About Me

Brad Anderson is thrilled to join Westgate this year! Brad brings his dedication and passion for design thinking and a love for adventure to our incredible iLab. Born and raised in Westminster, Brad developed an early appreciation for nature and innovative thinking. Growing up, Brad was the type of kid who had to take everything apart to figure out how it worked.

Brad's journey as an educator spans a decade and includes experiences teaching English Language Arts, Language Development, and Design Thinking to students as young as 4 and as old as 67.

Brad inspires and empowers his students through innovative teaching techniques and fostering an inclusive learning environment. His ability to connect with students and instill a love for collaboration, problem solving, and the ability to think critically about the world we share.

When he's not in the classroom, you can find Brad exploring oh his e-bike, camping with his partner and their three dogs Yoshi, Pancake, and Banjo, or sharing travel stories about his memorable adventures living and teaching in Asia.

Classes

Posts

Week of October 23rd

Grades K-2 Essential Question: How can we, as roller coaster engineers, design a coaster that meets the needs and interests of our class?

This week we have begun our larger project: Roller Coaster Design! Students are using Design Thinking to interview classmates about their coaster preferences in order to EMPATHIZE with our class. Then, using the information they collected, students are using learned vocabulary words to IDEATE different roller coaster sketches. Finally, students are creating a paper-based PROTOTYPE model of their roller coaster to TEST and present to the class.

Grades 3-6 Essential Question: How can I visually represent a process in my head?

This week, students are laying the foundation for their Design Thinking project by learning about a Process (Systems) Model. A Process Model is a type of PROTOTYPE that shows the process of doing something (like making toast or playing a game) in simple, easy to follow visual steps.

Moving into the end of the week, students will begin EMPATHIZING and DEFINING their projects as follows:

Grades 3-4: How can I use Design Thinking to create a MAGNIFICENT THING for someone in our class?
Grades 5-6: How can we, as entrepreneur-inventors, pitch a new product to a panel of sharks?

Grades 7-8 Essential Question: How can we, as animal behaviorists, design and create a chicken enrichment device that will help the Westgate chickens through winter?

Working in collaboration with Ms. Charlie in Environmental Education, last week students EMPATHIZED, DEFINED, and designed their chicken enrichment device. This week, students are PROTOTYPING their devices/play structures and TESTING their structures in the chicken coop. As a part of our tests, students will be catching and releasing the chickens to see how they interact with their prototypes. This will be an ongoing project that will occasionally take us back out to the chicken coop as we move forward with our quarter-long process of building pinball machines through the Destination Imagination Technical Challenge.

More information can be found here: https://www.destinationimagination.org/challenge-experience/challenge-previews/

Name: Bradley Anderson
Position: iLab Teacher
Email: Send email