Design Thinking in the Classroom: Easy-to-Use Teaching Tools to Foster Creativity, Encourage Innovation, and Unleash Potential in Every Student

by David Lee

Whether your students are tackling project-based learning or developing solutions in the STEM maker lab, design thinking will help them be more innovative. The design-thinking process, practices and mindsets teach 21st-century skills such as adaptability, collaboration and critical thinking.

Harness the revolutionary power of design thinking in the classroom setting with this informative guide for teachers, educators and school leaders.

The design thinking program described in this book helps develop students’ mindsets in a way that is more conducive to producing innovative solutions. It allows students to apply their creativity to tackle real-world issues and achieve better results through the use of its five learning

• Empathize
• Define
• Ideate
• Prototype
• Test

Genres: Education

208 pages, Paperback

Published April 25, 2022

About the author

I am currently the elementary STEM/EdTech Specialist at Singapore American School in Singapore. My responsibility at the school is to facilitate educators in integrating STEM subject areas meaningfully and purposefully into their classroom to increase learner engagement and achievement, provide learners with real world experiences, develop their 21st century skills, promote creativity and innovation, and provide digital tools that are appropriate to each student's learning styles.

I was also the former elementary STEM Coordinator at Korea International School (KIS) in Seongnam, Korea. As the STEM Coordinator, I contributed to the vision and execution of the school's STEM program, worked collaboratively with all stakeholders (administrators, teachers, students, parents, & community), assisted in the development and delivery of transdiscipinary STEM professional development, and attended grade-levels meetings to move all teachers towards independence in the delivery of transdisciplinary instruction and curriculum. I also created meaningful connections between disciplines, planned and executed opportunities for students to showcase their work within the school and community (i.e. fairs, exhibition, etc.). As the design teacher, I engaged learners through open-ended inquiry-based activities in the KoLAB spaces by modeling and teaching the design thinking process.

I have been a conference presenter at the KORCOS conferences (2012 and 2014), the Google in Education South Korea Summits (2013 and 2014), Learning 2.0 (2014-2016), and 21CLHK (2018). I was the keynote speaker at a STEM conference called STEMapalooza (2018). I have a master's degree in education with an emphasis on EdTech. My research focused on a 1:1 program implementation model that incorporated essential 21st-century student outcomes and support systems.

Reviews

[Silvino Sieben · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know what design thinking was and I got a bit disappointed. It is very similar to what I've read about the "maker theory", the hands-on project. Of course DT has its own set o rules, which differs from the other approaches. Anyway, it was a good read. Not very good.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has some good ideas for helping kids to develop a design mindset. A good mix of concrete activity suggestions and more general principles.

[Marc S · Rating 5 out of 5]

filled with gems

This book is great. The beginning was a slow introduction into design thinking. As I read on, I couldn’t help but to highlight example after example.

[Paul Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read and practical to use in real teaching scenarios.

[Waffa Mohammad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book , specially for teacher , edtech coach , it helped me reshape my strategy in implementing lessons