Across the world, teachers face a persistent challenge: how to make science and technology education more engaging, and accessible to all students without cost or digital technology resources. Many classrooms still rely on rote learning, where students memorize facts rather than apply knowledge to real-world problems. As a result, learners often struggle to see the connection between what they study and the world around them and teachers lack access to resources or professional development opportunities that build confidence in hands-on, inquiry-based teaching.
The Design Challenge Learning (DCL) Teacher Trainer Program is transforming this reality. Built on the foundation of design thinking and innovative education, the program equips teachers with the tools and mindset to create student-centered, project-based learning experiences that foster creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving.
The DCL pedagogy is uniquely designed to meet educators where they are. Through a blend of in-person workshops, interactive online modules, and flexible scheduling, the program adapts to each school’s context and teachers’ availability. Educators are guided through the Innovation Design Process, experiencing firsthand how design challenges can make science, engineering, and other subjects come alive in the classroom. By learning to frame real-world problems and support student-driven inquiry, teachers discover new ways to ignite curiosity and build critical thinking in their students.
After participating in immersive, in-person workshops and online sessions where they learn the Design Challenge Learning Process, educators guide students through mini challenges that encourage collaboration, reflection, and iteration in any subject area.
In Nakuru, Kenya, students in a home science class were tasked with solving a problem in their community: designing kitchen gardens for people who don’t have much land. Between two school buildings, students constructed test-bed designs at various stages. Their designs used materials left over from a recent construction project at the school: cement bags, old pipes, and strips of waterproofing. Some used objects like tires, buckets, and parts of banana trees. Students were working independently and collaboratively, periodically huddling up as a team to test or discuss a strategy. The teacher walked around to groups and asked them questions about their work to help them consider different options.
The teams that had begun testing irrigation systems discovered this to be more of a challenge than they expected, but they seemed eager to continue working to find a solution. This experience showed that the teacher had set his students up for success by trusting them to try their ideas, to fail and try again until they found something that worked. The approach moves beyond memorization and rote learning to make STEM learning collaborative and deeply connected to local contexts by solving real world problems in the local community
What began as a small grassroots effort in a handful of schools has grown into a nationwide movement, reaching thousands of educators and hundreds of thousands of students across Kenya. Through close collaboration with the Government of Kenya including education authorities, Teacher Service Commission, and Heads of Institutions we scaled rapidly by implementing a powerful train-the-trainer model across many zones. Since July 2024, more than 600 educators have been trained as TOTs, each leading two in-person sessions in their assigned districts and collectively reaching 19,348 teachers across 1,293 schools. By June 2025, the programme had transformed the practice of over 20,000 educators and impacted an estimated 568,000 learners. In a system historically dominated by textbook instruction, the infectious, hands-on energy of our training has become our greatest catalyst for change. Educators finally have space to collaborate across schools, engage in real engineering design challenges, and build functional devices from locally sourced, low or no-cost recycled materials. They experience firsthand what it means to teach and learn creatively, sustainably, and with purpose. Beyond schools, we are building a wider ecosystem of partners. By working with institutions, NGOs, and community organisations, we are creating new pathways that connect classroom innovation to future careers, ensuring that learners not only solve today’s problems but are prepared to design tomorrow’s solutions.
Inspired by Design Challenge Learning in Silicon Valley, the DCL Teacher Training Program in Kenya can be both globally scalable and deeply rooted in communities by adapting to cultural and local context whilst being relevant to the local Kenya curriculum. We have made the lessons applicable for Kenyan teachers and students, including those with special needs by modifying the language and making the mini challenges and scenarios simpler to understand.
Where in the US, teachers and students can buy resources for design purposes, we are encouraging our Kenyan teachers to source recyclable and other materials that are locally available. A materials resource book has been designed to help teachers and students identify various materials they can collect and use as connectors, supporters and building purposes. We have designed surveys for teachers and students so that we can evaluate and improve on our lesson plans each year. We have continued to establish stronger ties with curriculum support officers and education authorities who help mobilize the training. We have grown the reach of the DCL Teacher Trainer Program: in 2024, we trained educators in Nakuru County. In 2025, we expanded the training to Kisumu County, Kenya, with an additional reinforcement of a refresher course in Nakuru County. For 2026, we have a refresher course planned in Kisumu County as well as new training planned for five additional counties that will impact nearly 80,000 additional educators.
Science centers, libraries, and technology hubs are uniquely positioned to be anchors in this global movement. Design Challenge Learning fits naturally into classrooms, exhibit floors, and maker spaces while supporting public programs centered on innovation and problem-solving. It provides a structured pedagogy that connects informal learning experiences with what students are doing in school and can turn your institution into a regional hub for teacher training, student challenges, and community-based innovation events.
By adopting and adapting DCL, educators around the world can train educators from schools and community organizations and host local or regional design challenge events.This work directly advances global priorities around inclusive engagement and equitable access to STEM, ensuring that young people in rural, underserved, and special needs settings are not left behind.
Collaborate with us to become a Design Challenge Learning hub for your city or region, train local teachers and facilitators using the DCL model. You can bring low-cost, hands-on STEM learning to classrooms (no digital technology needed!) by contacting Shital Patel, Global Partnerships Director, at spatel@thetech.org or Jessica Adam, Global Operations Manager, at jadam@thetech.org. We can provide training, resources, and tools to teachers that want to supplement existing curriculum to create an innovator mindset using human-critical skills to develop the next generation of innovators!
