Design in all around us. From our coffee mugs to our shoes to tissue paper, those things were all once thoughts inside someone’s head whose ideas escaped the confines of their brains and were put into form. Most importantly, those ideas were meant to solve a problem, either a physical problem or a problem related to a system, like as in transportation. For example,  in this Ted Talk with Elon Musk, he surprises you with his antidote to car congestion for commuters in Los Angeles. I thought it was going to be flying cars (Musk is the owner of Tesla, an electric car manufacturer) but it was creating tunnels that essentially launch you to your destination.

This is merely one of many examples of how someone can approach everyday challenges with a creative solution to them. This, in essence, is what design is and I believe it should be an integral part of how we approach our curriculum.The power of design thinking is the perspective in which we seek these creative solutions. It is a way of unlocking our imagination in an effort to produce viable options to things that trouble individuals.

So what makes up the components of design? What is design thinking in a nutshell?

1. It is a process

I’ve seen all sorts of versions of design cycles, and I think teachers and schools have to think about how they are gong to use it in the learning, while not getting caught up with the language. The point is that it is a process that students can walk through easily when looking at examining an issue or challenge.

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For example, in my current Sharing the Planet unit (Central idea: We grow and use plants in many ways), students are going to design gardens that address the needs of a user–butterflies/bees or humans –so I am not going to use the MYP Design Cycle with them. They are 3-5 years olds after all!

2. It is a way of learning.

It is a way of inquiring and researching a topic that connects so many subject areas. As an PYP educator, it definitely is transdisciplanary, because one never knows when one discipline ends and the next begins, with Math, Science, Language, Art all happening simultaneously. But I what I love most about design-based learning is that it helps students to redefine what is failure so that they can appreciate that failing often leads to sooner success–taking the lessons of those failures and applying them is the learning!

3. It focuses on a user in mind.

They say art is creating something that satisfies the need of the artist, while design is creating something to satisfy the needs of others. Big challenges and their simple solutions often go through cycles of iteration as they look through the eyes of the user. This requires empathy and it is a skill that is really critical today as we start to consider the perspective and needs of others.

I think this is the biggest distinction between project-based learning (PBL), and the hallmark of creating something that matters to someone. You really have to dig deep into understanding the nuances of each user, which is obvious in the examples above, right? In my current unit, I outlined the process in this design thinking post and I’ve had to shift from looking at creating a “product”–a garden–and have the kids consider what is important to the “user”, which in this case are the butterflies and humans. When we went to the farm, we had to discuss how and why the farmers created raised beds, which was got the children thinking about this subtlety and how it might be applied to the garden they want to create.

As I work through design-based learning approach in my own classroom, I can tell you that the depth of thinking definitely changes when you combine the experience of gaining knowledge + skills + perspective.

Now that you know more about design-thinking, perhaps you might give it a shot in your class–how could you flip your “project” into a design challenge?