In my experience, one of the most critical issues lies in the process of creating a product. Students seem to struggle to make a genuine reflection and this often hinders the quality of their final product. My buddy and colleague Hayden has made a relevant remark as to why they often end up not meeting design specifications in his DT class. The MYP Design Cycle, which shares many similar elements with design thinking, looks something like this:
But according to Hayden, students do not really get the cycle part of the concept. In fact, they view it more as a 180 degree line, sequential and rigid:
Hayden does make a good point here. Our students are generally able to regurgitate systemically each and every step of the design cycle, but seem to miss the purpose of the design cycle viewing it more as a contrived sequence of linear stages that are an add-on to their assessments rather than a necessity for the creation of beautiful work. (I'm stealing that directly from Ron Berger)
In essence, design thinking, should be seen as an organic process, a catalyst for learning. If one looks at the first graphic, they will appreciate that each stage is interconnected by different arrows going in different directions. This implies that the design cycle is indeed a mental construct where stages can be interchangeable and its structure amorphous. So you might ask, why do students struggle to wrap their heads around this process? The answer is easy: they haven't been exposed to it enough to make it their own .
Learning is complex; there are many cogs that need to fall into place, for it to take place. In one of my earlier posts, I reflected on the weak areas of the Revolutions unit. On paper, this unit is solid; however, that alone does not suffice to produce quality. And this has allowed me to identify an important flaw: The projects that fell flat all shared one commonality- they came to an end without having reached their maturity level. After all, if we really want students to create quality work, shouldn't we be allocating enough time for the refinement of their finished product? This refinement stage is often underestimated in education because there is curriculum that needs to be covered, yet in the real world, it is crucial, because some of the most intense problem-solving takes place at this stage of the creation.
I'm currently reading Lean Startup, which discusses the importance of startups failing with a purpose to gain validated learning and test their hypothesis. This allows them to apply their lessons learned and be faced with two different options: They can either persevere with their product or pivot. Pivoting in this context means making small changes based on the lessons learned about your product to maximize from its potential. And there are many types of pivots too. Entrepreneurs might want to make a customer segment pivot where they acknowledge that their product targets a different kind of customer than the ones that had been originally identified. In contrast, the customer need pivot allows entrepreneurs to use their validated learning to identify a different problem faced by their intended audience and as a result to plan and create a different solution. These are only a few examples that go to show that in the real world, the application of design thinking is fluid and not rigid; at times, one might go straight back to the investigate stage and others to the planning stage. There is no defined rigid formula, because the use of the design cycle is based on necessity.
So this should be no different in school. The skill in problem-solving lies in exposing students to situations where they need to make those types of calls: persevere or pivot. By having the time to refine their product, students are empowered to maximize from design thinking where the stages can be interchangeable depending on the particular nature and unforeseen needs of that project. Too often, we stifle it with touch and go projects that do not allow students to fail, reflect, learn from their failures and refine their work. Here we're doing them a great disservice.
This is yet another argument for the implementation of project-based learning as a vehicle for higher level thinking. Only a change of paradigm and an uprooting of the current structure that equates to 20th century, stand alone subjects can truly bring design thinking to life.
