Do you want to have a positive relationship with your students?

Do you want your students to be more engaged in class?

Teachers do NOT "cause" student learning. Engagement happens when students choose to pay attention.

Teachers CAN INFLUENCE student engagement by thinking like a designer and using Design Thinking strategies and processes to optimize the learning environment so that is in tune with the students' needs, wants and motivations.

Design thinking solves human problems, with human needs and motivations being the driving force.

In the classroom, teachers with a Design Thinking mindset, place value in being able to EMPATHIZE with their students. Deeper understanding of students' needs drives more successful thinking and idea generation.

Students believe they have good relationships with teachers, when teachers show interest in students and never give up on improving student learning. (Marzano, 2010.)


Reference:
Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Hefelbower, T. (2010). The highly engaged classroom. Bloomington, ID: Marzano Research Laboratory.

"Positive relationships between teachers and students are among the most commonly cited variables associated with effective instruction. If the relationship is strong, instructional strategies seem to be more effective. Conversely, a weak or negative relationship will mute or even negate the benefits of even the most effective instructional strategies (Marzano, 2011)."


Source of quote : http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar11/vol68/num06/R...

Design Thinking can be used by teachers to optimize the learning environment. There are many graphic representations for the Design Thinking process. They all focus on the same basic elements:

EMPATHY for the context of a problem

CREATIVITY in the generation of insights and solutions

RATIONALITY in analyzing and fitting various solutions to the problem context

The dSchool at Stanford describes the design thinking process with the following principles.

1) EMPATHIZE
2) DEFINE
3) IDEATE
4) PROTOTYPE
5) TEST

Core Values:
---HUMAN CENTERED
---ITERATIVE-many cycles of improving improve result
---ACTIVE- more about doing then thinking, despite its name
---VISUAL
---COLLABORATIVE




http://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/

Develop a deep understanding of your students. Elicit stories, feelings and emotions from them by asking questions, observing their actions and really listening to them. Try not to assume anything.

Synthesize your findings into a few needs and some insights.

Needs should be verbs.
Insights should be discoveries that may be important when you create solutions.

Specifically state the meaningful challenge (the problem) you will try to take on. This challenge should be important and actionable.

With your clearly-defined problem in mind, generate as many possibilities for a solution you can imagine.

Share your solutions with others, and listen for feedback from others how your ideas may or may not solve the problem.

Of your potential solutions, choose the 3 best ideas. These best ideas should be clearly meeting the needs of the user and be actionable.

Create an experience and/or a physical prototype of the possible solution chosen to test with your target users.

Test the prototype and reflect on how to improve it. Ask users for feedback. Continue iterating a solution with cycles of make-test-feedback-reflect-re-make until a solution is clear.

If needed, you can go back to the ideate stage and choose a different idea to focus on or even back to the first stages to better define the user.

Once you have refined your prototypes into a meaningful solution, you can put it into
action.

You can also take it to the next step and share it with others.


https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/collections/prototyping-ideas.html

Design Thinkers are

Empathetic
Resilient
Observant
Confident
Risk-taker
Open-Minded
Optimistic
Upbeat
Persistent
Collaborative
Divergent Thinker
Convergent Thinker
Creative
Creator
Reflective
Analytical
Visual

and more!

The Design Thinking process can be used by students as a structure for active learning.

Students can practice and refine collaboration, observation, thinking and other skills while working together to solve authentic classroom, school, city, or social problems the students themselves want to make better.

The skills students learn and improve upon can be used throughout their life and applied to any situation or problem they may face.

Start small and jump in by building your Design Thinking Mindset.

Start thinking about your students when making decisions.

Build a classroom culture that is ready for Design Thinking - practice empathy, collaboration, brainstorming, etc.

Or try a project with your teaching team or with your students. Learn while doing.

Good luck!

The best free information out there!

http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com/
http://diytoolkit.org/
http://www.thegschool.com/store.html
http://td4ed.businessinnovationfactory.com/
http://dschool.stanford.edu/use-our-methods/
http://www.k12lab.org/
http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/rethink-planning-and-designing-k-...
http://deepdesignthinking.com/

thegschool.com

45 Design Thinking Resources
http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/45-design-thinking-resources-for-educa...

Blog of Grant Wiggins, coauthor of Understanding By Design:
https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/beyond-teacher-egocentrism-de...

http://www.mountvernonschool.org/page/Center-for-Design-Thinking

Background Research:
https://dschool.stanford.edu/groups/k12/wiki/821fc/Research_on_Design_Think...

http://leadershipanddesign.org/

http://notosh.com/what-we-do/

http://www.luma-institute.com/story.html

Connect schools to the real world:
http://tools-at-schools.com/about
http://www.cityxproject.com/about/

GROUPS
#dtk12chat
Every Wed 9pm EST/8pm CST

#DEEPdt

Individuals and Organizations
@leadanddesign
@leadlearnlab
@notosh
@StanfordEd
@IDEO

This presentation was created to inspire educators to use the Design Thinking process/mindset in educational settings to solve problems.

It was compiled by jaysacurly for a graduate level class, at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, on December 14, 2014. It was last edited December 23, 2014.

All photos were a from Haiku Deck's free photos. All information presented was a personal synthesis of information researched, unless otherwise stated.

You can contact jaysacurly via Twitter with comments or ideas for improvement.

@jaysacurly