themselves.

• Write and edit original compositions using descriptive language to explain what it’s like to live in their Never-Before-Seen Shelters.

Step 6: Have Students Revise Their Designs

Students apply the information learned through Guided Lessons to revise their designs. They propose and discuss the changes they want to make to their Never-Before-Seen Shelters and why. The revision process is based on students’ research and the changes they propose making to their artifacts. Their proposed revisions can be spoken or built. Built is better.

Some Final Thoughts

Through all the years that the Design-Based Learning methodology has evolved, but there has always been one significant constant: when students of any age start their learning process with their own original creations based on required criteria, they become facile at making changes and reusing learned information and they come to experience problem seeking and problem solving as an engaging type of play and want to participate. 

During a visit with Jerome Bruner in 2015, he told Doreen Nelson, “I worry that today’s drive toward subject matter accountability is freezing creative thinking.” Doreen’s years of experience have shown her that it is not an either/or, that good test scores and creative thinking are compatible. The data collected consistently show that students in classrooms using the Design-Based Learning methodology excel. The quantitative data show that standardized test scores in Language Arts, Math, Science, and other subjects improve markedly, even for English language learners and those with learning disabilities. The qualitative data collected from students, teachers, administrators, and parents through surveys and anecdotal records describe the positive impact of Design-Based Learning on student engagement and understanding.