JA Design Thinking, Creative Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Ohio

JA Design Thinking, Creative Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Ohio

JA Design Thinking, Creative Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Ohio is a reimagined, modular learning experience that teaches students about the mindset and the skills needed for success by aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators who add value to any organization. Participants complete three modules to understand the process of Design Thinking, a problem-solving approach, to create business ideas. Participants also learn to transform their ideas into concise, effective, and actionable one-page business plans.

JA Design Thinking, Creative Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Ohio is part of the JA Entrepreneurship Pathway and is recommended for middle school and high school students (grades 7-12).

The learning experience is a blended model that includes teacher-led content, volunteer-led opportunities, and self-guided content to support flexible implementation options. JA Design Thinking, Creative Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Ohio is available as a classroom based experience.

Each module offers a culminating performance-based assessment for students to create an artifact that allows them to apply what they have learned.

In the JA Creative Problem Solving module, participants learn and apply design thinking, an innovative process for problem solving used by entrepreneurs (and intrapreneurs) to brainstorm customer-centric ideas. This process focuses on the user needs and experience through the creation of empathy models, problem statements, high-level solutions, prototypes, and testing plans in order to validate a design solution.

Following participation in this module, participants will be able to:

Describe the Design Thinking model and the steps involved in the process.
Demonstrate how to write a short, clear problem statement that reflects the problem to be solved.
Construct a prototype based on a problem statement and a brainstormed solution to the problem.
Develop a testing plan for a given product and target audience.
Complete a performance-based assessment by applying Design Thinking.

In the JA Think Like an Entrepreneur module, participants develop a mindset that enables opportunity identification, innovation, value creation, and problem solving. They learn the principles, strategies, and skills through the experiences of others and apply them to their own lives.

Following participation in this module, participants will be able to:

Define entrepreneurship and some key qualities of entrepreneurs.
Describe the advantages of embracing a growth mindset.
Evaluate personal entrepreneurial strengths and areas for refinement.
Develop a personal action plan.
Complete a performance-based assessment by creating an entrepreneurial action plan.

In the JA Rapid Business Planning module, participants learn about Lean Canvas, the strategic management template for developing business models. The business model canvas is an easy-to-understand, one-page business plan that is the foundation for fleshing out a business idea.

Following participation in this module, participants will be able to:

Practice the lean business planning process.
Identify cost structure for a product/service by listing fixed and variable costs.
Identify a competitive advantage.
Describe the importance of testing and validating the assumptions and ideas that frame a business plan.
Complete a performance-based assessment by producing a lean business plan in the Lean Canvas template.

JA teachers and volunteers are encouraged, as part of this learning experience, to utilize the resources available in JA Connect® Learning Pathways, located at connect.ja.org. This self-guided experience includes interactives, JA Here to Career™, and games and apps for student use.

JA Learning Experiences support national and state standards in reading, mathematics, social studies, work and career readiness. Please see below for more information on alignment with national and state standards.

For more information, please contact Learning Experience Manager, Mia DiRienzo Olson at mia.dirienzo@ja.org or 330.539.5268 ext. 105.

Learning Experience Overview