INSTRUCTIONAL
DESIGNER
CURTIS WANG
Design Loft STEM Learning
Stanford University
A middle school STEM education and careers program that explores
the role of design thinking and interdisciplinary integration in K-12 classrooms.
January - August 2014
Sample Lesson Plans (.pdf)
JAN - MAR 2014
Design Thinking Activity for Data Collection (.pdf)
APR - JUN 2014
Analysis and Assessment of Student Performance (.pdf)
JUN - AUG 2014
CURRICULUM DESIGN & MENTORSHIP
As a mentor, I created and delivered lesson plans for hands-on activities aimed to teach grade 8 students design thinking skills and concepts under the STEM theme of shelter. For example, students were compelled to empathize with their peers through a role-playing exercise whereby each student was severely restricted in their sensory and communication capabilities and had to coordinate each other's "specializations" to achieve a simple task.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
My unique role within the research team was to 1) design a task that would measure how well students learned the skills, concepts, and sensibilities of design thinking, 2) assess their performance in this task through qualitative note-taking and analysis of interview transcripts, and 3) write a report on my findings.
OVERVIEW OF DESIGN THINKING & STEM CURRICULUM RESEARCH
Supervised by Dr. Shelley Goldman at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, I explored the role of design thinking in a grade 8 STEM curriculum at a public charter school, as part of two teams: A team of college mentors designed and implemented the curriculum in an after-school program, and a team of researchers observed student learning as they interacted with mentors. Our research questions span topics in pedagogy and curriculum. How do students express their understanding of design thinking activities? How do affective elements impact design thinking in the classroom environment? And how is design thinking connected to academic standards and content learning in the classroom? By answering these questions, we aimed to accomplish four goals:
1) develop a model for design thinking-based intersession career camps
2) create a professional communtiy institute for educators from partner schools
3) design a mentoring course for STEM college students
4) assess the effectiveness of the design thinking-based career camp model
