Getting Started With Design Thinking

In the old days (like three years ago), you had to tell computers what to do. They are increasingly figuring it out on their own. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI), code that learns, is reshaping life and work. We’re a couple of years into a new era driven by exponential technology. Everyone is experiencing high rates of change—and things will continue to speed up for our kids. That makes three new literacies more important than ever:

• Design thinking skills: an iterative problem-solving approach;
• Entrepreneurship skills: taking initiative and learning to deliver value; and
• Social skills: collaborating on diverse teams.

For those new to design thinking, it’s a mindset and methodology for dealing with complexity. We’ve assembled articles, podcasts and case studies to help you and your community get started. Design thinking is similar to computational thinking (which has roots in Computer Science) so we added a few resources on that as well.

Articles

• Real-Life Examples of Design Thinking in the Classroom, Getting Smart
• Things Are Getting Complex, Use Design Thinking to Simplify, Getting Smart
• Integrating the Engineering Design Process and Challenge-Based Learning in STEM, Getting Smart
• On Breaking Convention, Getting Smart (on considering unintended consequences)
• Using Design Thinking to Create Culture Change Luke Battye and Hema Bakhshi, Sprint Valley
• Design thinking, explained, MIT Sloan School
• 10 Steps to Design Thinking, MIT Professional Education
• Design Thinking and Other Learning Priorities to Educate Today’s Students for the Coming Automation Economy
• Early Learning Strategies for Developing Computational Thinking Skills

Videos

• Rotman School (UToronto) Dean Roger Martin explains why business people don’t need to understand designers, they have to become designers.
• Design Thinking by IBM
• Design Thinking explainer from HBR

Podcasts

• What’s Up With All the Design Focused Schools, Getting Smart staff
• Design Thinking and Its Impact on Education Innovation, Getting Smart staff
• Teaching Design Thinking to Hack School and Prep for Complexity, podcast with Sam Sidel and Laura McBain, Stanford d.School K12 Lab
• Design Thinking as Pedagogy For Students and Educators, a podcast with Sandy Speicher, the new IDEO CEO
• Design as an Act of Service, a podcast with SYPartners
• Project Based Engineering at Olin College (podcast with Olin College students)

Courses

• Design Thinking Crash Course from Stanford’s d.School
• Design Thinking for Leading and Learning from MIT Teaching Systems Lab and part of the Microsoft K-12 Education Leadership initiative
• MIT’s Approach to Design Thinking from EMERITUS Institute of Management

Schools

• An Innovative K-8 Human-Centered Approach at Design39 (Poway USD, San Diego)
• Design Focused High School Builds Tech Talent in Indianapolis, Purdue Polytechnic High School,
• Design Thinking, City as Classroom, Museum as Homebase, Grand Rapids Public Museum School
• Using Design Thinking to Disrupt for Good, One Stone, Boise
• Designed for Learning: At School and At Home, One Stone, Boise
• Rethinking High School: Badging, Competency-Based and Real-World Work, Del Lago High, Escondido
• Building Transferable Skills: Design Tech High at Oracle Campus, Redwood City
• Making the City the Text at High Tech High, San Diego
• South Fayette Schools: A Computational Carnival for Kids
• How to Be Employable Forever, interview with Rick Miller, president of Olin College
• Reengineering HigherEd: Olin Collaboratory
• Reengineering HigherEd: Student-Centered Learning at Olin College

For more, see:

• Getting Started with High School Redesign
• Getting Started with AI: Resources For You and Your Community