I’m early into reading ‘Invent to Learn‘ by Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary Stager at the moment, but already I’m totally inspired by the possibilities to invent for our students a truly wonderful, meaningful design experience. In addition to learning more about the Reggio Emilia approach and why Seymour Papert is the godfather of digital playgrounds, I love the design model that Martinez and Stager outline. It’s simply elegant.
Think. Make. Improve. (TMI) The ‘Think’ stage of design is where the problem is defined and students begin the brainstorming and planning. ‘Thinking’ includes brainstorming, talking it out, predicting, gathering materials, forming groups (or not), sketching, outlining, researching, and planning. (Invent, p.52-53) In our Design@NIS cycle this would be the Discover, Define, and Brainstorm stages.
The ‘Make’ stage includes playing, building, tinkering, creating, programming, experimenting, constructing, testing, observing, borrowing, sharing, documenting, and recreating. (Invent, p. 53) This is often where children are most engaged and learning is The ‘Make’ stage is what we at NIS call ‘Prototyping’.
When kids get to the stage where they either are finished and satisfied with their product or they find that it’s just not working, then they enter the ‘Improve’ stage. Here they will typically do more research, talk it out, shift perspectives, try different materials, change variables, draw on past experience with similar problems, play, ask experts, be cool, get fresh air, or sleep on it. (Invent, p. 53-54) At NIS, we view this stage as that in which our ideas and products ‘Evolve’.
Trinities are powerful (think triangles, the three musketeers, and the three stooges) and simple. There’s a lot going on in the Think, Make, Improve model of design, but TMI is expressed simply, elegantly and powerfully. It just might be a design model worth evolving into.
