Columbus School 3rd Grade students are developing problem solving skills both in class and through participation in extracurricular activities such as Destination Imagination

3rd graders work on classroom activities that involve problem solving, but some students also belong to DI program. DI problem solving strategies and critical thinking have been implement in third grade students by their teachers.

“Destination Imagination is a program that is targeted at students from the age of grade three to five; at grade three they start doing the actual challenges. That’s one category, and there is also a Middle School Group and there´s also High School teams as well,” Catherine Frayne, 3rd grade teacher, said.

Destination Imagination is a program that seeks enhancing problem solving skills in students. The teacher’s role is to integrate these strategies into their lessons. Most view this as positive advantage and  implement some of DI basics into classroom activities

“Destination Imagination is a volunteer-led, educational non-profit organization that teaches 21st century skills and guides kindergarten through university level students through creative and collaborative problem solving challenges,” according to the DI website. 

DI Problem solving challenges reflect on curriculum activities. Students were putting hands on in problem solving challenges such as reading and searching for clues to revolve mysteries. They are covering world problems and searching a solution for global issues which requires a lot of critical thinking and collaborative problem solving just like DI does.

“In writing we are seeing Global Problems. We are just opening the doors to the theme and we are seeing a lot of these kinds of issues such as natural disasters, pollution, poverty,” Santiago Escobar, 3rd grade student, said.

3rd grade students are lucky to have teachers that also work as extracurricular educators in external programs like DI. Students are substantially benefited since their critical thinking is being enhanced and their eyes are being oponed to visualize the importance of solving global issues. Thanks to mixing DI strategies and 3rd grade academic activities, problem solving, at a local and global scale, are being analyzed thoroughly and both in and outside of school.

“We discuss about global issues, reunite in groups and work to find a solution for them. I like to learn about this and think it is very important to prepare for the future!” Escobar excaimed.