Design thinking
Sebah Al-Ali
Design thinking is one of the trending concepts among educators nowadays. Harvard’s Teaching and Learning Lab defines it 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.
–source: Design thinking in education
In Class?
To integrate design thinking class, we need to guide learners through five stages or phases to solve a problem. This can be helpful for projects that encourage students to practice their language as they discuss and learn more about real world problems.
More?
If you’re interested to learn more about design thinking and how it can be used in your classroom, these are some useful links:
- Design thinking for educators which offers a handy toolkit
- Next Generation Strategies: Design thinking
- Design Thinking in Pedagogy (PDF)
- Design thinking in education
- 10 Things That Happen When Students Engage in Design Thinking
