School & Community Outreach

What is our engagement model with schools?

Marshmallow Minds offers all curriculum and administrative support by hiring, training, and mentoring Design Thinking specialist teachers, adapting programs to support grade level curriculum, providing all materials and supplies, scheduling classes and instructor evaluations, and presenting design exhibitions.

What is our program fee?

Our programs are offered on a contractual basis. Fees are based upon the duration of the program and the number and length of classes. At a maximum of $20/hour/child (min class size: 24 students), our program will support you with two Marshmallow Minds faculties—instructor and coach—who will deliver the learning experiences and delight the students, will include STEAM kits for the hands-on learning and the success metrics toolkit for guided mastery and measuring student success. Marshmallow Minds’ inschool programs are made possible through the collaboration of school districts, individual schools, parent organizations, and community and government resources. Programs may also receive support from Marshmallow Minds donors and sponsors depending on student and school profiles. Please contact us to discuss specific costs and fees for our in-school STEAM Explore and Design Thinking program.

Did you know that our program qualifies for teacher grants? For example, suppose you are a school teacher, and you wish to introduce our STEAM Explore and Design Thinking program in your classroom, we can partner with you and help you apply for qualifying grants. If you receive the funding, we will work with you and your students and bring our highly engaging and experiential learning opportunities to your classroom.

How can you train for and teach our program?

If you are 21 years and above and passionate about STEAM and real-world problem-solving, we can train you and prepare you to become a confident Design Thinking/STEAM specialist teacher of our learning experiences. You can then serve as Marshmallow Minds Instructor/Coach and make an impact in our schools/classrooms/communities.

Design Thinking education, stewardship, and action are central components of being a Design Thinking Circle high school youth leader. The program cultivates a pipeline of Design Thinking ambassadors, from workshop participants to junior youth leaders, to mentors and role models who are ready to take ownership of the STEAM Explore and Design Thinking program and make a difference in communities that are underrepresented in STEAM.

The Design Thinking process is a solution-based approach that guides all problem solvers to find solutions to challenges. At its core, the design process helps people understand challenges faced by communities (using empathy and collaboration) and find solutions through an iterative process or series of steps. These steps don’t have to be followed linearly-- problem solvers can always re-do or revisit steps as needed.

SEL skills are fundamental to the Design Thinking process. The SEL skills that are key to the Design Thinking process are empathy, growth mindset, collaboration skills, and respectful communication skills.

Empathy helps us connect with people who are affected by the problem, better understand the issues from their perspective, and to more deeply understand the impact and implications of potential solutions.

Through an experimental and iterative process, design thinking supports the idea that there are valuable lessons in making mistakes and improving on our design throughout the process.

As problem solvers, we cannot pursue solutions alone without collaborating with those who actually experience those problems. Collaboration skills are what allow us to meaningfully engage with others and work with them to creatively design solutions.

When problem solving, we must listen to understand others’ perspectives, and be open to changing our minds. This means we should be proactive about incorporating their perspective in the process instead of just sticking to our own ideas.