What is design thinking and how to apply it to education

Design Thinking is a methodology created by Stanford University and popularized by Professor Tim Brown and has been used by many companies for years to promote innovation. Now, teachers can apply this focus technique in the classroom to ensure they train more creative and innovative students. How to apply the Design Thinking methodology in education?

In general lines we can say that Design Thinking manages to obtain creative solutions for different problems. A process that manages to involve the users of a product or service to somehow turn them into active actors. Thus, products and services are designed for the user and from the user. The result, a much more positive experience.

What are companies based on to use this thinking formula?

Design Thinking is a methodology that uses the same mechanisms that designers can employ to achieve innovative solutions that increase the value of the company. These instruments could be, for example, empathy, observation or experimentation, three tools that allow companies to make their own decisions based on the real needs of their customers, and not just relying on data or statistics.

Design Thinking allows us to face any problem from an alternative perspective from which we have never worked before. Design Thinking starts from the needs of humans to get faster and more efficient ideas using certain prototypes. For this, it is necessary to get the process from the designers' hands and get the active participation of the community. Because design has become aesthetics, image and fashion, and what this philosophy aims to do is balance desirability with technical and economic viability.

Origins of Design Thinking

Although Design Thinking was created in the interwar period by Bauhaus movement architect Walter Gropius, it was in 2008 that it became popular. That year Tim Brown, a professor at his engineering school, published an article on the subject in the Harvard Business Review.

According to Tim Brown, Design Thinking "is a discipline that uses the sensitivity and methods of designers to match the needs of people with what is technologically feasible and with what a viable business strategy can become value for the client as well as a great opportunity for the market. "

Design Thinking, like creativity and innovation, were competencies highlighted only by certain companies during the previous decades. However, today the situation has changed to consider this methodology as one of the basic pillars of any organization. The business world has surrendered at the foot of Design Thinking, since this concept can be applied efficiently to products, services and processes. And that is something that we can take advantage of in many ways beyond business.

The Advantages of Design Thinking in the Classroom

Students will achieve unique abilities through design thinking.

Students need individual processes, specifically tailored to their needs, and not methods embedded in a single generic educational reality that does not apply correctly to all types of students. Given this, teachers can use Design Thinking to generate these strategies and thus provide their students with a better experience in the classroom. By doing this, students will begin to:

Develop a mindset of problem solvers, constantly analyzing the different variables to arrive at the best solution.

They commit to their actions in the classroom, always looking for the best ways to learn.

They will understand that they own their learning, and that they must work for it. Thus, they will put more commitment to their tasks.

They become more sensitive to other people's problems.

They develop a greater degree of empathy and humility, based on their own effort to learn to value that of others.

They increase their curiosity to learn more and know the world.

They learn to work as a team, to join wills in search of a common goal.

What can Design Thinking bring to MBA students?

With the rise of digital communication, the globalization of commerce and the continuous changes in new technologies, business schools also present the need to continually renew these programs to train more capable students. Companies have increasingly difficult challenges to overcome and schools must bet on something more.

The application of Design Thinking in the field of MBA could finally be the solution they need. If students learn to think with Design Thinking as a banner, graduates of these business programs will be able to offer their clients a true innovation, with unexpected and completely useful solutions.

Tools of the methodology to put it into practice

We explain the keys to the Design Thinking methodology for the classroom, startups, companies or in your daily life.

Where is it used?

Business:

Solve real user problems

Identifies the weak point of the business

Education

Encourage collaboration through brainstorming and active participation

Train committed students capable of finding solutions in context

Undertakings

Facilitates resource management to minimize economic risks

It acts as a public opinion poll to offer a demanded product or service.

There are 5 basic steps to apply Design Thinking in any context:

 

1. Empathize or discover

2. Define or interpret

3. Devise

4. Prototype or experiment

5. Evaluate

What strategies to use to bring Design Thinking to students?

The figure of the teacher is key to carry out this methodology in education, since it must streamline the processes and guide students with clear objectives in each of the phases of Design Thinking. In this way, the teacher does not disappear as a mediator, but changes her role as a speaker to become a mentor who distributes the tasks and maintains the energy of the group to ensure a proactive attitude towards the contents of the curriculum.

In educational settings, the procedure to follow is as indicated below:

1. Discover the problem in a group: What challenge am I facing?

During the first phase or discovery phase, students will understand the challenges they face. Both the empathy of the teacher towards the group and among the peers themselves will be essential, bearing in mind that the teacher should never define the problem but will leave the group. Brainstorming is an appropriate tool for this line of thinking, avoiding ridicule of the most absurd ideas so that the practice itself dismantles its viability and students are involved in their learning.

2. Select the most suitable study materials.

In the interpretation phase, students will select the data that will help them solve the problem. It requires discerning about the relevance of the materials and their relevance in relation to the problem, becoming a stage of discussion.

3. Share resolution-oriented ideas

Next, they must devise an action plan based on the options they manage, in order of priority and always in a collaborative context.

4. Implement the best ideas obtained from the previous process

For the fourth phase, they will have to experience the ways they voted in the previous stage to know if they really work. It is a time of learning about error to encourage the search for alternatives.

5. Receive the teacher's refund and show the results to the audience at RRSS or scientific fairs.

Finally they will evolve towards the natural solution of the problem, starting from innovation. They will be encouraged to find other ways, consider what else they can achieve, and share their findings with society. The recognition of others is essential for an activity to become important, because psychologically it is healthy for others to congratulate us on our achievements to continue experimenting. In this last phase, the teacher will evaluate in accordance with what is expected of the students in a Design Thinking exercise.

Apply Design Thinking in your daily life

Put Design Thinking into practice in your daily life to find alternatives that allow you to better perform in your work, your studies and even help you project personal aspirations.

1.Display the problem

Identify the key aspects of the everyday problem you want to take apart and define the patterns that are truncating its resolution. You can draw them on paper to understand them from another perspective, discovering aspects that were not so clear when you thought about it abstractly. Another similar idea is to write the problem by telling it as a story, putting together a list of related words or brainstorming with the central concept in a balloon and the slopes expressed in arrows that emerge from it.

2. Invest your thoughts

Convert a denial into a positive statement that changes the approach perspective, a strategy to think in reverse and decide which aspects to prioritize. For example, if you are analyzing how to face a work meeting on a topic that involves you, think of everything you should not say to extract what is the relevant information. Change the formulation of the questions to generate new ways of posing a trigger.

3. Take the risk

Question hypotheses to break stereotypes and come up with ideas that are out of the box. Design Thinking is characterized by emphasizing learning during practice, so experimentation is more important than risk. You can only innovate if you assume the possibility of failure, feeling comfortable at the prospect that the resolution is not as expected.

4. Keep a journal

Oddly enough, writing a journal that works as a monitor of your daily activities is a way of determining which ones inject you with energy, which ones drain it and how they affect you. Take the time to record your most important activities for a few weeks, choosing those that excite you and those that bore or tire you, so you can see how you can improve, modify or even delete them. Use the journal as your energy meter to get the most out of each day.

5. Think about various scenarios

It consists of a projection exercise that involves thinking about various alternatives for the future. Write different paths or scenarios in which you will find yourself during the next 5 years, turning your professional and personal aspirations. The objective is to understand that your life could take different directions but you would be happy in all of them if you know how to take advantage of the opportunities. It is a mechanism to avoid regrets when a decision turns the direction of your life, understanding that it can be the touchstone for a new path.