All Saints’ Day School

In the fall of 2015, Kevin Day (history/religion) and Kim Raisbeck (art department chair) attended an extensive workshop on design thinking at Stanford’s d.school, and came home eager to incorporate design thinking methodology within existing collaborative projects. They started with our school-wide Ocean Guardian program. Led by their lead teacher extraordinaire, Sara Brown, our 6th graders collaborated in several small-group configurations through all phases of conceiving, designing, building, and installing a solar fountain for the organic garden that would spark delight, curiosity, and teachable moments for all members of our school family. That spring, Kevin joined forces with Blair Cronin (our lead 4th grade teacher) towards incorporating design thinking into a classroom cardboard challenge, in which students worked together to design and build a maze/reading area within the classroom. We remain grateful for Ela Ben-Ur's Innovators' Compass as our primary design thinking tool through these projects. In the summer of 2016, Kevin attended #fuse16 (a design thinking teacher training program at Mt. Vernon Presbyterian School/MVIFI in Atlanta) and the Design Thinking Institute (another design thinking teacher training program at Nueva School in San Mateo, CA). He continues to partner with Sara and Kim on this year's Ocean Guardian project (a solar power-based irrigation project in our school garden). Our Upper Grade Head, Forbes Keaton, has also joined in on the fun. She collaborated with Kevin on an 8th grade Latin project in which students worked through DEEPdt methodology (a mainstay of the Mt. Vernon/MVIFI program) to design and build a model villa for Caecilius, a first-century patrician "user" who seeks a living space that will tell his story. From crafting a “bill” into law in US history, to empathizing with Mrs. Frisby (in Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh), to seeking innovative, authentic responses to school-aged Syrian refugees in 8th grade ethics class, All Saints’ students will engage in radically collaborative, empathy-driven individual and group projects towards finding innovative answers to thorny, unanswered questions.