Student-Centered Learning by Design
Course
The Design Thinking Mindset [4:18]
- Learn what design is as a process and what design thinking is as a mindset
- Learn how a design thinking approach to teaching organically becomes student centered
- Learn to apply a design process and design thinking mindset to real world problems
So, as I've said, design is a process and design thinking is a mindset, and I'm going to show you, much like Barb talked about her, her graphic, her infographic about the inquiry process, I will show you an infographic about how to approach implementing design thinking. But again, it is a fluid process. And you move back and forth through it as you need to, in order to satisfy your inquiry or arrive at a meaningful solution to the problem that you're trying to solve.
So with all of that in mind, I come back to this idea that Jaime Casap says over and over and over again, if you've ever read anything that he's written, if you've watched him deliver a keynote, he was at AASL a few AASLs ago and said this at that keynote as well. But this is kind of the mantra that he brings to the world as the former Google Education Evangelist. Like, what kind of a job title is that? That's awesome. But he says, "don't ask kids what they want to be when they grow up....Ask them what problem they want to solve." That completely reframes why they're in school, right. It completely reframes why they're learning what they're learning and practicing what they're practicing. It reframes the relationships that they build with people and their sense of community because they have a purpose now beyond just a textbook or just a problem set or something or an exercise that feels artificial.
We're going to start getting into now how we apply a design process and a design thinking mindset to looking at the problems that your groups were identifying. And I found it really interesting looking at some of the different boards. This group is group 11, and you started doing your sorting right on the board, which is really kind of cool to look at how a problem gets translated and reinterpreted as you move from a larger group of people who are affected by it or living with it to a smaller, more micro-community and how that translates. And so this group was doing that here. The other thing that I thought was really interesting was some groups did it within their group internally or comparing across groups. Groups came up with very similar, if not the identical same problem, and yet categorize them differently. And so that also speaks to how are the members of your group experiencing that problem? How does that problem manifest within your local community or your school or your state? So poverty as a social problem versus poverty as an economic problem, I thought was really interesting. And then new problems that have emerged that I haven't seen people suggest and exercises like this, the cyber attacks. Right thinking about the gas pipeline, ransom, cyber attacks and things like that, that weren't things that a year ago we necessarily were talking about, at least not on the number of people talking about it as our aware of those events, now. So lots of really interesting stuff coming up in the different boards, in the different conversations that people were having.
Design thinking is a mindset, a fluid process that you move through in order to satisfy your inquiry and arrive at a meaningful solution. It can be used to solve research problems—or everyday human problems, as shown in the Project Guideline video.
Project Guideline: Can Technology Help a Blind Runner Navigate?
Watch the Project Guideline video found in the Resources above that deals with a real life problem that needed a team of people to solve. The group of design thinkers from Google worked endlessly (even through the pandemic) to figure out a way to help Thomas Panek be able to run on his own. The video shows how the design process works and how design thinking is a mindset that gets you to the solution. What types of mindsets become evident in this video that made it possible for Thomas to run solo again? Using page 6 of the Course Packet found in the Resources above, describe the mindsets that were evident to you in this design challenge story. Can you relate these mindsets with your students? What types of lessons can you build around those?
MLA Citation
Whiting, Jacquelyn. "Student-Centered Learning by Design: Design Thinking as a Mindset." School Library Connection, August 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2267092?learningModuleId=2267090&topicCenterId=2247903.
Entry ID: 2267688
Jaime Casap said, "Don't ask kids what they want to be when they grow up...Ask them what problem they want to solve." Turning problems into student-centered learning opportunities is an amazing way to see what types of learners our students will grow to be.
What problems will challenge our students? Using page 8 of the Course Packet found in the Resources above, brainstorm 1–2 problems that we know that our schools, communities, our nation are facing today and then sort those problems into categories. Creating this list of problems and brainstorming how they affect the community around you is a great starting point for a student-centered learning opportunity.
MLA Citation
Whiting, Jacquelyn. "Student-Centered Learning by Design: Turning Problems into Student-Centered Learning Opportunities." School Library Connection, August 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2267092?learningModuleId=2267090&topicCenterId=2247903.
Entry ID: 2267689
Additional Resources
About the Author
MLA Citation
Whiting, Jacquelyn. "Student-Centered Learning by Design. The Design Thinking Mindset [4:18]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, August 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2267092?learningModuleId=2267090&topicCenterId=2247903.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2267092?learningModuleId=2267090&topicCenterId=2247903
Entry ID: 2267092