The first step in synthesizing our procedures for designing meaningful cross-curricular projects was to empathize with our colleagues. Our goal was to learn more about their needs with concern to how they define cross-curricular projects and what their current design process encompassed. To accomplish this we met with teachers at our school site and sent out a survey to collect data about cross-curricular project development on our campus.

Using the interviews we conducted and the data we compiled from our survey, we defined what goals we wanted to achieve in order to help bring more clarity and innovation to designing meaningful cross-curricular projects. These goals would serve as a guideline for helping us develop a clear and concise process of collaborative cross-curricular project design.

What makes the Design Thinking Process so effective is it allows you to be creative within the confines of a clearly defined sequence of steps in order to find innovative solutions to complex problems. In correlation with this idea, we sought out to define a clear set of steps that we felt would help guide teachers through the cross-curricular project design process yet still be ambiguous enough to allow for creativity and innovation.

After carefully delineating the phases of our process it was time to add detail and guidance. We wanted to make sure teachers has a clear understanding of the purpose and scope of each phase. To help bring clarity to our finalized "Process of Collaboration" we create a Google Slide presentation and Overview Guide.

In order to help students identify and practice academic skills sets I felt it was important to be transparent about the criteria I would use for assessment. These rubrics are a continuing project that are constant need of refinement in order to reflect changing standards and student accessibility.