Why Design?
Design Thinking and the Design Process
What ideas from the video resonated with you?
What is design thinking?
Excerpted from Design Thinking in Schools
The Design Process
Our Very Own Problem Finders
Archer Hadley, Austin HS
On a rainy day in 2013, Austin High School student Archer Hadley approached a school door and waited for someone to open it. As water gushed down his back, Hadley, who has cerebral palsy, asked himself, "Hey, I've been to a lot of public places that have automatic doors, why can't I do something about this?" So he did.
Hadley raised over $80,000 through a wheelchair challenge: for $20, students and teachers could nominate someone to spend an entire day in a wheelchair or donate to the cause.
Jack Guy, Bowie HS
GradeBuzz aimed to be more convenient than the current AISD system by adjusting the login policy. “The app maintains your login, so you don’t have to log in every thirty minutes and you only have to login once insread of twice,” Guy said. “It saves you like five clicks and then it displays your grades in a very accessible format, which you can update pretty easily.”
The Five Steps
Activity...
How do you embed or consider each of the five design steps in the professional learning experiences you provide?
Empathize
- Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit
Define
- Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit
Ideate
Try designating three voting criteria (we might suggest “the most likely to delight,” “the rational choice,” “the most unexpected” as potential criteria, but they’re really up to you) to use to vote on three different ideas that your team generated during brainstorming. Carry the two or three ideas that receive the most votes forward into prototyping. In this way, you preserve innovation potential by carrying multiple ideas forward—a radically different approach than settling on the single idea that at least the majority of the team can agree upon.
- Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit
Protoype
Build with the user in mind. What do you hope to test with the user? What sorts of behavior do you expect? Answering these questions will help focus your prototyping and help you receive meaningful feedback in the testing phase.
- Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit
Test
The need for design thinking.
This movement to build a generation of design thinkers could not be more timely or more relevant. We are living in an age of increased complexity, and are facing global challenges at an unprecedented scale. The nature of connectivity, interactivity, and information is changing at lightening speed. We need to enable a generation of leaders who believe they can make a difference in the world around them, because we need this generation to build new systems and rebuild declining ones. We need them to be great collaborators, great communicators, and great innovators.
- Excerpted from Design Thinking in Schools
PLN Development
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Craft and Tweet a question using appropriate hashtags and Twitter handles
Additional Resources
Erin Bown-Anderson
Email: erin.bown-anderson@austinisd.org
Phone: 512-414-4274
Twitter: @ErinBown1
Amber Rinehart
Email: amber.rinehart@austinisd.org
Phone: 512-414-9514
Twitter: @adrinehart