Welcome to my crazy and fun adventure of becoming a design thinking teacher. My goal is to blog the good, bad, ugly and amazing time of design thinking.
Before I start... a little background on me and why I have taken on this adventure.
My name is Darlene Painter. I currently teach 8th grade physical science in Vista, CA. This is my second year at this middle school. Previous to this teaching assignment I taught for five years at a charter school in Riverside County. When I made the leap to the public school system I thought it was going to be easy. What I ended up with was something much more challenging and exciting.
The school I am at is going through a transition. At the end of this current school year (2013-2014) the doors to the school will permanently close. In it' place a new magnet school will open. If you are not familiar with a magnet school, it is a school of choice that is still public and part of the district. It has a theme or specialty that it offers students. The main reason that Vista choose to open the school as a magnet is to offer students more choice and options in their education and to help diversify the school.
To get the theme of the school the district put together a committee of teachers, administrators, parents and students. They did polls of the community to see what they wanted in a new school. In the end the data showed us that design and innovation was the direction we wanted to go. After the board approved the theme the real work began. For many teachers and staff we had never heard of design thinking. We had to first learn what it was before we could begin starting to use it. To help with the transition a steering committee was formed. This committee's job is to help make the administration make important decision. I was lucky enough to be chosen to be part of the committee. This is where my real journey began.
You will now hear all about my adventure on both the committee and in the classroom as I pilot and try design thinking as part of my curriculum and focus for learning. I hope you enjoy this journey with me.
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