By our very nature, humans are a questioning and curious lot. We are interested in learning what makes things tick; we want to search for the reasons things happen—we simply want to make sense of our world. We know that this fascination with life begins early. As children grow, their questions continue and their curiosity about the world expands. Teachers and librarians need to help fuel this fire of knowledge and inquiry by sharing the best in literature with students.

What is Design Thinking?

The principles of Design Thinking include several essential elements that integrate project-based, experiential learning into any existing curriculum.

• Observation Learning to look through the eyes of a designer (Engineering Lens)
• Research Using objects, primary source documents, maps and other materials
• Creative Solutions Through the process of making something- a model, an object or a poster
• Presentation and Reflection Includes a verbal presentation by the designers followed by analysis and evaluation which helps to improve the design

Adapted from Cooper-Hewitt

But what’s missing?

• Cyclical nature of the process.

• Fundamentally a learning process that uses thinking skills. In fact, it is a higher order thinking skill.

• The Engineering design process touches most learning disciplines.

• Doesn’t simplify for younger students

The design process is a series of questions. We generate many ideas with "Generative Design" questions and then make our selection with a series of "Deep Reasoning' questions  It's the  divergent and convergent process.

On the left side, we see the divergent and convergent thinking happening as many ideas are created and the reduced base on what will work and meet the  needs.

This is creative and critical thinking.

On the right side we see the iterative nature of the process as things are tried, found to need a change and then repeated until it is correct.

A problem is nothing more than an opportunity in work clothes. A successful business person pays attention to problems, converting the problems into opportunities and deciding which  opportunities are worth pursuing. 

Thinkertoys, Michael Michalko p22

'We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as in insoluble problems. John W Gardner

The core of the engineering design process:

  Identify the problem

Generate possible answers

  Select a solution

As an example: Our problem or design challenge is to find a way to keep the coffee from getting cold.

n stories, we find many design challenges the characters have. The students need to follow this process to design a solution for that interesting design challenge.

It is with the requirements of the design that the teacher can focus the design in a certain direction. As an example, with the story of the 3 pigs and the wolf, you can set the requirements that they live on an earthquake fault line and need to have their house design take that into consideration.

Generative Thinking Tools

Morphological Analysis  ( Tool to help create more ideas by using relationships to associate parameters.)

About Brainstorming  ( group tool to develop many ideas.)

Brain-writing  ( Creating ideas individually.)

Shaping Ideas  ( Way to sort ideas based from " Wild thoughts" to the "Status quo".)

Da Vinci Technique

The Bird exercise:  A way to expand your thinking using attributes.
How many different kinds of birds can you identify?  See write-up

Brainstorming developed by A.F. Osborne, 1941

Brainwriting ... "Thinkertoys" by Michael Michalko p 216

Convergent thinking tools ( Deep Reasoning )

Pugh Matrix  (Method to help make a decision on which of many solutions would be better than a one in existence. )