Courses

CTE Intro to Product Innovation and Design

​DTech Survey is a course at Foothill Technology High School that offers students an opportunity to use critical thinking, design, entrepreneurship, and prototyping skills to help solve major problems in society. The course is required for all students who wish to be enrolled in the DTech Pathway at Foothill. Students in the course will use modern tools and techniques used in industry to both build and sell their ideas.​ The methodology underpinning the class is called design thinking, which is the process of:

1) identifying a problem

2) understanding the audience (empathy)

3) quickly brainstorming ways to solve that problem based on an understanding of the audience

4) building prototypes

5) testing the prototype

6) refining the product based on testing phase

Students will use tools like 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, microcontrollers, and coding programs to solve problems generated from the design thinking methodology.

CTE Capstone: Advanced Design Studio

This is an entrepreneurship course utilizing business, self-employment, marketing, sales and services concepts. The course is designed to prepare students for a higher likelihood of success in any career field since knowledge of entrepreneurship is universally applicable to all fields. The applications throughout the course allow students to see the connection of entrepreneurship towards a real-world environment. This course is the first part of a pathway sequence with an entrepreneurship or business/finance theme. 

The Entrepreneurship course is designed to promote entrepreneurial literacy among high school students via Common Core-based learning and assessments. Students will experience education in a project based learning environment and will have an opportunity to bond with other students, teachers, plus with entrepreneurs in the community. 

Students will engage in higher-order theory, analysis, and interpretation, including applying new knowledge and understanding to their own business plan. They will apply financial principles and practices, analyze characteristics of successful businesses, and develop all marketing tools for their business such as logos, advertising flyers, promotional films or commercials, and business cards. Students will utilize smart business practices such as surveys, good record keeping, and budget development. Students will not only learn about starting a small business, but they will reinforce other academic foundation skills in English, Math and Social Science.