Host a Micro:bit Design Thinking Workshop

Sharon Ikechi
7 min readMay 23, 2023

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Introduction

This project-based learning path shows STEM Educators how to use the Micro:bit to teach Leadership skills to your students in the classroom.

Goal: Host a Micro:bit design thinking workshop that teaches leadership skills in the classroom.

Objectives: At the end of this learning path, you should be able to

  • Create and run Micro:bit projects with the MakeCode editor
  • Create and deliver Micro:bit lesson plans in the classroom
  • Host a Micro:bit design thinking workshop that teach leadership skills in the classroom

Target Audience: Students from age 8–16.

Leadership Skills: Micro:bit design thinking workshops are a great way to get your students to acquire leadership skills in the classroom.

These are the leadership skills covered in this learning path:

Types of content?

In this course you’ll find

  • Professional development courses for Micro:bit educators
  • Make it: Code it projects
  • do your :bit challenge resources
  • Classroom resources

Prerequisites

Follow these five steps to host the Micro:bit design thinking workshop:

  1. Empathise
  2. Discover
  3. Ideate
  4. Create
  5. Show & Test

Step One: Empathise

Unit One: Identify a problem

Identify a problem that the students will solve. This should be any of these:

Example

Goal 3 — Good Health & Well-being

Problem — Kids don’t do their chores at home

Activity — Listen Attentively

Ask your students to listen attentively as you explain the problem to them. Then tell the students to write the problem to be solved in their own words.

Unit Two: Understand the Users

Who are we building for?

Identify the people or audience impacted by the problem. For example students, teachers, parents/guardians, etc

Example

Kids

What are their needs & pain points?

Outline the needs & pain points of the people impacted by the problem. To outline the needs & pain points, ask the people or audience impacted by the problem a lot of questions to get more understanding of the problem.

Activity — Asking the Right Questions

Teach students the “Who, What, Why, & When” framework for asking the right questions

  • Who is involved?
  • What do you do?
  • Why do you do it?
  • When do you do it?
  • What challenges prevent you from doing it?

Activity — Speaking to be Understood

Students should be paired in twos, take turns asking each other these questions and write the answers to the questions.

Example

Who is involved? Kids & Parents

What chores do you do? Clean my room, make my bed, laundry, dishes

Why do you do their chores? Parents asked them to, No one else to do it, Keep the house clean

When do you do your chores? In the morning before school, after school, on weekends

What challenges prevent you from doing it? Tired, sleepy, playing games, wake up late, sad, homework, always forget

The Needs

Kids need to do the following chores when they get home from school — Clean my room, make my bed, laundry, dishes

The Pain Points

Kids have a hard time doing their chores because they are — Tired, sleepy, playing games, wake up late, sad, homework, always forget

Step Two: Discover

Unit Three: Define the solution

In defining a solution or solutions, the pain points have to be taken into consideration when meeting the needs of the users. This is where problem solving and strategic thinking is applied.

Activity — Strategic Thinking

Have the students think about the pain points and group them into categories, with a reason behind each category.. The students can come up with different tags or names for each category.

Example

Feelings Category — Tired, Sleepy, Sad,

Busy Category — Playing Games, Homework

Can’t help it Category — Wake up late, always forget

Activity — Problem Solving (Root Cause Analysis)

Consider each pain point category, and ask the following question to find the root cause of the problem by answering these questions:

  • What led to the challenges in the pain points? This should form the root causes of the problem
  • Mention one or two things that take away the root causes of the problem. This should form the solution to the problem
  • Define the solution

Example

What is the cause of the challenges in the pain points?

  • Feelings Category — Had too much to do during the day & Not enough fun
  • Busy Category — Need to have fun & not enough time
  • Can’t help it category — Had too much to do & not enough time

Mention one or two things that take away the root causes of the problem

  • Better time tracking
  • More fun time

Define the solution

  • Design technology that tracks my time and makes house chores fun

Step Three: Ideate

Unit Four: Define the Micro:bit Project

In this section, the students learn how to collaborate with each other to come up with ideas on how the Micro:bit can be used to execute the solution for the users.

Activity — Ideation

Divide the students into groups, and ask them to think about the question below.

  • How can the Micro:bit execute the solution for the users?

Each student should come up with an idea and share with the group. Then each group should agree to select one idea or merge multiple ideas and share with the entire class. Lastly, the class should select the best idea that executes the solution for the user.

Example

A Micro:bit Chore Alarm

Micro:bit Entertainment For Chores

Micro:bit Chore Time Tracker (The Best) — A Chore Time Tracker that tracks how long you spend on each house chore

Step Four: Create

Unit Five: Build the Micro:bit Project

Divide the students into groups of two or more, and have them work on the problem solving and collaboration activities in this step to build the Micro:bit project.

Activity — Algorithm

Outline the steps to be taken by the Micro:bit in executing the solution, from the first to the last step. Each step should start with a verb and should execute just one action.

Example — Micro:bit Chore Time Tracker

1. Design a Chore Time Tracker that tracks how long you spend on each house chore

2. Display the name of the app

3. Create a variable to track time

4. Start the time

5. End the time

6. View time spent in total

Activity — Pair Programming & Computational Thinking

Now the students should head to the Make Code Editor and code the project.

https://makecode.microbit.org

The students should work among themselves and help each other out within their group to drag and drop the blocks that execute the algorithm.

Example

Activity — Debugging

Offer guidance to the students when they are stuck. However, allow them to go through the debugging process by asking themselves the question below within their group:

  • What error is displayed?
  • What does the error mean?
  • How can I fix this error?

Step Five: Show & Test

Unit Six: Test the Prototype

The students should test that their solution works by answering these questions:

  • Does the solution include all steps in the algorithm?
  • Does it work on the Micro:bit simulator?
  • Does it work on the Micro:bit device
  • Does it solve the problem for the user?

Activity — Attention to Detail

Each student should observe the Micro:bit code execution properly and document their experience as they answer all the questions above. If they fail to answer any of the questions, they need to go back to the debugging stage to check what the issue is and fix it.

Unit Seven: Improve the Prototype

Activity — Strategic Thinking

Now that a Micro:bit solution has been built and works for the user, the students should think about how their current solution can be improved in the future for the user by answering the following questions:

  • How can we improve the solution to make life easier for the user?
  • How can we use the Micro:bit to execute the improved solution?

We have come to the end of the Micro:bit Design Thinking Workshop.

Check out these cool resources from the Micro:bit Educational Foundation to run your own Micro:bit Design Thinking Workshop with your students:

Get inspired by these do your :bit solutions from students all over the world

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