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Tag: thinking
What is Design Thinking and how can teachers get started?
With this introductory guide to design thinking for educators, we lay the foundations for better problem solving and creative ideas.
Use this introduction as a launchpad for your further research, skill development and professional growth in creative problem solving with design thinking.
Table of Contents
- What is Design Thinking?
- Why is it called design thinking?
- Who invented design thinking?
- Design Thinking Steps
- Is design thinking a linear process?
- When is design thinking relevant?
- How design thinking helps
- How to get started with design thinking in education?
- Articles for further reading
- Conclusion and Summary
- Unlock Your Creative Potential
What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is a creative, human-centred process for developing new ideas and solving problems.
The design process includes five phases: empathising with the user, identifying needs and defining the problem, envisioning what could be, generating potential solutions, prototyping ideas and testing prototypes with users.
The five phases are often labelled:
- Empathise
- Define
- Ideate
- Prototype
- Test
Design thinking aims to uncover creative solutions for complex problems through generating ideas, testing them with stakeholders, and refining them in an iterative process until they are ready for implementation.
Why is it called design thinking?
For professional designers and design-oriented creatives, design thinking is their standard process or way of doing things.
Many disciplines, including education, have co-opted design thinking techniques to develop innovative solutions or product development processes.
Design thinking is also sometimes called design-led innovation or a design methodology. It is a series of:
design-specific cognitive activities that designers apply during the process of designing
Visser, W. 2006
The opportunity in education is for us to use design methods and designerly ways of thinking intentionally.
My experience across the last decade of applying these methods for thinking in an education setting challenges and provokes new ways of approaching long-standing problems and issues.
Who invented design thinking?
Design thinking originated from design disciplines, creativity research and design practice between the 1940s and 1960s.
One of the first authors to write about design thinking was John E. Arnold (1959), who identified design thinking as a design methodology. Arnold distinguishes four areas of design thinking and developmental change:
- Novel functionality
- Higher levels of performance
- Lower production costs
- Increased saleability
The term design thinking came into widespread use in the 2000s when David Kelley, founder of the design consultancy IDEO, shifted design thinking from creative engineering to innovation management.
Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
Tim Brown, Chair of IDEO
Although our experience in education with design thinking is in the last 10-15 years, the practice goes back much further—a good reminder of the limitations of our use as non-design professionals.
Design Thinking Steps
The design thinking process is made up of five steps or stages. What are the 5 stages of design thinking?:
- Empathise
- Define
- Ideate
- Prototype
- Test
Let’s have a closer look at each and expand further on what is involved in the different phases of design thinking:
Empathise
In the opening phase of the process, the goal is to understand better who is at the heart of the problem or issue. A range of design research techniques is used to understand the problem area, including interviews, mapping and user surveys.
We might be speaking to students and families in the education context, observing and working with different community groups. Anything that helps us listen to the stakeholders at the heart of the issue we explore.
Define
The goal of the Define phase is to synthesise information and write a clearly framed problem statement. You might be thinking, ‘do we not start with the problem?’ This is a valid question and is one of the critical ideas to explore with design thinking.
I often say that the process of design thinking helps us start from further back. The empathy phase challenges us to listen and understand the needs of people involved before we fixate on a specific problem or solution.
Ideate
This is where design thinking diverges from the norm. We are no longer trying to find a single solution or ‘fix’ to an identified problem. The design process prompts us to consider many ideas and solutions, even if they are potential future options.
The structured process of idea generation helps us develop a range of alternative solutions. Once we have a range of ideas to explore, we can filter and analyse the proposed solutions before identifying something to invest in further and prototype.
Prototype
After much creative work, it’s time to prototype your ideas into something tangible that can be tested with people involved in the project. You might reconnect with the school community groups that you spoke with in the empathise phase.
A key benefit of design thinking is its ability to test early and often through prototyping. Prototyping and testing are part of the same tight feedback loop. The reason we prototype is to gain feedback.
Prototypes should be designed to ask a question and get some data about something you’re interested in. Good prototypes isolate one aspect of a problem and design an experience that allows you to “try out” some version of a potentially interesting future.
Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Test
As ideas are tested, the design thinker will learn more about what works well in practice and refocus efforts accordingly. Any feedback or insight is used in the creative process to inform the next iteration of the solution.
In education, this prototyping and testing often get overlooked for a Pilot programme, and it is worth dwelling on the difference for a moment.
Pilot studies or programmes tend to be more advanced real-world solutions with more significant investment. A prototype test is generally on a much smaller experimental scale.
Is design thinking a linear process?
Design thinking is often referred to as a linear process, and while the design thinker will understand the value of each step and be applying them in order, there can be some ambiguity.
Search for a diagram of the design thinking process, and it looks orderly, linear and structured. However, in practice, the design thinking process is flexible and can be extended or iterated based on feedback from testing. Prototyping and testing is the design thinker’s key feedback loop.
As with any creative process, design thinking is an iterative design, research, creativity, and testing process. It is common for teachers and leaders to return to the initial phases to explore other opportunities or possibilities with different stakeholders.
The design thinking process is flexible enough to move around within it, returning to previous steps while also seeking new forms of inspiration and insight. It’s not about finding ‘the answer’ – design thinkers are mindful that there is rarely just one perfect solution.
They know that through design thinking, they can explore many ideas in parallel without siloing their efforts into one project at a time.
When is design thinking relevant?
To answer this question, let’s return to design thinking’s roots in design, which is about creating successful outcomes through innovation, research and prototyping. Everything begins with design.
Designers identify a problem or opportunity to design something better for people who will use it. Design thinking is relevant when working on creative solutions that need to be user-centred and grounded in empathy research.
Design thinking can be used by educators, school leaders, and teachers to grapple with complex community problems. The sort of challenges that seem connected to many aspects of the educational experience and need collaboration to understand.
Design thinking is not relevant for specific operational challenges or urgent matters impacting the school.
How design thinking helps
There is a range of benefits to teachers and education leaders for using design thinking. These include:
- Strengthening critical and creative thinking.
- Solution-based approach to address complex problem-solving.
- Design thinking provides a framework to design creative solutions.
- Design thinking helps with a better understanding of what is happening on the ground, close to home. Real issues that affect the school community.
- Design solutions that are more innovative, creative and engaging.
- Design thinking help to design future possibilities for students.
- New insights into how people learn, what they need and where design can make a difference.
- A collaborative approach to design, research and prototyping.
- Facilitates a deeper understanding of school community challenges that could lead to more innovative, creative or engaging design solutions.
How to get started with design thinking in education?
The best way to get started with design thinking is to experience it with your team. Explore design thinking as a school or district. You may even want to design something yourself.
Start with the design thinking process described above and commit it to paper for your team to discuss together. Where could you apply design thinking in your practice? How might design thinking help make a difference at your school?
Remember to explore issues in your school community that are complex and human-centred. Here are some general themes and areas to consider:
- Assessment and reporting
- Community engagement
- Curriculum design and development
- Teaching and learning (onsite and offsite)
- Student voice and agency
- Community wellbeing
You may also enjoy diving deeper into design thinking with my self-paced course, ideal for building your skills or learning with your team. Find out more about my online course below.
Articles for further reading
- Stanford d.school (n.d.). The Design Thinking Process | ReDesigning Theater.
- Barrett, T. (27 Oct. 2016.). 4 Ways to Apply Design Thinking in Your School.
- IDEO U (n.d.). IDEO U. – Design thinking. A good summary video, it has a business-related focus with slightly different language around the process.
- d.School (17 Jun. 2011.). An Introduction to Design Thinking: Process Guide.
- AITSL (12 Nov. 2014.). Learning Through Doing – Introduction to design thinking
Conclusion and Summary
Design thinking is a design-centred, user-focused process that can help educators and school leaders to design creative solutions for complex challenges.
Design thinkers use design, research and prototyping as they work on problems in education communities. With design thinking, you’ll be able to strengthen your critical and creative thinking skills. While also addressing complex problem solving through solution-based approaches or more innovative ideas.
You will get better insights into what’s happening close to home by seeking out new forms of inspiration and understanding rather than finding the answer right away.
Unlock Your Creative Potential
Join me and take your first steps with Design Thinking. Drawn from a decade of facilitation and experience, my course is fully loaded with the essential strategies, resources and tips to support your successful first step. Let’s get to work!
5 Tips To Get Started with Reflective Journaling
Put Down Your Phone And Write
For the past few years, I’ve been documenting my reflections and experiences in a journal.
I use the Bullet Journal method, which is a simple notation system for the different entries. I like how it is forgiving and flexible, adapting to my various needs or lack of motivation.
Journals and notebooks have always been a part of my professional life, and I have plenty of volumes of scribbles, drawings and sketches.
Let’s have a look at the benefits of a habit of journaling regularly.
Benefits of reflective journaling
Journal writing is a way to get in touch with our thinking, feelings, memories and sense of self.
It can be introspective or analytical. It can also act as an aid for reflection on the past and thinking about the future. Journals provide a space to record thoughts, dreams and insights throughout different times in our lives.
Without the pressure of a more formal thinking style, I often find it easier to relate to different experiences and see the links between them.
The benefits of writing regularly about our thinking can bring about:
- An understanding of thinking patterns, both negative and positive, that we do every day.
- There is a greater sense of control because we get to choose the direction and topic/theme for each journaling session.
- Depth and flexibility of thinking.
- The act of writing itself can affect thinking patterns positively.
- There are clear links between regular journaling and increased self-awareness and understanding.
- Reflective journaling can lead to greater emotional intelligence because we become more aware of emotions, the triggers that cause them and how they affect thinking patterns.
- Journal writing enhances our introspection. It makes it easier for us to “know thyself”.
- Writing about past experiences can help us to understand how we have reacted and learnt from those situations.
- Journal writing can be a source of inspiration when future goals are being planned. It can also be a way to identify future opportunities that have been missed because we have not been attuned enough to our emotions, instincts or intuitions.
My Top 5 Journaling Tips for Getting Started
#1 — Splurge on Stationery
Educators have a secret love for new stationery. A school stationery cupboard is a special place. There is something wonderful about finding just the right pen or the quality of the heavy paper.
Use a notebook you like. It can be a simple colour, size or design that makes you feel good about writing in it every day.
My weapons of choice are a Micron 01 pen and a Leuchtterm Bullet Journal.
#2 — Keep your notebook nearby
You want to reduce the friction, so it is easy to build a habit. I keep my notebook open and with me all day, so it is easy to add and jot ideas down.
My notebook is on my bedside table too. This way, journaling can act as a “pre-sleep ritual” where you let thoughts flow freely and record them before the day is over. It is all about reflective habits and routines.
#3 — Write freely and worry less
Don’t worry about how you phrase things or what future actions you should take due to what you write. Write to express yourself first and foremost. If future opportunities or action items present themselves, that is a bonus.
Worry less about if you are doing journaling ‘right’. It is up to you.
#4 — Relax and have a biscuit
Make time for yourself every day to write in your journal. It can be at the beginning or end of each day or just as the day unfolds. Reflect on what has happened, dream about future possibilities and record insights as they appear.
Don’t worry too much about it if you find that writing is difficult after a busy day. Try again tomorrow or another time when you can relax and focus more quickly on your thoughts and feelings. I always find biscuits to help.
#5 — Don’t expect miracles
Journal writing is not a miracle cure. It has to become part of your life before you start to see the benefits. Like any ritual, it takes time to get in the habit and feel comfortable with it.
I have journals that span years because I didn’t write in them for months or think my practices were consistent. The future benefits are worth waiting for, even if you need to force yourself at the beginning!
“We must learn to ask questions, not of our future selves but of our present lives; we must ask what is the future that I am laying out for this one person called me.” ~ Annie Dillard
Your Talking Points
- What reflection framework suits your approach to journaling?
- Journaling does not need to be perfect; it only needs to happen.
- The benefits from journaling come from ongoing practice, so make it easy and flexible.
- How might your mindset or environment affect how quickly or easily you write in your journal?
31 Days of Reflective Journal Prompts
My new Reflection Workbook is available now.
Download a free copy of my 31 Days of Reflective Journal Prompts to help you build a habit of healthy thinking and compound some gains about reflective practice.
Use the link below to visit the landing page and get your download.
Download A Month of Journal Prompts
My weekly email helps educators and innovation leaders enhance their practice by sharing provocations, ideas and mental models. Join today, and get your copy this week.
5 Methods For Creatives To Overcome The Crippling Blocks To Original Ideas
Did you know that you judge ideas more harshly when you feel uncertain?
In this article, we explore some of the crippling blocks to creativity and five methods to overcome them.
What gets in your way?
Your fear of making mistakes or taking a risk is one of the most common emotional blocks to your creativity.
James L. Adams, the author of Conceptual Blockbusting, also lists “an inability to tolerate ambiguity and the overriding desire for order” as a block.
You can jump down this rabbit hole if you like 🐇 6 Emotional Barriers to Generating Ideas and How to Overcome Them
Here’s @JimAdamsSU again
You must usually wallow in misleading and ill-fitting data, hazy and difficult-to-test concepts, opinions, values, and other such untidy quantities.
When it comes to problem-solving, your ability to tolerate ambiguity is vital. This emergent idea space is where you make unexpected insights and new connections.
If you’re in a truly new space, you won’t always know the answer. Your team won’t either. You’re going to venture into the unknown together. Curiosity is a great way to lead that charge.
Negative Bias Towards Creative Ideas
Your inability to tolerate ambiguity also means you don’t appreciate a new idea when you see one.
A 2011 study by Jennifer Mueller whilst at the University of Pennsylvania, points to an underlying negative bias towards new ideas when we feel uncertainty.
Our results show that regardless of how open minded people are, when they feel motivated to reduce uncertainty either because they have an immediate goal of reducing uncertainty, or feel uncertain generally, this may bring negative associations with creativity to mind which result in lower evaluations of a creative idea.
When you attempt to reduce uncertainty, you are less receptive to promising ideas.
This negative bias compounds in scenarios that need your creativity. These scenarios are often periods of change or transition, which bring more ambiguity.
Phew, let’s rest here a while. How about some Calvin + Hobbes inspiration on getting in the creative mood?
Do some of these blocks resonate?
🔴 Fear of making mistakes
🔴 Inability to tolerate ambiguity
Let’s have a look at some methods to help overcome these challenges.
Five methods for overcoming common blocks to creative work.
1 ⟶ Write a Catastrophic Expectations Report
Keep it all in perspective by writing a report on the worst-case scenario. What is the worst that could happen? Analyse the details.
swap your analytical capability for your fear of failure — a good trade
2 ⟶ Create with others
Team up with trusted colleagues to create and share your ideas. Fears and uncertainty almost always reduce (or at least, fade) in a collective.
3 ⟶ Trust a process
Do you have a clear method to follow? We tend to tolerate more ambiguity when we know there are discrete phases. It is not going to be ambiguous forever.
4 ⟶ Activate feedback loops
The sooner you can jump into the iterative process of sharing, the sooner you increase your tolerance for ambiguity. Identify a trusted feedback buddy and talk about your ideas.
5 ⟶ Review Your Success Swipefile
Anchor your creative work in past success. Swipe through previous ideas, projects and periods of creativity that illustrate how you can overcome any fear or uncertainty. Bookmark those moments, note how you can reprise what worked.
Quick recap
⟶ You judge ideas more harshly when you feel uncertain
⟶ Fear of making mistakes is a common block to creativity
⚡️Write a Catastrophic Expectations Report
⚡️Create with others
⚡️Trust a process
⚡️Activate feedback loops
⚡️Review Your Success Swipefile
One final thought. This beautiful description from author @danijshapiro makes me smile, as it captures the challenge of doing, crafting and shipping creative work.
#antifragile
Look back and smile on perils past
The word spek– is a really old word root meaning “to observe”. If you prefer a little Greek: skopein means to “behold, look, consider”. Or perhaps some end of the week Latin: specere “to look at”.
You can see spek– is the root of the word perspective. This is something we are all seeking at the moment. Our isolation has meant that we are missing the normal connection and interactions that allow us to “consider” and to “observe” how others are. And so how we are.
The word perspective originates from Latin perspectus meaning “clearly perceived”. We want perspective because we seek clarity.
Let’s look at some other uses of the word and how they are important utilities for us right now.
Introspective
You know this one. Looking inside ourselves. Many of us have had to spend more time with ourselves than we might have liked (!)
It is not just about looking and observing. This is a time for increasing self-awareness of our response to change and the problems that have emerged.
Regular introspection and reflection give us the chance to capture what is happening with our disposition. The ups, downs and spirals.
Write it down, talk to a colleague or loved one. Using language to express how we see ourselves is a powerful way to process what we are going through.
Your Talking Point
What do you notice about how you have responded to the uncertainty of your current experience?
Retrospective
Looking back is a critical position to take in the coming months, as we transition to some sort of normality. Future innovations will build on the success of the past. They are not disconnected.
Our schools need to consider the powerful practices that were already having a high impact. In our enthusiasm for change and the “new normal” we have to look back at what worked for our community.
What were we doing before? What did we value and how is that different? What still works? Which first principles still exist?
In many ways, it is illogical to consider a snap back to the way things were. Learning, leadership and innovation are intricate and complex behaviours. The stories we carry now and the experiences we have gone through will mean it will be irrevocably changed because we have changed.
Your Talking Point
How has your value set shifted and changed?
Prospective
When we add pro- we look forward. We are scanning the horizon and looking ahead. Here in Australia (in early May) we are starting to see a shift in the restrictions and easing of the constraints.
Many of us are looking ahead and figuring out the path through the next few months. Prospective thinking will serve our communities well, as we navigate a return to the normal rhythms of school and consider what is ahead.
There are school events and rituals to be celebrated that will undoubtedly be on our minds. Will we run those as normal? Will they be different this year?
As we lead we need to be prospective. Crucially our students and families will not have had a homogenous experience. Regardless of the synchronous and asynchronous labels we might use. That diversity will mean we might be all looking ahead and prospecting for different things.
Exploring and surfacing that type of insight may help us design a better learning experience in the future.
Your Talking Point
How will you discover what your community members are looking forward to?
–
As always let me know what resonates.
Look back, and smile on perils past meaning
The blog post “Look back and smile on perils past” is a quote from Sir Walter Scott’s poem, The Bridal of Triermain: Or the Vale of St. John:
That this same stalwart arm of mine,
Which could yon oak's prone trunk uprear,
Shall shrink beneath, the burden dear
Of form so slender, light, and fine;
So! now, the danger dared at last,
Look back, and smile at perils past!
**Photo by Emma Dau