Abstract

This case study critically analyses and describes knowledge gained and understandings constructed by a team of university-based design educators and researchers who engaged in the planning necessary to begin introducing specific aspects of design thinking in middle school classrooms in an Texas city of more than 140,000. (Middle schools in the U.S. typically educate students aged 11 to 14 years.) This piece articulates key insights about how and why the introduction of design thinking should be collaboratively and strategically planned if it is to function as an effective augmentation of a college preparatory curricula, and the learning experiences that constitute this, at this educational level. The authors, all of whom are art and design educators, share what they learned from an ongoing—three years-plus—collaboration with key school district administrators and advisors, curricular planners, middle school instructors, and more than 90 middle school students. The intent of this discourse is to provide readers with actionable means to effectively prepare the groundwork for introducing design thinking in actual middle school classrooms. For those in the design education + research communities around the world who may wish to “learn from what we have learned” re: working with school admin and faculty to introduce design thinking into middle school classrooms, our presentation is also available as a video on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PztbOIFQSw The video includes captions in English, Urdu, Mandarin, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Hindi, Turkish, and Portuguese.

Keywords

teaching design thinking, habits-of-mind, s.t.e.a.m., strategic planning, critical thinking

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Sep 24th, 9:00 AM

Preparing to introduce design thinking in middle schools

This case study critically analyses and describes knowledge gained and understandings constructed by a team of university-based design educators and researchers who engaged in the planning necessary to begin introducing specific aspects of design thinking in middle school classrooms in an Texas city of more than 140,000. (Middle schools in the U.S. typically educate students aged 11 to 14 years.) This piece articulates key insights about how and why the introduction of design thinking should be collaboratively and strategically planned if it is to function as an effective augmentation of a college preparatory curricula, and the learning experiences that constitute this, at this educational level. The authors, all of whom are art and design educators, share what they learned from an ongoing—three years-plus—collaboration with key school district administrators and advisors, curricular planners, middle school instructors, and more than 90 middle school students. The intent of this discourse is to provide readers with actionable means to effectively prepare the groundwork for introducing design thinking in actual middle school classrooms. For those in the design education + research communities around the world who may wish to “learn from what we have learned” re: working with school admin and faculty to introduce design thinking into middle school classrooms, our presentation is also available as a video on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PztbOIFQSw The video includes captions in English, Urdu, Mandarin, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Hindi, Turkish, and Portuguese.

 

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