One of the key components of the instructional program at Legacy Magnet Academy will be the use of Design Thinking in problem solving. But what exactly is Design Thinking?
The Elevator Speech-
Design Thinking taps into student curiosity by allowing them to create, test and re-create until they eventually share what they have made with a real audience (sometimes global but often local).
The Longer Description-
Design thinking isn’t a subject or a topic or a class. It’s more of a way of solving problems that encourages risk-taking and creativity. In other words, design thinking is a flexible process for getting the most out of creative work. It is used in the arts, in engineering, in the corporate world, and in social and civic spaces. You can use it in every subject with every age group. It works when creating digital content or when building things with duct tape and cardboard. In the school setting, Design Thinking can be used for everything from coding projects to service projects to documentaries to engineering challenges. In the startup realm, the design thinking cycle is used for product development. In countless industries, people are embracing design thinking as a process to spark innovation and boost creativity.
What the Experts Say-
David Kelley, the founder of the design firm IDEO and author of Creative Confidence, puts the benefits of design thinking into a simple statement:
“We moved from thinking of ourselves as designers to thinking of ourselves as design thinkers,” he continues. “What we, as design thinkers, have, is this creative confidence that, when given a difficult problem, we have a methodology that enables us to come up with a solution that nobody has before.”
Design thinking provides a methodology for creating innovative solutions to a vast array of difficult problems.
