Working with gifted learners for the past eight years has only served to further highlight the importance of mental struggle to the overall strengthening of the mind. Oftentimes the GT students have never been in a learning situation that challenges their mental perseverance. By working on projects like The Cardboard Arcade students are bound to run into unanticipated problems and hurdles that must be overcome in order to achieve the goal.
We use The Engineering Design Process structure to guide projects in the GT classroom. This helpful process encourages the students to get comfortable with the idea of learning and creating as a process and not a singular event. The process is shown below.