Check Us out Live:
- Teacher: http://bit.ly/kiwithink
- Student: http://bit.ly/ClumsyDoodle
Inspiration
As Kiwi has taught coding in Austin over the last two years we've noticed a noisy, glaring, underlying problem. Students have a hard time breaking down the difficult abstract problems, which are at the core of software development. To solve this problem, teachers need a simple and easy to use tool that will teach students a replicable process to tackle these abstract problems while making it fun for them to engage with this kind of thinking.
What it does
Our team started with the learning process. We developed six key steps that can be used, regardless of topic, to break down a challenging problem. Our team included a number of teachers and education professionals, which allowed us to really dive into this process. The six steps are: 1) Define unknowns: What do you not know? 2) Define knowns: What do you know? 3) Reference Points: What does this remind you of? 4) Assumptions: Based on your Reference Points, make decisions about your Unknowns. 5) Evaluate: Using answers from Steps 1-4, evaluate next steps. 6) Hypothesis: Make an educated guess, based on previous steps.
The team created a game with a student side for students to work through logic problems and engage with each other's solutions as well as a teacher view to monitor and mediate the learning process. For the student their view, includes a timer, which will eliminate distractions and keep them engaged throughout the process. Once students provide their solution for each step of the problem solving process, they are directed by the teacher to a second screen, where they vote on their favorite responses. Students then see the top three responses that were voted on in each step. At any step, the teacher can facilitate a discussion on student responses, top responses and the process itself.
To make the tool easy right out of the box, teachers will receive sample lesson plans to use the platform in a class (see attached) as well as a larger hour-long plan. The hour-long plan gives teachers additional resources and activities to help students practice and develop the skills they build through the Kiwi Think! game. Eventually these additional resources will be integrated into the underlying platform so that a teacher can consume them in the course of running their games.
How we built it
The team consisted of a wide range of skills including full stack developers, UI/UX designers and educators; with most individuals wearing more than one hat. We spent the first hour of the hackathon diving into a brainstorm and determining what was possible in a weekend. The team divided into three groups: content, design and development. The content team dove into the process and how a student should tackle an abstract problem. Design worked on prototyping, color schemes and wireframes. The development team set up the backend, and functionality and interaction between student and teacher.
Challenges we ran into
Time is always a crucial element to projects at a hackathon. While we created a concise project, it was difficult to ensure all aspects of the project were moving forward and would be complete by the deadline.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our team worked extremely hard across three major areas and moved all three forward. We created a very strong prototype that is both engaging to students and functional for teachers. Our development team had a wide range of skillsets and experience levels and were able to come together quickly in order to implement a working product. With a tight deadline, the entire team moved quickly and efficiently to develop a strong product that accomplished the product's goals. We are very proud that as a team, we kept the end user (student and teacher) in mind throughout the entire process. All decisions that we made kept them in mind.
What we learned
We learned how to integrate strong skills in a variety of areas and to implement all pieces quickly, under time crunch. The designers on our team taught us how to create user flows and implement that design throughout the product, while keeping students engaged.
What's next for Kiwi Compute
Kiwi will launch this as a free, polished product in the fall for teachers. It will be usable and ready to implement as the new school year approaches. It is currently hosted and Kiwi's CTO will take over the code and finalize the outstanding items needed to polish the product. Because we built a strong foundation in both design and code this weekend, it will be easy for Kiwi's CTO to run with next steps. The team built out this product to be easy to use for both students and teachers and allow teachers to feel like they can own the experience. Because of this, it will be easy to scale and spread across classrooms anywhere in the United States. More students can understand the underlying reasoning and logic behind programming. Once they can tackle this challenge, they will feel comfortable learning to code.
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