Design thinking in the 21st century is an imperative

Key points:

Love it or hate it, many teachers have seen just how much technology has changed the landscape of education. Within this rapidly changing landscape, teachers have taken on a role much different from how we have historically been viewed. We are no longer keepers and passers of knowledge as we once were. Instead, technology has allowed students to have almost instant access to different types of information, tools, and more in today’s day and age.

With infinite information at their fingertips, how do we equip this new type of student with the skills to interpret, problem solve, and think critically about the information they encounter when we are not always the ones delivering it to them? The answer is not necessarily a new one, but it is a concept that needs more attention from educators in our modern-day classrooms: Design thinking.

What is design thinking?

The idea of design thinking has been around since the 1960s (Dam & Teo, 2022) but has continued to change in both name and shape over the last 60 years. At its core, design thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving that encourages empathy, innovation, and creativity within students for the purpose of solving real-world problems. We should not simply view it as a tool for teachers to use, but as a necessity to prepare students for the complexities of the 21st century.

The basic steps of design thinking are empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test (Interaction Design Foundation, 2016). The goal is for students to lead with empathy to identify and define a problem, then develop a realistic solution to that problem that can be tested and refined through feedback. This process pushes students to engage with skills like critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, empathy, and problem-solving. These skills are extremely important for successful functioning for both the workplace and daily life in the 21st century.

Impacts

Design thinking is imperative because of the 21st century skills it teaches to students and asks them to practice, and it also can provide many additional positive impacts for students as well. The use of design thinking can foster a healthy relationship with failure within students. Research by Dorland (2023) shows that “design thinking training may enable students to embrace, rather than struggle with failure in their work.” By pushing students to continue to look for ways to enhance their work through feedback, the idea of failure is framed in a positive way.

Design thinking also has a positive impact on the overall motivation and engagement of students. Daniel (2016) found that in an entrepreneurship classroom setting, design thinking creates an atmosphere favorable to learning, with students playing an active role in gaining experience from their activities. Arguably the most straightforward benefit, design thinking supports overall academic performance by developing critical thinking, teamwork skills, social awareness, and negotiating meaning (Carroll et al, 2010, as cited in Noel & Liu, 2016).

How do I use design thinking?

Design thinking is flexible enough to be used within various levels and contents. So how do we use it in our classrooms? For starters, small steps are important. Looking for individual lessons or activities that could be changed to fit a design thinking or “problem solving” perspective are the best places to start. For example, in my 7th grade geography classroom we complete a “Local Issues” project at the beginning of the year using Google Earth. This is a standalone design thinking assignment where students are tasked to learn about or discover a need or issue within our local community by talking with family, friends, or other adults. They need to accurately define the problem, come up with solutions for it, display their solution using Google Earth, and share their presentation with a local leader or adult in the community. After finding one or two lessons to utilize design thinking, the next step should be to create large projects at scale or look for whole units that could be changed to a design thinking structure.

Incorporating design thinking into classrooms is not just an educational trend, but a transformative shift that we, as educators, need to make to best align with today’s learners. It is certainly not without challenges such as time constraints or lack of resources, but the outcome is worth the effort. By promoting empathy, creativity, and critical thinking in our classrooms through design thinking, we prepare and send our students into an ever-changing world with the confidence to navigate it and grow into leaders of tomorrow. I would highly encourage any teacher looking to revamp their curriculum and classroom in an engaging and relevant way to start looking at ways to implement design thinking.

References

Dam, R. F. and Teo, Y. S. (2022, May 20). The History of Design Thinking. Interaction Design Foundation – IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/design-thinking-get-a-quick-overview-of-the-history

Daniel, A. D. (2016). Fostering an entrepreneurial mindset by using a design thinking approach in entrepreneurship education. Industry and Higher Education, 30(3), 215–223. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950422216653195

Dorland, A. M. (2023). Failing to learn: Design thinking and the development of a failure-positive mindset in the university classroom. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v14i1.7155

Interaction Design Foundation – IxDF. (2016, May 25). What is Design Thinking (DT)?. Interaction Design Foundation – IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/design-thinking

Noel, L., & Liu, T. L. (2016). Using Design Thinking to create a new education paradigm for elementary level children for higher student engagement and success. Proceedings of DRS, 2. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.200