What happens when students realize their voices can create real change?
In this culminating lesson, students present their final prototypes to an authentic audience and reflect on the skills, insights, and personal growth they’ve gained throughout the project. It’s a moment to celebrate their work, recognize their impact, and look ahead to what’s possible next.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
- Deliver a clear, engaging final presentation of their prototype or campaign to an authentic audience.
- Reflect on their personal growth, their team’s process, and what they learned about social media.
- Explore opportunities for broader impact and real-world application of their work.
- Practice metacognition by reflecting on how they think, learn, and grow.
- Demonstrate a growth mindset through reflection on learning from risk, feedback, and iteration.
- Take initiative in exploring next steps for project impact beyond the classroom.
- Articulate how this experience supports their journey as lifelong learners.
What You’ll Need
Minds-on
Skills for the Future:
- Metacognition
- Taking Initiative
- Lifelong Learning
Project Word Wall:
- Agency
- Creative Confidence
- Impact
In this culminating lesson, students take center stage—sharing their final prototypes or campaigns with an authentic audience and reflecting on the full arc of their project journey. Through this experience, they activate real-world communication, leadership, and creative problem-solving skills while practicing self-regulation and adaptability. This lesson is not just a showcase—it’s a moment of transformation. Students are invited to look back at their personal growth, recognize how their work has impact beyond the classroom, and imagine how to carry forward the skills, mindsets, and purpose they’ve developed. By connecting their learning to future goals, they close the unit with agency and a renewed sense of possibility.
In this final lesson, students complete the test phase of the design thinking process by presenting their polished solutions to an authentic audience. They also reflect on their full project-based learning journey—celebrating growth, identifying transferable skills, and envisioning how to apply their learning beyond the classroom.
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Standards and Practices
Common Core Standards: Grades 9–10
- W.9-10.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
- W.9-10.6: Use technology to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.
- W.9-10.10: Write routinely over extended time frames for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
- SL.9-10.1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners.
- SL.9-10.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically.
- SL.9-10.5: Make strategic use of digital media in presentations to enhance understanding of findings and to add interest.
Common Core Standards: Grades 11–12
- W.11-12.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
- W.11-12.6: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback.
- W.11-12.10: Write routinely over extended and shorter time frames for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
- SL.11-12.1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
- SL.11-12.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective.
- SL.11-12.5: Make strategic use of digital media in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
Next Generation Science Standards
- HS-ETS1-3: Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints.
- Engaging in Argument from Evidence: Students construct arguments and refine ideas based on feedback and peer input.
- Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information: Students synthesize, communicate, and present findings effectively.
International Society for Technology in Education
- Empowered Learner: Students take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating competency in their learning goals.
- Innovative Designer: Students use a variety of technologies to solve problems and create new, useful, or imaginative solutions.
- Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats, and digital media appropriate to their goals.
- Global Collaborator: Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.