Sign up to get the CraftEd Curriculum newsletter delivered to your inbox-
full of resources, inspiration, tips & more as you bring
PBL & deeper learning to your classrooms this year!

What is everybody talking about when they say Design Thinking?! Don’t let it intimidate you-it’s really just a basic process to go about [deeper] learning, that mimics the world of industry. Read on to get informed, empowered and inspired to try it!

What is Design Thinking? 

My favorite definition is from the d school at Stanford- 5 steps that we take our students through when asking them to innovate something new or solve a problem of some sort. Want to learn more? I LOVE this toolkit. 

 

Baby Steps:

My mantra when working with teachers is start small-have a focus and do it with fidelity. The same goes for Design Thinking. You may come up with a design challenge for your students but just start small by zooming in on scaffolding one of the five stages. Check out Jennny’s feature post for ASCD (woohoo!) on painless prototyping HERE. 

PBL/DTK Challenge for the Month:

Try a small hack before diving into Design Thinking. Is there a problem on your campus that students could interview their peers (end-user/empathy), define (“how might we…”) and ideate a solution ? I have seen a lot of small design challenges address weather issues on campus-flooding, backpacks getting wet in the rain, storm drains, etc. 

DID YOU KNOW? CraftED published a PBL workbook AND e-course for PBL certification? In just 1 month these resources are in the hands of over 150 teachers!