Age: 5 years and above
Prerequisite: Cognitive Thinking
It’s all the rage in academia and the business world. Could the approach to creative problem-solving known as “design thinking” take hold in elementary and high schools?
Stanford education professor Shelley Goldman thinks so, and she says it’s a process that can engage and benefit all students—even those who generally perform and participate at lower levels than their peers.
“One of the great things about design thinking is that everyone can do it,” she said on this episode of School’s In. “Think of creativity as a muscle instead of a trait. You can train it, get it into shape.”
Design Thinking is a creative problem-solving based thinking that involves evaluating a problem or situation and determining a reasonable, practical plan to attack the problem or situation. Some define Design Thinking as a process with seven stages: define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement, and learn. Within these seven steps, problems are framed, the right questions are asked, ideas and solutions are created, and the best answers are chosen. The steps are not necessarily linear and can occur simultaneously and may be repeated. To ensure an ongoing process of innovation, the process is also often iterative.
Your child will learn to:
Identify problems and reframe them as actionable opportunities
Understand the value of collaboration and feedback
Developing self-belief as problem solvers
Developing empathy
Developing a growth mindset
Developing stamina and resilience
Developing entrepreneurial and community-minded behaviors.