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Design Thinking
Design thinking is a structured yet flexible process used to approach complex challenges. Rooted in the field of industrial and product design, it has since expanded into education, business, healthcare, and social innovation. At its core, design thinking values understanding people deeply, generating ideas creatively, and testing solutions iteratively.
The process is commonly described in five non-linear phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. It encourages curiosity, collaboration, and comfort with ambiguity. In educational settings, design thinking often means students work on open-ended problems—identifying needs in their community, brainstorming solutions, building models, and refining ideas through feedback.
While it’s become a buzzword in some innovation circles, at its best, design thinking invites learners to approach the world with compassion, creativity, and a willingness to revise their assumptions.
How It’s Understood (and Used)
In education, design thinking is often applied in project-based learning, STEM programs, makerspaces, and entrepreneurial curricula. It’s sometimes used to “teach 21st-century skills” like collaboration, critical thinking, and innovation. Younger students may use simplified versions of the process, often integrated with story-based problem-solving or building with loose parts.
Educators use design thinking to shift students from passive consumers to active makers—of ideas, objects, and change. It offers an alternative to rigid, outcome-based models by focusing on the process: What does the user need? How do we know? What might we try? What can we learn from failure?
That said, design thinking can also be co-opted by neoliberal or tech-centered agendas, framed more around productivity than justice or care. Without attention to equity, context, or deeper values, it can risk turning children into “mini innovators” serving abstract markets rather than grounded communities.
How It Relates to My Approach (optional)
Design thinking overlaps with parts of my practice—especially the values of iteration, collaboration, and listening. In Reggio-inspired classrooms, children often engage in long-term projects that mirror elements of the design cycle: observe, wonder, prototype, reflect, revise.
Where I pause is in the framing. I don’t see children primarily as problem-solvers or solution-makers. I value uncertainty, slowness, and dwelling in not-knowing—not always moving toward a final “product.” When applied with care, design thinking can support children’s agency and expression. But it needs grounding in relationships, ethics, and place—not just innovation for its own sake.
References
- IDEO & d.school. (2012). Design Thinking for Educators
- Brown, T. (2009). Change by Design
- Martinez, S. & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom
- Nimkulrat, N. (2012). “Hands-on Intellect: Integrating Craft Practice into Design Research”
- Kalantzis, M. & Cope, B. (2017). Designs for Learning
Glossary
- Empathy – Deep understanding of the user's perspective, needs, and experiences—often the starting point in design thinking.
- Prototype – A rough, early version of a possible solution—used to test ideas quickly and iteratively.
- Iteration – The process of revising, testing, and improving based on feedback and reflection.
- Human-Centered Design – A design process that prioritizes the real needs and experiences of people over abstract systems or efficiencies.
- Design Mindset – A flexible, open, and curious approach to challenges, emphasizing experimentation and growth through failure.
Articles and Resources on This Site
A glance becomes a blueprint as children design and build a car from stumps—merging imagination, collaboration, authorship, and spatial storytelling in an evolving outdoor classroom.
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