Exploring Empathy and Creativity with Design Thinking in Classrooms

What is Design Process/Design Thinking?

Design process, or design thinking, describes the art of coming up with ideas and creatively making, troubleshooting, and reassessing them.  Instead of being a one-lane street, it’s a highway with multiple lanes, on- and off-ramps, and roundabouts for when your idea gets all turned around.  This can be really important for students, especially students who are graded on competencies as opposed to standardized tests.  One of the benefits of this is that the student can demonstrate information literacy skills, including the ability to research and explore information, while also demonstrating their creativity and room for growth.  According to Shively, Stith and Rubenstein (2018, p 157), “deliberately assessing the process emphasizes the importance of student effort and the value of specific creative and critical thinking strategies.”

Benefits of Implementing Design Process/Thinking in the Classroom

Based on the importance of creative and critical thinking strategies, it makes sense to let students explore these skills at each stage of development, though obviously with less complication at a younger age.   Hatzgianni, Stevenson, Falloon, Bower, and Forbes (2021) address this in their research and focus on students between kindergarten and second grade.  They suggest implementing design thinking at a young age with the use of makerspaces to scaffold experimentation and problem-solving skills.  The design thinking model suggested for implementing a makerspace for students this young was the IDEO model which uses the following five stages: discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation, and evolution. 

"2-22 3-D printer" by uacescomm is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

One of the benefits of teaching students to use the design process or design thinking in the classroom is that it creates a culture of empathy.  Students practice skills including communication and observation, as well as other skills, that help expand student awareness of others as they relate to their own projects and self. “By connecting design thinking with project-based learning, the students can see how innovation and imagination can solve not just local challenges, but also the challenges faced by people around the world via social innovation project” (Hashim, Aris, & Fook, 2019, p 17). 

This week, we explored different problems we could use to implement the design process into classes for students of all ages.  With all of the benefits, such as learning to use critical thinking, exploring creativity, and expanding empathy and awareness of others, it is my hope to introduce more projects using the design method into my own work with students.  I’m already thinking about how it could be used to help students see research as an evolving process instead of a pre-determined formula!

References

Hashin, A., Aris, S. R. S., & Fook, C. Y. (2019). Promoting empathy using design thinking in project-based learning and as a classroom culture. Asian Journal of University Education, 15(3), 14-23.

Hatzigianni, M., Stevenson, M., Falloon, G., Bower, M., & Forbes, A. (2021). Young children’s design thinking skills in makerspaces. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2020.100216

Shively, K., Stith, K. M., & Rubenstein, L. D. (2018). Measuring What Matters: Assessing Creativity, Critical Thinking, and the Design Process. Gifted Child Today, 41(3), 149–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/1076217518768361