In every dialogue I have with parents about their concerns, there is one topic they always passionately speak about – The kind of education they wish to provide for their children. There is also a tail end of that wish where they say, “I know it is just a dream”.
Many of them think it is impossible to provide a holistic education experience where children will be empowered to express their ideas and apply their skills, while developing their factual understanding.
Design thinking is a structured process that provides an empowering and enriching learning space. According to Stanford University D.School, design thinking process consists of five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. The beauty of the methodology is that you can use it everywhere, be it in a classroom, at home or in an office. Apple, PepsiCo and Airbnb are just some of the companies that found success with it.
Before you jump into any conclusion that it is all for high-tech firms and big companies, let me assure it is not just for them. It is a methodology you can use anywhere as long as you have a problem to solve. There are schools around the world that have used Design Thinking to cultivate problem solving skills and innovation in students.
Teaching children using the design thinking methodology invokes a few mindset changes in their overall learning journey.
1. Teaches children to be more innovative and creative
Children learn how to take a problem from stating the problem, tossing ideas to solve it, all the way to implementing it. Prototyping of the solutions in the design thinking process provides the users of the solutions to get a first hand idea of how it is going to look and behave. This enhances their initiative and entrepreneurial skills. As Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo said, “Design leads to innovation and innovation demands design”.
2. Empowers children to be more confident in expressing their ideas
Design Thinking relies a lot on prompting everyone in the group to express their ideas about the topics they handle. Ideation and brainstorming phases of design thinking is communication rich. While imparting valuable life skills such as brainstorming to a child, a design rich environment also boosts children’s confidence in their ideas and imagination. It helps them to come out of their shells and express themselves.
3. Empowers Children to work towards achieving their own goals
Design thinking process is an end-to-end process. Children come up with question statements, solution ideas and prototypes. This is an iterative process and they improve the ideas in each iteration after getting feedback from the users. Once both parties are satisfied with the solution, they implement it or pass it over to the people who are responsible to implement it. This self-driven approach enables them to take on future challenges as leaders, innovators and creative thinkers.
4. Teaches teamwork to children
In a Design Thinking environment, children learn teamwork by working collaboratively. This is a non-judgemental environment where no ideas are shut down. Whereas, a traditional classroom gives more focus to individual efforts and the system is highly competitive. In that system children are offered team-building programs to learn teamwork over hypothetical situations once or twice a year. Does it leave any long-standing effect in the child?
5. Boosts problem solving skills in children by cultivating different thinking styles
Children learn to look at all aspects of a problem while trying to solve it. It uses both Divergent thinking and convergent thinking styles. In divergent thinking, they generate as many ideas as they can without any constraints. In Convergent thinking, they delve deep into selected ideas and apply the un-moveable constraints into it. The main agenda of design thinking is problem solving. This problem solving is undoubtedly multi-disciplinary. It helps children to connect everything they learn to solve the problem they are facing. And it helps them in every discipline they are learning and every situation they are exposed to.
6. Helps children to grow up as socially responsible citizens
Since Design Thinking programs focus on solving real life challenges, children feel what they are doing is relevant to the community and the world around them. It gives them the tools and the confidence to make the change. They grow up with an understanding of the world around them.
7. Teaches children how to think from other people’s perspectives
Design thinking is human-centered and empathy is instilled in it. Children are continuously encouraged to think about the feelings of the users of their solutions. It tries to integrate the needs of people, technology and the criteria of learning when used right.
8. Encourages children to listen and respect other people’s ideas
One important virtue that children will get rewarded with is the listening skills. It helps children to combine creative thinking and analytical thinking.
9. Inspires children to be more curious and inquisitive
It creates an enquiry culture in the school. When children are faced with a challenge, they will first get in to ‘Why is it happening’ mode instead of jumping into ‘Let me solve it’ mode. This ‘Why culture’ helps not only in their student life and later in their professional life, it also helps them in solving their personal problems. Children become more experienced in applying their knowledge and seeking new knowledge.
10. Teaches children to look at failures as learning experiences
Since they play around with multiple ideas for the same problem, children come to realize that if one does not work, they will be able to find another solution. It changes the concept of failure in their mind. They learn to look at every disappoint as a learning experience.
In a study by IBM in 2012, 1700 CEOs from 64 countries voted collaboration, communication and creativity as the top three traits that are critical for an employee’s success. As per a NACE survey among 160 employers, problem solving is among the top four skills employers seek in a candidate. Incidentally, Design Thinking comes with all these offerings on a silver plate. Shouldn’t our education systems take advantage of that?
Check out our workshops on Design Thinking here and here.
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© 2016 – 2019, Sindu Sreebhavan. All rights reserved.
About Sindu Sreebhavan
Sindu Sreebhavan is the founder of As Many Minds Minds Pte Ltd and the founding Chief Editor of The Kidz Parade Edutainment magazine, Asia's premium publication for cultivating creativity and creative writing in children. Sindu is also the founder and the Chairperson of International Youth Leadership and Innovation Forum (IYLIF). Sindu is the author of 'Infinite Possibilities' and the lead co-author of Amazon bestseller 'Breakthrough'. With a passion to infuse innovation in education and inject growth mindset and innovative mindset in people and organisations, Sindu writes, speaks and consults on innovation and creativity in business and education. She says innovation does not start with invention, it starts with a mindset. “The best gift you can give a child is the power of Confidence, Creativity and Communication” is her tagline. She is passionate about educating educators, parents and children about youth development, youth leadership, education innovation and 21st century education. She supports children, parents, schools and several organisations in these areas.
