K-12 leaders learn design thinking strategies during summit

Grand Valley State University is striving to create and grow a network of design thinking experts in order to expand the ways students learn at both the collegiate and K-12 levels in West Michigan. To begin this collaborative forum, more than 50 K-12 leaders from local school systems attended the first Design Thinking Summit at the Eberhard Center on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus August 25.

Attendees heard success stories regarding the application of design thinking in classrooms from representatives from Zeeland Christian High School, Northview High School, the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM), Grand Haven Public Schools, West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology (WMCAT) and Forest Hills Eastern High School.

John Berry, director of the Design Thinking Initiative at Grand Valley, said the summit comes at a time when many businesses and non-profits across the U.S. are seeking graduates with interdisciplinary problem solving skills the design thinking process provides.

“With employers looking for employees who have the additional soft skills of collaboration, problem solving, empathy and communication, the benefit to students who experience and learn the process of design thinking is enhanced employability and increased life skills in responding to ever changing needs,” Berry said. 

Design thinking is generally defined as an interactive, project-based, problem-solving process that combines empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs. Christopher Bruce, school program senior coordinator at the GRAM, said in order for students to truly be successful, they must not only learn empathy, but also how to think and act like designers, which begins with shedding fears of failure.

“Our students are afraid to take risks and try new things because we live in a society that values testing above all else,” Bruce said. “If you don’t have the right answer, you’re wrong, but that’s not true. We learn more from our failures than people ever learn from successes.”

Some of the topics and themes discussed included:

• Design thinking as a human-centered endeavor;
• The importance of sharing stories to foster emotional connections leading to empathy;
• Incorporating the design thinking process as early as possible in K-12 systems; and
• How the adoption of design thinking can help students ultimately create positive impacts on schools, families and local economies. 

The principles of design thinking are currently being incorporated into various curriculums at Grand Valley through the university’s Design Thinking Initiative, which came to fruition at the beginning of the 2014-15 academic year. Grand Valley will offer its first design thinking course this fall, entitled “Design Thinking to Meet Real World Needs.”

For more information, visit www.gvsu.edu/designthinking.