DESIGN THINKING IN ACTION: Waukee APEX, Waukee Community School District, Waukee, Iowa

Would you like to learn here?

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc. called the facility and the program “a model for the country.”

He could be right.

Waukee, Iowa is a rapidly growing suburb of Des Moines.  As a result of this growth, the district’s only high school became overcrowded.

To address this, the district chose to create a new experience for students, and a new facility to support that experience, that provided a unique approach to education through community engagement and authentic problem-solving.  As you might expect, the new space also addressed the growth of the high school population.

Waukee APEX (Waukee Aspiring Professional Experience) is a program available to high school juniors and seniors that helps them develop valuable career-related experiences (school-to-work programs are available as well).  The program links the school district’s students with businesses within the greater Des Moines community to establish unique opportunities for investigating real-world projects.  The focus of these projects is based on five economic sectors that are uniquely related to the Des Moines metro area and the state of Iowa.  Students have the opportunity to work with their teachers and alongside industry partners to study important questions within the five economic sectors. 

The five sectors are:

  • Financial & Insurance

  • Business, Technology, & Communication

  • Engineering

  • Human Services

  • Bioscience & Value-Added Agriculture

Students spend time during the school day at a combination of the following locations:  Waukee High School, the Waukee Innovation & Learning Center (WILC), pictured above, and at their business partner location.  

What is interesting about Waukee APEX?

  • The school campus is now represented by the community which students negotiate on a daily basis.

  • The learning and the associated projects are entrepreneurial in nature and immerse students in inquiry and authenticity.

  • The program offers students choice and ownership of their learning.

  • The school now has the opportunity to provide students with “launch points” for their lives - not just an expectation of graduation as a goal, and on to college or work, but opportunities to explore potential careers in truly meaningful ways while in school.

  • The program operates from a state-of-the-art 70,000-square-foot entrepreneurial center.

  • And, the program supports the region and the state in growing the talent of Iowa students, an incredibly important consideration for a publicly-funded institution.

The Upshot: what can this mean for your practice and a design thinking classroom?

As an educator-designer, it’s important to create experiential pathways for students that enable exploration, promote the development of learning skills and dispositions, provide a unique and meaningful challenge, and have the opportunity to be shaped by the student themselves in accordance with their needs, passions, and aspirations.

Like the coffee shop, the opportunity to learn in other locations besides school changes learning from school-based to community-based.

Literature Cited

"Meet Iowa's Waukee Innovation & Learning Center, the High ...." 8 Oct. 2018, https://www.the74million.org/article/meet-iowas-waukee-innovation-learning-center-the-high-school-that-apples-ceo-called-a-model-for-the-country/. Accessed 9 May. 2020.