How It Works

Design Challenges are collaborative, competitive, learning experiences in which student teams identify an existing problem, create a solution, and defend their work in front of a panel of judges. Design Challenges can take place in any class and within any discipline. A teacher can define how open-ended the challenge is, ranging from any problem a student identifies, to a problem found in a specific unit of a course, like physics or chemistry. The beauty of design challenge learning comes from the flexibility and adaptability to fit a variety of contexts. Although the core components remain the same -- real-world learning, student initiative, voice and choice, and the development of 21st century skills, almost everything else can be defined by the teacher, including the types of problems addressed, the amount of class time devoted to the project, whether students work independently or in groups, and how students are assessed.

For teachers who want to join our signature Design Challenge, the University of New Hampshire Community Changemaker Challenge, we provide, at no cost, 1-2 professional development sessions, an adaptable curriculum with lesson plans (including a step-by-step guide for implementation), and individual coaching for teachers. We can also arrange a school or classroom visit as needed.

For teachers who want to implement an “internal” design challenge in their classroom or for school leaders who want to bring design challenges to their school, we work with you to customize the best approach for your students and your context. In addition to the examples above, we can help with implementation, assessment, judging, and the logistics for your culminating event. At this time, due to the generosity of our donors, this service is being offered at no charge to the school.

Through design challenges students learn both content and skills. The content is dictated by the problem they choose, or are assigned to work on, and by the type of solution they create. In almost all cases they learn the history of the problem, the reasons it exists, who is most affected by it, and what people have done to try to solve it. Students learn how to collaborate, creatively problem-solve, find and critically analyze reliable sources, and communicate in a variety of ways. Teachers connect this learning to the standards, competencies, and curriculum goals they have for their class.

Teachers facilitate and guide student learning in service to the standards, competencies, and curricular goals of the class. By integrating activities and lesson plans that we provide, teachers help students learn how to think, how to take initiative, and how to collaborate in creative and effective ways. One day a teacher might help students understand a key concept within their discipline that relates to a problem, such as photosynthesis, regression analysis, or how a constitutional amendment is ratified, while another day they might help students improve their public speaking or writing skills. Overall, teaching becomes more personalized, as it’s focused on helping each student-team research their problem and design a creative solution.

Active, engaged, often noisy, and purposeful are some of the words used by teachers to describe a Design Challenge classroom. When students are able to work on problems that matter to them, and are granted some ownership in how to accomplish the work, they often come alive in ways not always seen by a teacher. One student said this about their experience, “You get to look at real problems and see how you can actually make change. You are not focused on the grade, you are just doing it because you are excited to learn.” Once the projects gets started it is not unusual to have students working on a variety of things during a class - some could be researching and taking notes, others could be at the white board diagramming and visualizing potential solutions, while a third group could be interviewing outside experts, designing a survey to collect user-experience data, or talking to their teacher about next steps. Classrooms often feel alive and active, with students driving their learning in ways that are powerful and productive.

Often the hardest part is getting started. As teachers, we care deeply about our students, and this can make us hesitant to take risks and try new things that we fear could jeopardize student learning. But rest assured that our teachers who have experienced design challenges come back year-after-year to participate again with their students. In fact, teachers often share that the hope of facilitating this type of learning is what got them into the profession. Another challenge can be shifting one’s classroom from being more teacher-centered to being more student-centered. At the start, this can create some uneasiness, but once teachers see the results and engagement, they find this change less difficult than anticipated. Whatever challenge a teacher might face in implementing Design Challenge Learning, our experienced team is here to help and is available via email, zoom, and phone.

As Design Challenge Learning continues to grow throughout New England and beyond, we are building a network of connected educators, who share resources, lesson plans, rubrics, and successful approaches with each other. This network will include our judges and others who can serve as mentors for project implementation and will help students develop contacts in their professional fields of interest.

We would love for you to join the Community Changemaker Challenge for 2024-25. Please read carefully the information found on the CCC section of our website. As you will see, students can engage in their problem solving / solution design at any point during the school year. The deadline to submit their video and paper is in late April and the live, in-person event is held at the UNH campus in Durham, NH in May. Please express interest in joining the CCC here.

Please fill out the from on our Connect page and someone from our team will respond shortly.

Thank you for your interest in supporting the work of the DCN. Our partners help in many ways. Some serve as judges for our competitions, some share technical expertise as we scale up from our proof-of-concept phase, and some provide important philanthropic capital as we expand access to design challenge learning. Please email our President, Brent Powell (brent@designchallengenetwork.org) to start the conversation. We would love to hear from you.

If you would like to contribute financially to allow more students access to Design Challenge Learning, please send your tax-deductible gift to: The Design Challenge Network 128 Patch Road Hopkinton, NH 03229. We greatly appreciate your support.