Developing creative and critical thinkers in order to solve
real-world problems is an essential component of a child’s educational
experience. When students can look up the answer to any factual question on a
smart device, the value of memorizing facts in order to regurgitate them for a
test has diminished. We now understand that when we apply empathy, context and
meaning to essential information in the form of a question, not only will students
retain the information longer but the likelihood of transferring essential leanings
to new challenges dramatically increases.
I am thankful that schools have incorporated instructional
strategies such as project/problem based learning which require our students to
critically think as they learn to solve real-life problems. Another favorite
strategy or process is Design Thinking which is a methodology of collaborative,
human-centered problem solving that has grown in popularity in recent years due
to the efforts of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, IDEO,
Henry Ford’s Learning Institutes and many others.
I am excited about our incorporation of design thinking at
Woodward Academy because it develops our students’ ability to think creatively
to collaboratively design solutions that incorporate the needs of the user.
Thanks to our involvement with the regional work of Atlanta’s #ak12dc in
partnership with Hasso Plattner’s Institute of Design at Stanford, Woodard
Academy teachers have had access to training and support to increase their
skills for several years. Our K-12 school team tackles school-wide challenges
with direction from leadership. Our five school design thinking teams work with
teachers to incorporate design thinking into units of study.
I was taught to work through challenges and problems by
digging in with persistence, effort and grit to hopefully come up with the
right answer. Design Thinking is much different in that you spend time with
others to gain empathy for the people impacted by what you do. Insights,
identified needs and empathy interviews are unpacked and synthesized into a
meaningful, actionable challenge. Using phrases such as “How might we….”, “Design
a way for….” , or “Redesign the ________ experience to be more________ can
truly open up the possibilities for innovation.
Next, we collaboratively ideate to brainstorm a ton of
varied ideas from which we will build prototypes to test with users. Prototyping
involves quickly getting your ideas into some type of physical form that can be
interacted with to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It may be a rough
object, a storyboard or even a wall of post it notes. The idea is to have a
propensity toward action. The testing phase involves getting feedback and
refining the low res solutions. Throughout the challenge, we may need to back
up, regroup and repeat one or more of the steps of the process. I have often
heard this called “failing fast.” Sometimes we get stuck along the way but by
going out and engaging others rather than trying to figure it out by
ourselves…we always develop a better solution.
Our challenges have ranged from gaining empathy for turkeys who
missed Thanksgiving in PreK, redesigning a wheelchair in 7th grade
STEM class, or the challenge of reducing the amount of trash going to the
landfill which resulted in a change to a cutlery dispenser in our Middle and
Upper school cafeterias.
The world has many needs and design thinking has the power to
create and unleash the innovator in us all.
