Source: Edutopia The ASIDE Blog |
The spring 2012 issue of Independent School magazine featured a detailed article about the prospects for design thinking to revolutionize standard classroom practice. In "An Experience Of "Yes": Independent Schools Begin To Explore and Ex...," Peter Gow describes this mindset as "the posing of a problem, perhaps elegantly framed but more likely ill-structured or open-ended -- and with some constraints." This collaborative exploration requires "critique, testing, retesting, and redesigning until a breakthrough is achieved." In a safe, trusted setting, a feedback model that embraces failure is the ideal paradigm for student discovery.
Source: Design Thinking For Educators |
- Design Thinking - Invisible Hearts Project
- Young Entrepreneurs Step Up
- Design Is A Method Of Problem Solving
Source: The Right Question Institute |
Although it was perhaps not initially intended to mimic the design thinkingapproach, the Question Formulation Technique springs from an initiative atThe Right Question Institute that aims for students to "learn how to produce their own questions, improve them, and strateg...." This scaffold closely follows the "discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation, and evolution" procedure of designers. For a full description of the technique, we highly recommend this informative explanation from The Right Question Institute.
Source: The Right Question Institute, ASIDE |
The QFT applies to all levels of schooling and can be employed "to introduce students to a new unit, to assess students’ knowledge to see what they need to understand better, and even to conclude a unit to see how students can, with new knowledge, set a fresh learning agenda for themselves." The QFTbasically validates students' natural inquisitive sense when starting new research or beginning to write an essay. It formalizes in a helpful way what can sometimes become rushed or quotidian.
Source: The Right Question Institute, ASIDE |
- Teachers design a Question Focus (or QFocus) - With a prompt, a dilemma, or a guiding statement, the teacher frames the inquiry to point the children in a beneficial direction.
- Students produce questions - Using a set of guidelines (listed above), the children generate questions based on their own curiosity and wonder.
- Students improve their questions - The groups of students then refine and modify their lists based on an understanding of open- and closed-ended questions.
- Students prioritize their questions - Through discussion and debate, the students choose specific questions they would genuinely like to probe further.
- Students and teachers decide on next steps - As a group, the kids and adults together decide how to use these core questions to guide the coming days and weeks of classes.
- Students reflect on what they have learned - By looking back over the process they have just pursued, students explore the value of self-initiated experimentation.
Source: The Right Question Institute, ASIDE |
For additional reading about design in the classroom, check out "Design Thinking: Lessons For The Classroom," from Betty Ray at Edutopia.
Note: This post has been updated to reflect accurate sourcing (Sept. 28, 2012).