Design thinkingrefers to creative strategies designers utilize during the process of designing.Design thinking is also an approach that can be used to consider issues and resolve problems more broadly than within professional design practice, and has been applied in business and to social issues.Design thinking in business uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.
Design thinking has been suggested for use in schools in a variety of curricular ways,as well as for redesigning student spaces and school systems.
Design thinking in education typically takes three forms: helping school administrators solve institution-based problems, aiding educators develop more creative lesson plans, and engendering design thinking skills in students.
There are currently many researchers exploring the intersection of design thinking and education.The REDLab group, fromStanford University's Graduate School of Education, conducts research into design thinking in K-12, secondary, and post-secondary settings.[51]The Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program is a collaborative program betweenStanford Universityand theHasso Plattner InstitutefromPotsdam, Germany.The Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program's mission is to "apply rigorous academic methods to understand how and why design thinking innovation works and fails."
SPJIMR, a top B-school in India, offers a road map to build design thinking culture in the organisation and has implemented the approach across its different management programs.
In addition to enriching curriculum and expanding student perspectives, design thinking can also benefit educators. Researchers have proposed that design thinking can enable educators to integrate technology into the classroom.
Design thinking as a viable curricular and systemic reform program is increasingly being recognized by educators. "Much of today's education system guides students toward finding the correct answers to fill-in-the blanks on standardized tests, as this kind of instruction facilitates streamlined assessments to measure success or failure?... It is critical that, particularly in under-served schools this model of learning does not continue to prevail. Students need both the skills and the tools to participate in a society where problems are increasingly complex and nuanced understandings are vital."
Uses in K-12 education
In the K-12 arena, design thinking is used to promote creative thinking, teamwork, and student responsibility for learning. The nonprofit Tools at Schools aims to expose students, educators, and schools to design thinking. The organization does this by facilitating a relationship between a school and a manufacturing company. Over a minimum of six months, representatives from the manufacturing company teach students the principles of design and establish the kind of product to be designed.The students collaborate to design a prototype that the manufacturer produces.Once the prototype arrives, the students must promote the product and support the ideas that lead to its design.
An example of the Tools at Schools partnership is the redesign of school equipment by 8th grade students atThe School at Columbia University. The students were divided into groups and asked to redesign a locker, chair, or a desk to better suit the needs of 21st century pupils.The students' final products were displayed at theInternational Contemporary Furniture Fairwhere they demonstrated their product to fair attendees and industry professionals.Overall Tools at Schools not only introduces students to the design process, it exposes them to the design profession through their interactions with designers and manufacturers.Since the students work together in groups, design thinking in education also encourages collaborative learning.
Another organization that works with integrating design thinking for students is the corporation NoTosh. NoTosh has a design thinking school to teach instructors how to implement design thinking into their curriculum. One of the design thinking techniques NoTosh adopted from the corporate world and applied to education is hexagonal thinking. Hexagonal thinking consists of gathering cut-outs in hexagon shapes and writing a concept or fact on each one. Students then connect the hexagons by laying related ideas or facts together. The visual representation of relationships helps students better conceptualizewicked problems.Another concrete example of design thinking in action is NoTosh's "Googleable vs NonGoogleable Questions" exercise.Given a specific topic, students brainstorm questions on that issue and divide their questions into "Googleable and NonGoogleable."Students research the Googleable questions and present their findings to the class while the NonGoogleable questions are used to create a project.
Stanford University's Taking Design Thinking to Schools Initiative
Apart from non profit entities and corporations, research universities are also involved in deploying design thinking curriculum to K-12 schools. Part ofStanford University's efforts to incorporate design thinking in education into a hands-on setting is the Taking Design Thinking to Schools initiative. The Stanford School of Education and d.school partner with K-12 teachers in thePalo Altoarea to discover ways to apply design thinking in an educational setting."Teachers and students engage in hands-on design challenges that focus on developing empathy, promoting a bias towards action, encouraging ideation, developing metacognitive awareness and fostering active problem solving."
Taking Design Thinking to Schools identifies the following design thinking process:
Understand: students explore the topic through research and develop familiarity with the subject matter
Observe: this phase consists of students taking note of their environment, which includes physical surroundings and human interactions; students gather more information about peoples' actions and possible motivation through discussion
Point of view: students consider alternate points of views to better understand the problem and to inform their ideas in the next phase
Ideate: this phase consists of students brainstorming ideas without criticism or inhibition. In this phase, the focus is on generating lots of ideas with an emphasis on creativity and enjoying the process.
Prototype: in this phase students create quick prototypes to investigate ideas generated during the ideation phase
Test: students test their ideas in a repetitive fashion and determine which aspects of the design are effective and which could be improved.
By employing this process, the Stanford team and Taking Design Thinking to Schools participants collaborate to develop coursework that students will find engrossing and "hands-on."Thus, the program at Stanford combines both design thinking for teachers who must create alternative curriculum and students who must complete the design thinking-based projects.
The K12 Lab at Stanford
The K12 Lab network is a part of theStanford Universityd.school and according to its website its mission is to "inspire and develop the creative confidence of educators and support edu innovators catalyzing new models for teaching and learning."The K12 Lab Network publishes a wiki with information on creating design challenges for K-12 schools. The wiki provides tools for thinking about design challenges as well as criteria for implementing design challenges.
The Design Thinking for Educators toolkit
The Design Thinking for Educators toolkit was developed in 2011 by the design firm IDEO in partnership with the PreK-12 independent schoolRiverdale Country School.The Design Thinking for Educators toolkit that is currently offered to the public for free download is the second version.The Design Thinking for Educators toolkit is a comprehensive resource for educators to use, which includes a "walk-through of the design thinking process complete with examples and a downloadable workbook".The toolkit has been used in academic research to aid in the creation of an "iPadlearning Ecosystem".[64]to help design a program to aid at-risk youth in the transition from elementary to secondary school,as well as to redesign libraries.
AIGA
AIGAhas implemented a movement, DesignEd K12, to take designing thinking to schools. This movement is guided by volunteers and there is not a specific program to follow; instead volunteer designers introduce students to the design field and consequently, design thinking. DesignEd K12 intends to motivate students to use design thinking to solve problems; to create a network where designers, students, and educational professionals share best practices; to shape a recommended approach to teaching design; and to cultivate a passion for design among young people.[65]Across the nation, many of AIGA's chapters are working with school districts. The programs range in scope; some mentor students who have shown an interest in design, while other programs offer students the opportunity to explore design and participate in design thinking projects within scheduled classed or through an after-school activity.[65]
Uses in higher education
Design thinking is currently being taught in "workshops, supplemental training, courses, or degree programs" in over 60 universities and colleges.Design thinking is used by colleges as a way to instruct students on the phases of design, and to help develop innovative solutions to existing problems.[66]The d.school atStanford Universityis a well-known design thinking program in higher education, with students from Stanford's departments of engineering, medicine, business, law, and education utilizing the d.school to develop innovative solutions to problems.[67]TheUniversity of Kentuckyalso has formalized instruction on design thinking through its dLab. The dLab serves a multitude of functions from helping schools resolve their issues with design thinking to conducting empirical experiments on design thinking to collaborating with outside organizations to provide issues that plague their organization.[68]Radford University, located in Radford, Virginia, currently offers aMaster of Fine Arts(MFA) degree in design thinking.The MFA degree offered is a completely online degree that emphasizes design thinking, design history, design research, design management, and design doing.
TheJohns Hopkins UniversityCarey Business School and theMaryland Institute College of Artbegan offering an MBA/MA in design leadership in 2012.Students simultaneously earn a master of arts degree in design leadership from an art school as well as an MBA from a research institution.
Obstacles to implementing design thinking in schools
The accountability to succeed on high-stakes standardized tests in K-12 environments prevents the implementation of design thinking curriculum. Educators feel that focusing on classic curriculum will better prepare their students to perform well on these exams.[54]Resistance to design thinking also springs from concerns about the appropriateness of applying design thinking to an educational setting. It has been argued that design thinking is best applied by professionals who know a field well.Therefore, K-12 students who are limited by their reduced understanding of both the field and their still developing intellectual capacities may not be best suited to design thinking activities.
Another more subtle obstacle to design thinking in schools may come from members of the academic community who believe design thinking should remain in the milieu of avant-garde companies.Other issues that may prevent the implementation of design thinking in scholastic settings may be a lack of awareness of the field, educators' uncertainty in implementing new approaches to teaching, and lack of institutional support.
Even for institutions that see the value of design thinking, there is the issue of implementing these new approaches to education successfully. Admittedly "creating an effective thinking and successful team learning experience is a sticky wicked problem."
Design thinking in teaching and learning through ICT
The integration of ICT into teaching and learning presents many challenges that go beyond issues dealing with technical implementation. Some researchers have already claimed the limited effects of ICT adoption in learning;Considering the emphasis and the investment that has been placed on the use of ICT in formal learning settings (schools and higher education institutions) it is important to identify where the problems are. In this regard, some voices of the educational community focus on the methods used for integrating ICT in teaching and learning;.In this sense, the adoption of a design thinking mindset is regarded as a promising strategy to develop holistic solutions.
Design thinking in teaching and learning through ICT can be considered as similar activities. First, it's important to acknowledge that the type of problems faced by the educational community when adopting learning technology are unique, ill-defined and do not have clear solutions;.This definition corresponds very well to the termwicked problemsused by the design community.[80]Secondly, similarly to what happens in design, the diversity of actors brings another layer of complexity that should be recognized. In this regard, collaboration between different stakeholders during the design process is another key issue that could contribute to develop more meaningful technologies for learning;
Design thinking has been outlined as a meaningful approach for facingwicked problems.The adoption of a design mindset helps understand that there can be many solutions for a given situation and that any design requires testing. From this perspective, bringing design thinking to learning design and design expertise to the development process of technological learning solutions can contribute to the creation of more holistic solutions in learning through ICT.
