Chapter 1: Adopt to Adapt: A Multiyear Case Study of Design Thinking in Elementary Classrooms

This chapter presents a case study of elementary teachers’ understanding of design thinking as a culture, a pedagogy, and a curricular framework to address real-world problems within their elementary classrooms. The first part of the chapter examines design thinking as our theoretical framework, which provides a transferable process to guide creative problem solving. In the second section, we present teachers’ experiences as they implemented design thinking. Specifically, we sought to examine one school’s efforts in implementing design thinking and share the perspectives of elementary teachers as they aimed to shift the classroom and school cultures through the process of adopting design thinking over the course of four years (i.e., fall 2016 to spring 2020). In doing so, we address the limited research regarding elementary teachers’ longitudinal experiences in design thinking. Finally, we conclude the chapter with a few levels of recommendations for sustaining the implementation of design thinking as a framework for teaching and learning.