EduCon 2024

Is design thinking worth it? How can schools innovate? How can education be agile?

At The School at Columbia University, we collaborated with designers who trained us how to embrace design thinking. They've outlined the following nine steps:

1. Define the problem
2. Research the problem
3. Analyze and redefine the problem
4. Ideate many solutions
5. Prototype the solutions
6. Refine the solutions
7. Repeat as needed
8. Choose the solution
9. Implement the solution

Over the years, our community of students, teachers, and administrators have each had experience working on a few long-term projects. Students redesigned a desk, a chair, and a locker. Faculty and administrators examined our school culture and sought to innovate how we integrate homework, recess, lunch, discipline, and grading. By working together and following the same principles, our population embraced a common language as they worked towards a common goal: define, research, ideate, prototype, implement.