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.

K-5 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.

ADST Uses the Stanford Design Thinking Model

The Stanford Model for Design Thinking has five stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. In our BC ADST curriculum there is also a sixth stage which is share. In the primary ADST curriculum, not all stages are present, however, as students go up in grades, they become more familiar with all stages of the Stanford Model. This can be seen in the Grades 4-5 ADST curriculum below.

ADST K-3 BC Curriculum

Below you will find the K-3 ADST Curriculum. A uniting feature of this curriculum is that all primary teachers work from the same curriculum. It isn’t until grade 4, that it changes. Within the primary ADST curriculum, you can see that the BC Ministry has chosen to highlight certain features of the Design Thinking model.