Next Steps
1
Here are a few ways to learn
more about design thinking and
customizing your classroom practice
and professional development.
Learn about design thinking in general.
Read “Design Thinking” on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking.
Watch “Deep Dive: IDEO’s Shopping Cart”
episode on ABC’s Nightline: www.youtube.
com/watch?v=M66ZU2PCIcM.
Watch “Innovation through Design Thinking,”
a presentation by Tim Brown (of IDEO) at MIT:
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/357/.
Watch “Design Thinking Can Be Learned,”
an interview with David Kelley (of IDEO,
Stanford d.school) in Businessweek: www.
businessweek.com/video/#video=xhNXBrMj
qu9x8m5wJL8yo8-79_pIMSxF.
Watch “Tim Brown Urges Designers to
Think Big,” TED Talk: www.ted.com/talks/
tim_brown_urges_designers_to_think_big.
html.
Watch “David Kelley on Human-Centered
Design,” TED Talk: www.ted.com/talks/lang/
eng/david_kelley_on_human_centered_
design.html.
Read Change by Design: How Design
Thinking Transforms Organizations and
Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown.
3
2
Explore how design thinking
is applied to education.
Watch “Shaping Space: The d.school’s
Environments Collaborative, a video about
Stanford University’s d.school”: http://
vimeo.com/11438598.
“Sandy Speicher: The Mind Behind Design”:
TEDxSFED Talk, http://talkminer.com/
viewtalk.jsp?videoid=OACRT_zUj- 8&q=.
Read “Teaching Kids Design Thinking,
So They Can Solve the World’s Biggest
Problems” by Trung Le in Fast Company:
www.fastcodesign.com/1663416/teaching-
kids-design-thinking-so-they-can-solve-the-worlds-biggest-problems.
Read “Design Thinking for Education:
What If?” by Max Benavidez, Huffington
Post: www.designthinkingforeducators.com.
Read “Design Thinking Solves Impossible
Problems: Best and Worst” by Ewan
McIntosh in edu.blogs: http://edu.blogs.com/
edublogs/ 2010/09/design-thinking-solves-
impossible-problems-best-and-worst.html.
Explore how DT is being applied in
classrooms, schools, and education
at a variety of levels.
Watch “Emily Pilloton: Teaching Design for
Change,” TED Global Talk: www.ted.com/
talks/lang/eng/emily_pilloton_teaching_
design_for_change.html.
Learn more about Studio H:
http://www.studio-h.org.
Learn more about Project H Design:
www.projecthdesign.org.
Read the New York Times article about
Pilloton’s Studio H program: www.nytimes.
com/2010/08/23/arts/23iht-design23.
html?ref=arts.
Learn about Prototype Design Camp:
http://prototypedesigncamp.com.
Learn about Design Ignites Change:
www.designigniteschange.org.
Learn about Tinkering School:
www.tinkeringschool.com.
Learn about Public Workshop:
http://publicworkshop.us.
Learn about Project: Interaction:
http://projectinteraction.org.
4
Consider providing your students a
chance to use DT to solve a real-world
problem they are passionate about.
5
6
In short, DT is about using design
to improve the human experience.
If that sparks curiosity, see if your
students would like to join a global
group of young people using DT to
solve real problems.
Watch “Kiran Bir Sethi: Teaching Kids to
Take Charge,” TED India Talk: www.ted.
com/talks/kiran_bir_sethi_teaches_kids_
to_take_charge.html.
Look into the international Design
for Change Challenge program:
http://dfcworld.com.
Seek out professional development
that supports educators incorporating
DT into classroom practice.
Explore the K12 Lab wiki via the
Stanford d.school: https://dschool.
stanford.edu/groups/k12/blog.
Attend professional development
courses at Stanford’s d.school K12 Lab.
expected. Prototypes only needed
to be good enough to suggest possibilities and engage audiences.
Present to a live jury of professionals and the globe. At the end of
the three days, Prototype Design
Camp teams presented their
solutions to more than a dozen
jury members from different
professional perspectives. They
included the founder of a nationally recognized theater group,
an architect who had designed
libraries around the world, an architect rebuilding schools in Africa, a professional writer based
at a modern art museum, a range
of artists across various media,
an engineer working in both mechanical and software realms, an
internationally known librarian,
a graphic designer, marketing
specialists, and others. We asked
judges to avoid “yeah, but” reactions. Instead, they were expected
to invest in the students’ ideas
and offer real-world applications
of those ideas. The final presentation was broadcast to the entire
6,000-person e Tech Ohio conference and to the world via various
social media channels.
Realize that even three intense
days is only scratching the surface.
Despite a remarkably immersive
experience where our Prototype
students successfully used a DT
mindset to develop exceptional
solutions to authentic learning
problems, the real success lay more
in students and mentors committing to the process itself than in the
answers they presented.
Christian Long is an educa- tor, designer, school planner, educational futurist, and advocate for innovative learning communities. He is vice president of Cannon Design and founded Be
Playful, a collaborative global design agency,
and Prototype Design Camp.
