Design Thinking

The first step in the process of creating a soft skills curriculum was to bond as a team, while getting the creative juices flowing so-to-speak. To do this CTF lead Kelsey Glass enlisted the help of her husband Matteo (Designer Extraordinaire) to come to Northglenn High School and lead us through a Design Thinking workshop. Through the Design Thinking process we worked in pairs, establishing a level of empathy for one another (through a series of "interviews") that allowed us to conceptualize a product that would make our partner’s life better in some way. We were led through the Design Thinking process illustrated below, reworking our designs a number of times based on our partners reaction to the prototype. In debriefing this experience we determined that having this level of empathy for the students that we serve, and maintaining it throughout the curriculum development process, would be critical in order to generate content that was accessible and engaging. We are doing this by building check points into the curriculum design process where we essentially pitch what we've come up with to the students that we serve in order to get their honest feedback. We are approaching our first check point this fall 2015, so more on that to come... In the meantime check out the links below to learn more about Design Thinking and how it can be used in the classroom.

Link: Ted Talk, Design Thinking & Education

Link: Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit