In today’s rapidly evolving educational landscape, teachers are often time-starved and can often spend far too much time putting out fires.
Design thinking gives schools the space and opportunity to solve problems, continually adapt and innovate to meet the changing needs of students, staff, and the wider community.
What Is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is an innovative problem-solving approach that emphasises understanding the needs and experiences of end-users, fostering creativity and encouraging collaborative ideation. In educational settings, this methodology can empower teachers and school staff to develop more effective and engaging learning experiences. Embracing design thinking in schools promotes a culture of continuous improvement and adaptation, preparing students and staff to thrive in an ever-evolving world.
Design thinking originated from the fields of architecture and engineering in the 1960s, influenced by pioneers like Herbert A. Simon and Robert McKim who emphasised a systematic approach to problem-solving. The methodology gained prominence in the 1980s through the work of David Kelley and his company IDEO, which applied design thinking to product development and business innovation. Its principles were further refined and popularised in academic settings, particularly at Stanford University’s d.school, where it became a cornerstone of creative and interdisciplinary education. After that, design thinking has evolved into a widely adopted framework across various industries, emphasising empathy, experimentation, and iterative learning.
What Are The Benefits Of Design Thinking?
Design thinking’s effectiveness has positively impacted various sectors. Based on various research and observations, findings show that:
- Design thinking improves service delivery by putting the “user” at the centre of the problem being tackled. Institutions using design thinking see improvements in efficiency and innovation.
- The application of design thinking in the Knee High Challenge created innovation that resulted in families feeling more connected to their communities and reduced parental stress. And its application in the Working Well Challenge helped young people learn transferable skills, boost confidence, and find employment. Therefore, it can improve the delivery of public services (including education) by making the systems and outcomes of the schools centred on the scholars and families to improve efficiency and innovation.
- Design thinking significantly enhances collaboration and innovative thinking.
- Implementing design thinking in schools increases student motivation, critical thinking skills, and fosters collaborative learning environments.
- Design thinking makes learning more interactive and engaging, fostering creativity and critical thinking skills in scholars. It can help in developing curricula aligned with real-world problems and skills, making education more relevant to students, and you can use it as a framework for teaching in classrooms.
Can Design Thinking Be Used In Schools?
There are numerous case studies, showing that you can use a design thinking approach as a means to collaboratively engage with your school community and find solutions to a wide range of challenges that schools face. Below are just some of them:
- Using maths and design thinking to address societal issues and teach empathy to students: In South Carolina, middle school students participated in the SFCSxDesign Pallet House Project to address homelessness by building a 250-square-foot house from pallets. They applied maths skills for precise construction, demonstrating how design thinking empowers students to tackle real-world challenges. This project fostered empathy, rapid prototyping, and action-oriented problem-solving. Also, it helped students develop practical skills and a mindset for addressing broader societal issues.
- Youth for EcoAction in Canada: The Youth for EcoAction (YEA) programme in Winnipeg engages teenagers in community gardening to encourage ownership, responsibility, and environmental awareness. By participating in cleaning and maintaining community gardens, teens gain practical urban agriculture skills and contribute to local green spaces. The programme has led to increased self-esteem, better nutrition, and enhanced environmental consciousness among participants. Consequently, it also strengthened community cohesion and improved neighbourhood green spaces.
- New food system from IDEO and the San Francisco Unified School District: IDEO partnered with the San Francisco Unified School District to revamp their food system by focusing on students’ needs and preferences. They engaged students, parents, union leaders, nutritionists, teachers, and community groups through interviews, observations, and workshops. The insights highlighted diverse taste preferences, social connection desires, and interest in responsible food choices. Solutions included expanded food choices, shorter lines, more access points, and a technology platform for ordering food, giving feedback, and managing nutrition and budgets, all using a human-centred design thinking approach.
How Can Your School Get Started?
“Many successful businesses embrace design thinking to improve their products and enhance their customers’ experiences to great effect. Why, then, would we not do the same with our schools?” – (Thomas Riddle for Edutopia, 2016)
By running design thinking workshops within your school, you can equip school leaders and staff to find long term solutions, even with limited resources. The design thinking process can be broken up into seven steps. As schools follow each step, they can systematically identify challenges, generate innovative solutions, and implement changes that enhance the learning environment.
Here’s a comprehensive guide to using design thinking to implement change. You can also use it to create long-term cultural shifts and ultimately improve your school community.
1. Frame Your Question(s)
The first step in the design thinking process is to clearly frame the questions you want to answer. This involves defining the problems or areas for improvement in your school. As you get to know what your school needs to improve on, you can then frame your questions to find out what’s not working and why it’s not working. These questions should be specific, actionable, and focused on the needs of your school community.
Examples of questions to frame:
- How can we improve student engagement in the classroom?
- What strategies can we implement to enhance teacher well-being and reduce burnout?
- How can we create a more inclusive and supportive environment for all students?
Framing the right questions sets the stage for the entire design thinking process. It ensures that you direct efforts towards addressing the most critical issues and that you align the solutions you develop with the needs of your school community. As you provide a clear focus for the design thinking process, you ensure that efforts are directed towards meaningful and impactful areas. This will help to identify the specific needs and challenges of the school community.
2. Gather Information
After you have framed your questions, you will need to gather relevant information.
This involves collecting data and insights from your school community. This will help you to understand the current state of your school and the experiences of students, staff, and parents. Gathering information is crucial for developing an accurate picture of the school’s environment and identifying areas for improvement.
How to gather information:
- Conduct surveys with students, staff, and parents to collect quantitative and qualitative data.
- Organise focus groups and interviews to gain deeper insights into specific issues.
- Review existing school data, such as academic performance, attendance records, and behavioural reports.
By using our annual surveys for gathering comprehensive information, you can develop a thorough understanding of the challenges your school faces and the factors contributing to these issues. This step provides a solid foundation of data to inform decision-making, helps to identify patterns and trends that may not be immediately apparent, and engages the school community in the process, ensuring that their voices are heard.
3. Generate Ideas
With a clear understanding of the challenges and needs of your school, the next step is to generate ideas for potential solutions. This is where creativity and collaboration come into play. Encourage participation from diverse stakeholders, including teachers, students, parents, and administrators, to generate a wide range of ideas.
Techniques for generating ideas:
- Brainstorming sessions: Gather a group of stakeholders to brainstorm as many ideas as possible.
- Mind mapping: Use visual tools to explore different aspects of the problem and potential solutions.
- Empathising: Encourage participants to put themselves in the shoes of different stakeholders to understand their perspectives and generate ideas.
The goal of this step is to produce a variety of ideas that you can further develop and refine. Initially, you will want to go for a divergent idea generation process so that you can converge and organise your ideas in the next stage.
By encouraging creative thinking and innovation, engaging a diverse group of stakeholders in the process, and generating a wide range of potential solutions, this step ensures a broad exploration of possibilities.
4. Organise Ideas
After you have generated a list of ideas, the next step is to organise and prioritise them. You can do so by evaluating the feasibility and potential impact of each idea and selecting the most promising ones to develop further.
How to organise ideas:
- Group similar ideas together to identify common themes.
- Evaluate each idea based on criteria such as feasibility, impact, and alignment with school goals.
- Prioritise the top ideas for further development and testing.
Working with a design thinking facilitator can make this stage of the design thinking process simpler. A design thinking facilitator can help guide this process. They will ensure that the most promising ideas are selected and that the evaluation is thorough and unbiased.
This step helps to focus efforts on the most impactful and feasible solutions, ensuring a systematic and unbiased evaluation of ideas, and engages the entire school community in the decision-making process.
5. Turn The Ideas Into Reality
With a shortlist of promising ideas, the next step is to turn these ideas into reality. You can develop prototypes or pilot programs to test the solutions on a small scale before implementing them more broadly.
How to turn ideas into reality:
- Develop basic prototypes or pilot programs that can be easily modified based on feedback.
- Involve the school community in the development process to ensure that the solutions meet their needs.
- Create a detailed implementation plan that includes timelines, resources, and responsibilities.
So, before committing to a full-scale implementation, you can start with prototypes or pilots to test and refine the solutions. This approach will involve the school community in the development process, ensuring that the solutions meet their needs, and reduces the risk of failure by starting with small-scale implementations.
6. Measure Progress
This step involves collecting feedback and data to evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions and identify any areas for improvement.
How to test ideas and measure progress:
- Collect feedback from students, staff, and parents to understand their experiences with the solutions.
- Use data and metrics to evaluate the impact of the solutions on key outcomes, such as student engagement, teacher well-being, and school culture.
- Make iterative improvements to the solutions based on the feedback and data collected.
Testing and measuring progress ensures that the solutions are effective and that any issues are identified and addressed promptly. This step provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of the solutions, ensures that any issues are identified and addressed promptly, and allows for iterative improvements to enhance the solutions.
7. Share Lessons Learned
The final step in the design thinking process is to share the lessons learned from the experience. This involves documenting the process, outcomes, and key insights and sharing this information with the school community and other schools.
How to share lessons learned:
- Create detailed reports that document the process, outcomes, and key insights.
- Share the reports with the school community, including students, staff, and parents.
- Present the findings at meetings or events to engage the wider community.
Sharing lessons learned helps to build a culture of continuous improvement. And it encourages ongoing innovation in the school and engages the school community in the process and outcomes.
As schools apply these seven steps of design thinking, they can systematically identify challenges, generate innovative solutions, and implement changes that enhance the learning environment. Design thinking offers a structured, human-centred approach to problem-solving that engages the entire school community and drives meaningful improvements.
Ready to get started with design thinking in your school? Sign up to our waiting list for our FREE upcoming webinar with award-winning educator, engineer and design thinking specialist, Temi Kamson, and discover how you can use collaboration & design thinking to implement change, create long-term cultural shifts and ultimately improve your school community.
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