5 Reasons Our Classrooms Need Design Thinking
As we come to the end of what is now the third school year impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, any student, teacher, or parent will tell you that our education system seems to be existing somewhere between “just scraping by” and “chaos.” At first glance, one might assume the myriad of issues with schooling (teacher shortages, increasing discipline instances, mental health crises, etc.) were caused by the pandemic. But these are not issues that appeared from thin air in 2020. Instead, the pandemic and the resulting shutdowns, distance learning, and quarantines have simply turned the spotlight on pre-existing issues and amplified their impact on us all.
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Vincent Alexis-Laona is our Educator Support Specialist and key contributor to the Early Educator Fellowship. Learn more about Vins’s role at Startland here.
For decades, teachers, school leaders, consultants, politicians, and many more have been working to “reform” the U.S. education system. These reforms and changes often feel like “whack-a-mole.” Some choose to focus on the social-emotional well-being of our students, others on college and career readiness, and more and more time, energy, and money is spent trying to create equitable outcomes for students of color. Success in these areas tends to be mixed, with a venture moving the needle to address one problem and leaving the others unaddressed. This is because these initiatives are often tackling symptoms of a larger issue, rather than getting to the root cause.
Whether trying to address inequity, mental health crises, or poor academic performance, a common thread that connects these issues is that schools, for the most part, are still designed to follow a 20th-century industrial model that perpetuates inequality and doesn’t allow for students to learn in a way that they find meaningful. What would happen if we reimagined schooling to give students authentic, meaningful, and engaging learning experiences every day instead of taking the traditional structures of school and trying to make ever-so-slight adjustments?
At Startland, our mission is to unlock the starter in everyone. To our education team, that means reimagining our education system in a way that sees young people as not just future leaders, but the starters and innovators for the present moment. We believe that one of the best tools for activating the change our school needs is human-centered design thinking.
There are 5 reasons human-centered design thinking should be implemented in classrooms.
Equity
Push your classroom to be more culturally responsive.
One reason for optimism for our schools and children is the increased focus on equitable opportunities and outcomes for students regardless of race, home language, or socioeconomic status. If you’ve been to an educator training focused on equity, you’re likely familiar with Gloria Ladson-Billings and her work with Culturally Responsive Pedagogy.
The three main components of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as proposed by Ladson-Billings are:
a focus on student learning and academic success
developing students’ cultural competence to assist students in developing positive ethnic and social identities
supporting students’ critical consciousness or their ability to identify, analyze, and solve real-world problems, especially those that result in societal inequalities.
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While all three components may play a role in design thinking in the classroom, we’ve seen the place where students gain the most from design thinking is when they do authentic work to tackle problems that are meaningful to them and their community. Design thinking is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead it is a framework that helps students better understand their surroundings and the “users” with whom they work. Students are asked to identify and solve authentic problems. In a traditional classroom, they may just complete work from a curriculum that was not planned with them in mind. In a classroom that uses design thinking, young people are spending their time in class considering issues that they find most relevant and impactful on their lives.
2. Social-Emotional Health
Help your students feel less stressed out by the ‘hoops’ they normally jump through in school.
Teachers and students in any school are under a lot of stress. This was true before COVID, and has only gotten worse in the past two years. The list of priorities for educators and their students is ever-growing. Sometimes an increased focus on data, grades, attendance, and other metrics makes it feel like we lose sight of the humanity of schools’ occupants.
A study by Stanford University’s Challenge Success of over 250,000 middle and high school students nationwide found that “too many students believe that success is defined solely by grades, test scores, or admission to the “right” college.” 77% of those students said they experience stress-related health systems. The stress of school is literally making our children sick.
Whether you’re a parent, educator, or anyone who cares for a school-aged child, think about what kind of experience you want for them in school? Would we really tell them that the most important thing is to play the numbers game and get the highest scores possible? Or do we want them to view school as a place where they can thrive, feel like their best selves, and do work they find engaging and fulfilling?
The students who get to participate in classes using design thinking get a chance to be joyful, engaged, and excited about their work. We envision schools as joyful places where students thrive. Instead of jumping through hoops and checking boxes, students get a chance to do work that is truly relevant to their interests and gives them a chance to engage with each other in ways that are missing from typical classes. Deep learning experiences should be the norm, not the exception. Classrooms that utilize design thinking for authentic learning experiences engage students by making the work students are doing meaningful. Startland’s design thinking framework helps classrooms move away from rote learning practices that prioritize one right answer, and shift to a culture that emphasizes the learning journey over one end outcome.
(L-R) Raymore-Peculiar High School students Becky Phillips and Avery Monnig pitch their collaborative solution for Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Startland’s Student Voice program. (Clark Stinson Photography)
3. Academic Performance
Authentic, meaningful learning experiences lead to students actually internalizing content
Educators were certainly not drawn to the profession so they can teach their students how to score high on standardized tests. While there is some evidence that the work often referred to as “test prep” can lead to slight, temporary improvements in test scores for some students, that doesn’t actually mean students are learning. Students benefit from more rich learning experiences than preparing for a state assessment.
And the pressure of standardized testing doesn’t only impact young people. Teaching is an inherently stressful role, and the people that take on the role of classroom teacher enter the profession knowing they’ll wear multiple hats, but some factors weigh more on teacher satisfaction than others. Test prep season can be filled with stress for educators and their students. Design thinking allows for a teacher to feel like they are truly facilitating learning experiences instead of running drills that help students select the right bubbles on a scantron.
However, like it or not, our work as educators is often assessed in terms of test scores. And while it shouldn’t be the only measure of student success, there is research of middle school science students that shows positive results for students in classrooms that used design thinking. Those students had superior performance in terms of knowledge gain achievements in core science concepts, engagement, and retention when compared to a scripted inquiry approach.
It is clear that design thinking can have a positive impact on students and their learning. While our ultimate goal is not to improve test scores for test scores’ sake, we know that this is still the metric by which school success is still measured in many contexts. Design thinking leads to richer and more engaging learning experiences. When students are engaged in their classes and are asked to do more than simple rote memorization and regurgitation, they are able to excel by several measures.
4. The Need for Youth Leadership
Students shouldn’t wait until after graduation to start tackling society’s most pressing issues
The climate crisis, pandemic, ongoing racial injustice, and intensifying political divisions are not just problems for adults to worry about. They are pressing issues for our young people as well; maybe even more so. They are the ones who are inheriting this world and its competing crises in the coming years. As we look to our young people to answer these calls to action, schools should be preparing them to answer that call. There won’t be a clear project for this generation to follow to tackle these problems. Instead, they’ll need to blaze their own path, organize new coalitions, and discover solutions that we likely can’t even perceive at this moment. Try as we might, no school is capable of giving students the knowledge to solve these problems. Instead, schools need to be places that foster the transversal and adaptive skills that young people can use to take on any problem.
Research shows that students benefit from leadership experiences, but what happens to students who aren’t able to take advantage of those opportunities, or to whom they are simply not offered? Historically, these traits have been developed during extracurricular activities - leading Student Council or captaining the football team, for example.
Opportunities to lead are frequent in a classroom that features design thinking. Students are tasked with choosing an issue or problem that feels relevant to their lives. They make decisions about how to research the problem and work with their peers to ideate solutions. Classrooms that frequently use design thinking have teachers that are acting more as facilitators and project managers than the “sage on the stage” of classic lecture models. The more practice young people get with leading projects, collaborating with their peers, and solving problems in their community, the more comfortable they get. For schools that use design thinking, leadership and problem solving are not reserved for small groups of students at infrequent intervals. It becomes a regular part of the school environment.
5. Keeping Up with Evolving Economic and Workforce Needs
We shouldn’t be training students to do work that will soon be obsolete
Schooling serves many purposes, but towards the top of any list of priorities should be preparing young people for their own future as well as that of society. Students need to learn more than just diagramming sentences or solving equations. They need to learn and develop skills that will help them find success in their future endeavors.
The old industrial model of generations before served the needs of a society with economic and cultural needs for knowledge dissemination, industrial production, and maintaining an inequitable balance of power. As the technology behind artificial intelligence continues to progress, finding a place in developing industries means people must possess skills that aren’t easily (and cheaply) done by machines. Skills like critical thinking, solving unfamiliar problems, collaboration, and strong communication will take on even more value.
Perhaps students of generations past could rely on their accumulation of knowledge to get them on a track for future success. But more and more, success relies on skills that go beyond test scores. There are certainly some students and schools who have already figured this out - they are leveraging their networks to gain real-world experience and they are practicing non-cognitive skills like building relationships, working with peers, and problem-solving. However, the current schooling model has these students as the exception instead of the norm.
A student who uses design thinking in their classroom is getting frequent practice using those skills. And they are making connections with industry leaders when they take on a task like a client-connected project. Classrooms that make design thinking part of their curriculum are giving students a chance to graduate with a level of adaptability and a useful network of meaningful connections that will ensure future success.
The conversations around improving schools and our education system tend to get heated. That should be expected when we are talking about our most precious resource - our children and their future. The debate often splinters advocates into opposing camps. But whether we are talking about testing vs. not-testing, constructivists vs. objectivists, or traditional districts vs. charters, we all can find the common ground of giving our students the best opportunities to learn, feel their best, and work towards a bright future.
(L-R) Startlandians Vincent Alexis-Laona and Christina Hocker reconnect with their Teach For America cohort.
Taking on something new and shifting away from the status quo does require a level of bravery, but that’s what this current moment calls for from our educators and school leaders. If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that our schools can be doing better and it’s not going to happen with more of the same. Design thinking offers schools a chance to adapt in a way that benefits young people in so many ways.
Whether it’s Startland’s Social Change Internship, or the work we see at partner schools across the Kansas City Metro area, students engaging in design thinking are getting frequent opportunities to tackle problems they care about, work with peers and professionals, and build skills and mindsets that they will certainly carry with them as they take on all the challenges that the future holds.
– Vincent Alexis-Laona
Photography by Kenney Ellison
Ready to rethink teaching and learning in your school?
Contact Startland Education to hear how we can help.
