Chapter 10: One District Delves into Design Thinking

Our increasingly complex and interdependent global world requires new educational approaches that promote problem-solving capacities, information dexterity, and empathy. Schools have continuously sought out and implemented strategies to help them to problem-solve in this changing, increasingly globally interdependent, competitive, and technically advanced world (Fraser, 2007; Stegall, 2006). Design thinking, a paradigm for dealing with problems in research, innovation, and learning, is one approach that may be useful in this context (Dolak et al., 2013). Design thinking has increasingly been applied in education, although its origins lie in the fields of art and architecture (Luka, 2014). There has been little research on design thinking implementation in P–12 classrooms, despite its increased use (Koh et al., 2015; Razzouk & Shute, 2012). Nascent research on design thinking in schools suggests several potential positive outcomes for students including promoting conceptual understanding and imagination (Gerber & Carroll, 2012), the development of metacognitive skills such as reflection and self-regulation (Conlin et al., 2015), and the development of 21st century skills (Luka, 2014), which has spurred additional interest in the application of design thinking in P–12 schools.