4th Grade Toothbrush Design Thinking

A couple weeks ago, I gave a brief review on what design thinking is, and why it is so important to our Talented and Gifted students (or any student for that matter). This process gives people a way to think beyond themselves, get creative, make mistakes, and learn from them. Via prototyping, the fourth grade students have realized many mistakes, but have also pushed forward to find new solutions.

If you remember, these students were tasked with redesigning something we use every single day of our lives: the toothbrush! When we started this project, picked by the students, to say I was weary of the redesign would be an understatement. However, it has been my goal since starting this position to be a facilitator of learning for my students...no matter what their interests.

Per usual, these kids went above and beyond. I truly believe that when we give kids a safe environment to be creative, and teach them that failure is OK as long as we learn from it, amazing things will happen. Do we have a design Colgate will pick up? Who knows! What I do know is that these students learned more about emotionally letting go of their ideas. This allowed them to be open to other suggestions and find new paths when things didn't pan out the way they had planned.

Below, you will find a few pictures from the interview, planning, and prototyping process of these brand new toothbrushes.