‘Design thinking’ is “a process of creative and critical thinking that allows information and ideas to be organised, decisions to be made, situations to be improved and knowledge to be gained” (Burnette, 2005, para. 2).
But why do we need to know about this idea?
Well, research indicates that fostering Design Based Thinking within students, significantly increases their academic performance and acquisition of concepts through strengthening their critical thinking, problem solving skills, engagement, creativity, and their desire to learn (Doppelt et al., 2008; Apedoe et al., 2008; van Haren, 2010). A teacher’s utopia, right? Yet, this way of learning has only recently started growing in popularity and significance (Barab & Squire, 2004).
At a time where students need to start preparing for the future, teachers must update their pedagogical approaches and appropriate students’ learning for the demands of the 21st Century (IDEO, 2012). Design Based Learning and Thinking is an approach that can do just this; but how?
Encouraging the following five phased structure, models to students how to respond to new problems or situations to be improved (IDEO, 2012).
Using the following technologies could additionally foster creativity and design thinking, for a task such as: “Students design and make a product that transforms electrical energy and solves a personal need” (ST3-8PW-ST) (NESA, 2017).
‘ExplainEverything’ – to capture and organise potential ideas (eg. Brainstorm thinking– “Some houses require extra safety to protect people and their property from intruders” = design a home security alarm; using the drawing tool to design the alarm and the transferring/ and transforming of electricity)
‘Audionote’ – to collect evidence of understanding (eg. Students can record their explanations of the personal need and how the product can help solve)
‘Sketch Up’ – to create artefacts (eg. Students can create a model displaying where in the house their alarm could be located for optimum security, or use this building platform to create the design of the actual alarm)
However, whilst these digital technologies can enhance student creativity and thus assist their Design Thinking, teachers need to surpass a simple understanding of how to use these programs. Instead, well-prepared teachers “develop a more flexible and situated understanding of [the] technology”, using particular programs and their tools strategically and appropriately in consideration of the task (Koehler & Mishra, 2005, p. 94).
Therefore, teachers too need to become designers, designing pedagogy to benefit students in their development of 21st Century Skills (Laurillard, 2012) through shifting a little away from the strictly ‘paper-based curriculum’ and shifting to using more widely available interactive resources (IDEO, 2012). Does that mean that every task requires a screen? – No, but by shaping education more around fostering creativity and designing, teachers will be ultimately meeting the future inevitable needs of all learners.
Here, our tutor effectively used a Modelled-Guided-Independent approach to provide both assistance and to foster creative design thinking (Schmidt & Moust, 1995).
Credit: Helena Baker
References
Feature image – https://dornob.com/bad-design-gone-good-hilariously-uncomfortable-products/
Apedoe, X. S., Reynolds, B., Ellefson, M. R., Schunn, C. D. (2008). Bringing Engineering Design into High School Science Classrooms: The Heating/Cooling Unit. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 17(5), 454-465
Barab, S., & Squire, K. (2004). Design-based research: Putting a stake in the ground. The journal of the learning sciences, 13(1), 1-14.
Burnette, C. (2005). Idesign: Seven Ways of Design Thinking: a Teaching Resource. Verlag nicht ermittelbar.
Doppelt, Y., Mehalik, M. M., Schunn, C. D., Silk, E.; Krysinski, D. (2008). Engagement and Achievements: A case study of design-based learning in a science context. Journal of Technology Education, 19(2), pp. 22-39.
IDEO (2012). Design Thinking for Educators (2nd Edition). Available at: http://designthinkingforeducators.com/
Laurillard, D. (2012). Chapter 5 – What it takes to teach. In Teaching as a Design Science – Building Pedagogical Patterns for Learning and Technology (pp. 64-81). NY: Routledge.
[Available at http://mqu.eblib.com.au.simsrad.net.ocs.mq.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=957058&echo=1&userid=kyfofzHEh0NR4VDyY3UmnQ%3d%3d&tstamp=1425432295&id=7C48C1B819DC5827B68F79C86C738005E022F269]
NSW Education Standards Authority [NESA]. (2017). Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus. Sydney, Australia: Author.
Neville, M. (2010). Meaning making using new media: Learning by design case studies. E-Learning and Digital Media, 7(3), 237-247
Schmidt, H. G., & Moust, J. H. (1995). What Makes a Tutor Effective? A Structural Equations Modelling Approach to Learning in Problem-Based Curricula.
van Haren, R. (2010). Engaging learner diversity through learning by design. E-Learning and Digital Media, 7(3), 258-271
Digital Creativity and Learning 
Helena,
May I first start by saying that I love the design of your blog and the layout of this post. It was great to see so many pictures and videos of your experiences in class!
I agree with your statement that teachers also need to become designers. In order to foster creativity and design based thinking in our students it is crucial that we model design skills, processes and provide our students with innovative, evidence-based, technology enhanced lessons. My views definitely align with yours, technology can be a great tool to increase engagement an encourage creativity and problem-solving skills but it needs to be integrated in an authentic and pedagogically effective manner rather than being used in a way that is tokenistic, meaningless and ‘lazy.’ I agree that teachers of the future will need to utilise technology on a much more frequent basis and for this reason, it is important for us, as teachers to develop our design skills as well as teaching these skills to our students. Great post!
Zali
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Hi Helena! I love your blog deisgn to and I feel like you have really deeply understood the content of the course. May I ask, how would you better implement teacher education on Design based thinking? I feel that current teachers in service would only have limited means of finding out about these technologies and just wondered if there was a way you think NSW schools could better address professional development in this area.
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Hi Cara!
Thankyou for your feedback and question.
I have thought about this too – how current teachers (especially those who have been in the industry for numerous years and have not grown up to be as tech-savvy) can struggle to find and use suitable technologies that will foster students’ creativity and design thinking.
I think that NSW schools need to provide more inservice teacher training and development in this field, by regularly communicating not only the latest and useful technologies but providing guidance on exactly how to use them within the curriculum. Maybe this can be achieved through allocating funding to training courses for inservice teachers – as after all, this is to better the learning of students.
Also, I think that it should be the job of new pre-service teachers to share the technologies they have learnt when they join the industry. We all need to be collaborative with one another and open to trying new technologies – as daunting as they may seem.
Lastly, units like EDUC362 should be compulsory for all preservice teachers. I was very reluctant originally to enrol in this course as I believe I have the tech savviness of a 90 yr old, but only after a couple of weeks did I strikingly realise how vital it is for teachers to develop their ability to foster creative thinking and the use of technology into the classrooms – since they really are essential 21st century skills.
Best,
Helena
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