Design Thinking for

Educators

Version One | April 2011

This toolkit can help you create solutions for every- day challenges.

It equips you with the pro-cess and methods of design. Businesses, social entrepre-neurs and other innovators have used them for decades to create solutions for many different types of challenges. In this toolkit, these methods are adapted specifically for educators, because as an edu- cator, you design every day. You design your classroom, you design curriculum, you design learning environments for your students, and you design experiences and inter-actions for your colleagues.

This toolkit offers you new ways to be intentional and collaborative when you are designing. It hones your skills and empowers you to create desirable solutions.

This is an invitation to experiment with the design process. Let it inspire you to approach challenges differ-ently and experience how Design Thinking adds a new perspective to your work.

This is a Toolkit. For You.

Having a process that brings people together to create more and better ideas has been very valuable for us.

Karen,Learning Specialist

In some ways, I have always had elements of Design Thinking in the way that I have worked and thought about schools, but I have had no real pro-cess to validate some of my ideas. I was looking for approaches that combined the logical rigor of study in a traditional dis-cipline with a more open and creative approach to thinking. Design Thinking offers a way of problem solving that is more integrative of differ-ent modes of thought. It validates some of the things that teach-ers already do, but also gives the oppor-tunity to revisit one’s practice.

Dominic, Head of School

I used to be quick to impose restrictions on myself. I could easily convince myself why a project wouldn’t work before ever giv-ing it a chance. Since I have been exposed to Design Thinking, I have made a stron-ger effort to explore ideas. My students have become part of my research team. The feedback they provide has helped me create lessons that are more student-centered.

Patrick, 3rd Grade Teacher

Design Thinking has made me look at our curriculum in a whole new way. Incorporating Design Thinking with Grant Wiggins’ Under-standing by Design, I can research deeper, come up with more ideas and prototype lessons. I have also started to collect feedback as inspira-tion to come up with new lessons or to adapt a lesson plan for the next time.

Michael, 2nd Grade Teacher

Guide

DT for Ed | Guide | p. 4

The Design Process

The design process is what puts Design Thinking into action. It’s a structured approach to generating and evolving ideas. Its five phases help navigate the develop-ment from identifying a design challenge to finding and building a solution.

It’s a deeply human approach that relies on your ability to be intuitive, to interpret what you observe and to develop ideas that are emo-tionally meaningful to those you are designing for—all skills you are well versed in as an educator.

I learned something. How do I interpret it?

Interpretation transforms your stories into mean-ingful insights. Observa-tions, field visits, or just a simple conversation can be great inspiration—but finding meaning in that and turning it into action-able opportunities for design is not an easy task. It involves storytelling, as well as sorting and condensing thoughts until you’ve found a compelling point of view and clear direction for ideation.

I have a challenge. How do I approach it?

Discovery builds a solid foundation for your ideas. Creating meaningful solutions for students, par-ents, teachers, colleagues and administrators begins with a deep under-standing for their needs. Discovery means opening up to new opportunities, and getting inspired to create new ideas. With the right preparation, this can be eye-opening and will give you a good under-standing of your design challenge.

I see an opportunity. What do I create?

Ideation means generat-ing lots of ideas. Brain-storming encourages you to think expansively and without constraints. It’s often the wildest ideas that spark visionary thoughts. With careful preparation and a clear set of rules, a brainstorm session can yield hun-dreds of fresh ideas.

I have an idea. How do I build it?

Experimentation brings your ideas to life. Building prototypes means making ideas tangible, learning while building them, and sharing them with other people. Even with early and rough prototypes, you can receive a direct response and learn how to further improve and refine an idea.

I tried something new. How do I evolve it?

Evolution is the develop-ment of your concept over time. It involves plan- ning next steps, communi-cating the idea to people who can help you realize it, and documenting the process. Change often happens over time, and reminders of even subtle signs of progress are important.

DISCOVERY INTERPRETATION IDEATION EXPERIMENTATION EVOLUTION

PHASES

DT for Ed | Guide | p. 5 The design process may seem very straightforward at first glance, but there is one important aspect to understand: its real value lies in the mix of tangible problem solving and abstract thinking. The very concrete observations of the first phase are abstracted as you define themes and insights. Only after you have devel-oped a sense of meaning and direction do you develop tangible solutions. What may seem like a detour in idea development ultimately makes your solutions much more meaningful.

It requires taking a step back to reflect, analyze, evaluate, think again and then evolve. This takes time—a scarce resource—and can be chal-lenging, as educators are used to solving problems on the spot in their classrooms. But there are no shortcuts. The small, sometimes hidden, details often hold the keys to solving complex challenges.

The design process therefore integrates various modes of working: some steps are more reflective, others are hands-on, and some encour-age interactions with people outside of your team. To help you know what to expect, the following indicators will guide you through the meth-ods in the Toolkit section:

This design process can be applied in many forms. The following pages contain a variety of examples of how it has been used to create new, relevant solutions in an educational context.

One Thing to Keep in Mind

ABSTRACT

CO

NC

RETE

DISCOVERY INTERPRETATION IDEATION EXPERIMENTATION EVOLUTION

The more abstract steps often feel more intense, but pay off in the long run.

5HÁHFWLYH

Hands-On

Interaction

DT for Ed | Guide | p. 8

How might we develop games to tackle the toughest learn- ing hurdles?

When the founders of Motion Math got together to think about how to use games to help kids learn, they knew that teaching math and designing a product weren’t the same thing. Both teach-ers who worked with ele-mentary-school-aged kids, Gabriel Adauto and Jacob Klein began their project with an understanding of both what kids liked and what par-ents and teachers valued—but they also recognized that their experience and intuition alone weren’t enough to design a successful learning product.

They turned to Design Thinking to develop a game and combined it with the Backwards Design method-ology, which begins with the end goal in mind, to cre-ate the educational content. Using Backwards Design, they were able to hone in on how they could assess students’ mastery of con-cepts and work from there to help them get the concepts right. Using Design Thinking, they were able to create a game that was fun, engag-ing and valued by parents, teachers and students alike. “The most important part of merging the two processes was iteration, being open to really listening to what people want,” observed Adauto. Adauto and Klein started the process by defining a challenge to create a game that would address the biggest stumbling block for elementary school kids. They went out to talk to teachers. Over and over, they heard that fractions were a huge pain point. Next, they looked for inspiration from the most popular games at the time, one of which had a bouncing device to move a character around a screen. From there, the team started brainstorm-ing, and generated lots of ideas for interactive games that could help kids learn fractions. Many prototypes and feedback sessions later, Adauto and Klein launched Motion Math. “We did lots of feedback sessions with paper prototypes. The most valuable feedback session we had was with parents, teachers and kids all together. We saw how the groups inter-act, and it helped us realize that the payers [parents and

teachers] and the players [kids] had different needs and understood different things. But the game actually had to meet all these needs simultaneously.” Since launching, Motion Math has been on the “Top 5” list of educational apps, was fea-tured in the Wall Street Jour-nal, and won an Excellence in Design Award from Children’s Technology Review. Most rewarding for Adauto and Klein was the fact that insti-tutional school purchases have been very strong. Teachers have emailed them videos of kids playing their game in the classrooms, and students from preschool through community college are using the game to learn math skills. The founders are currently building on their success and designing addi-tional educational games to address other hurdles in elementary education.

Case StudyMotion Math

Read more about Motion Math at motionmathgames.com.

DT for Ed | Guide | p. 9

This is a Work in Progress.

Enough theory—it’s time to take action. The Toolkit provides you with instructions to explore Design Thinking yourself.

It’s Version One: this is not a finished piece, it’s a foundation. The Toolkit will evolve and change based on your feed-back. That’s why we want to hear from you. Please send us comments, stories, photos or movies of your experiences using this toolkit to create new design solutions: DT_ed@ideo.com

'LVFRYHU\

Interpretation

Ideation

Experimentation

(YROXWLRQ

&ROODERUDWLYH� GHYHORSPHQW�RI�WKLV�toolkit, February-April 2011.