ADST (Applied Design, Skills and Technologies) has an important focus in British Columbia’s revised curriculum. Through bringing in ADST learning opportunities into BC’s schools, students will have opportunities to explore design thinking. Through intentionally teaching design thinking to students, students can develop skills to solve challenges, create and innovate and work collaboratively with others.

ADST is New to K-4 Curriculum

Previously there was no equivalent course to ADST in the primary grades. The revised curriculum gave a unique course to the primary grades. However, this also means that many teachers do not have a background in this subject area. We want to support primary teachers so that they can see the potential of ADST with their students.

ADST Doesn’t have Curricular Content

This may seem at the same time liberating and daunting to some teachers. This enables primary teachers to make cross curricular connections. Something that is often done already in many primary classrooms as teachers may teach themes that pull in concepts from Math, Language Arts, Social Studies etc.

You can learn more about BC’s curriculum and have access to all K-12 curriculum documents at https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/.