Design thinking is taking the school world by storm, and rather than it becoming just another ‘hot education term’ or hashtag for the moment, we propose a learning tool which teachers can use to help in still the maker mindset within their students.
You may be asking questions such as what exactly is design thinking? And what is the importance of students having a maker mindset?
The Teaching and Learning Lab (TLL) supports and develops innovative and effective approaches to teaching and learning at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. According to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Design Thinking is described as, “a mindset and approach to learning, collaboration, and problem solving. In practice, the design process is a structured framework for identifying challenges, gathering information, generating potential solutions, refining ideas, and testing solutions. Design Thinking can be flexibly implemented; serving equally well as a framework for a course design or a roadmap for an activity or group project. This is a solution based approach to solving problems that students can use a non-linear method to find a solution.
Dunn (2019) describes the idea of the maker mindset is that students develop creative confidence and a sense of agency. That they have the ability to creatively solve problems on their own and with their peers. She continues to describe maker-centered learning is important as it teaches life skills — critical thinking, collaboration, and communication. Our world is changing, we want and need innovators, creators, designers. Individuals who are confident and empathetic. Which we can easily foster and help grow within our classroom environments.
Our design intends to accomplish purposeful reflection throughout the design thinking process. Embedding the design process with curriculum standards will have students take real life problems and construct their own solutions. Within the design process, students will become comfortable in making mistakes and realizing that it is from failures that the best learning takes place; resulting in reflective questions such as, what worked? didn’t work? and how can I make it better? Through emphasis on reflection within the design process, learners develop creative confidence and metacognitive and critical thinking skills they can transfer to real world problem-solving.
References “Design Thinking in Education.” (2020) HGSE Teaching and Learning Lab, tll.gse.harvard.edu/design-thinking.
Dunn, Kaniah. “Bringing a 'Maker Mindset' to the Future of Work.” Citizen Schools, Citizen Schools, 19 Feb. 2019, www.citizenschools.org/news/2019/2/19/bringing-a-maker-mindset-to-the-future-of-work
IDEO LLC. (2012). Design Thinking for Educators (2 ed.). Retrieved from http://designthinkingforeducators.com
Istance, D. (2019, January 23). Approaches to pedagogical innovation and why they matter. Retrieved March 10, 2020, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/education-plus-development/2019/01/23/approaches-to-pedagogical-innovation-and-why-they-matter/
Kim, P. (2012). Designing a new learning environment. [YouTube, 8 mins.]
Noweski, Christine, et al. (2012). Towards a Paradigm Shift in Education Practice: Developing Twenty-First Century Skills with Design Thinking. Design Thinking Research. 71–94, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-31991-4_5
OECD (2018). The Future of Education and Skills. Education 2030. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Ostafichuk, P., Hodgson, A., & Fengler, M. (2011). The Engineering Design Process. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.
Paniagua, A. and D. Istance (2018), Teachers as Designers of Learning Environments: The Importance of Innovative Pedagogies, Educational Research and Innovation, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264085374-en.
Pilloton, E. (2010). Teaching design for change. [TED, 17 mins.]
Province of British Columbia. (2019). Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies K-9 – Curricular Competencies. Retrieved from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/curriculum/continuous-views/en_ADST_k-9_curricular_competencies.pdf