Colorful construction paper is strewn all over Kirsten Becker's third grade classroom floor. Tape, scissors, glue, cardboard boxes, empty plastic containers, craft sticks, felt, markers, and rulers are tossed about as her students quickly search for the perfect pieces. House music—the kind designers at Facebook headquarters listen to—plays in the background as one student meticulously tapes a calculator onto a cardboard box, while another takes measurements of a container before cutting it. These students are completely engaged and focused on the task at hand. And this is only one part of a much larger process they are involved in, called design thinking.

Design thinking is a practical methodology, developed at the Stanford University d.school, which teaches individuals new strategies to solve problems. It challenges students to combine empathy, ingenuity, and rationality to meet a user's needs and create successful solutions. There are five main steps to this concept: empathize (understanding the audience or situation), define (defining the question or problem, based on insights), ideate (formulating creative solutions), prototype (building a model to help solve the problem), and test (testing the prototype). By applying the process of design, teachers can tap into students' creativity, encourage them to see nuanced problems from inside the core of an issue, and make critical thinking essential to problem solving.

In the scenario described in Ms. Becker's class, students were working on the prototype stage of a "faculty comfort project." This project, completed in November, served as a practice session to formulate skills on interviewing, focusing on a need,

and designing a solution through prototyping. The goal was to design something to make an employee more comfortable at his or her work station. Students worked in pairs and were assigned an adult volunteer (SSSAS administrator, faculty, or staff member) whom they observed and interviewed in order to assess his or her needs. For many, this was the first time they had ever formally interviewed anyone. Back in the classroom, they collaborated and brainstormed solutions, and then got to work building their prototypes. Once their solutions were completed, the students presented them to the volunteers—and their creativity was evident in the designs. One student built a foldout tea station for a volunteer who enjoyed drinking tea during the day to de-stress. Another student built a cushion to help the volunteer's wrist when using a computer mouse, while another made a cloth shield that helps block the air conditioner flow for an employee who sits very close to the unit. The month-long process ended with student reflections on the experience.

"I am finding that the students are very observant," said Ms. Becker. "They are able to pick on little things, which has driven much of their brainstorming. Another thing I have noticed is that many of them want to go from the interview right to the design step. This project, and others this year, will really help them slow down and let them learn the process and appreciate it," she said. "They are so creative!"

The faculty comfort design-thinking exercise was intended to help students prepare for a service-learning project they will complete in the spring. During the course of this school year, Ms. Becker's students will complete this same process, a bit

Ready, Set, Innovate!Design thinking teaches crucial 21st century skills

Interviewing Collaborating Researching TestingBrainstorming ObservingProblem-solving

Critical-thinking

Decision-making

Communicating Empathizing

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more in depth, by designing something to make their senior citizen friends at Lincolnia Adult Daycare Center in Alexandria more comfortable. Students paid their first visit to Lincolnia in October, when they observed and interviewed the seniors. They will visit again in January and May to complete the design-thinking process and present their prototypes.

"There are so many reasons that design thinking is important for our students to experience," Ms. Becker said. "It introduces them to, and allows them to use, life skills such as collaboration, brainstorming, observation, interviewing, researching, testing, receiving feedback, and building from that feedback—all in one project." She continued, "Most important, it helps build empathy. The rule is that students may not design for themselves. They have to find a user with a need. At first I thought this would be the hardest part of design thinking. However, empathy is achieved immediately, and it is contagious! My students want to help make a difference in people's environments. They have a vested interest in making it better."

St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School faculty were introduced to design thinking at the November 2012 Professional Day, when the school hosted Coeylen Barry, a design thinking consultant trained at the Stanford d.school. The first program of its kind, the d.school launched in 2005 and has seen dozens of innovative products and startup companies emerge from classes offered at the school. The SSSAS Professional Day gave faculty a chance to experience design thinking first-hand, from the "empathize" to the "test" stage. Faculty learned that, through the design thinking process, students are taught to defer judgment early on, which reduces fear of failure and encourages thinking outside the box. The design process is taught through problem scenarios or design challenges such as, "How might we improve the physical and emotional safety of youth at our school?" Through these challenges students develop creative confidence, analytical thinking skills, and the ability to collaborate and communicate.

Ms. Becker was intrigued by the design thinking concept after participating in the SSSAS professional day, and the following year, she was awarded an APT grant to study at the Design Thinking Institute at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California. (See page 17 to read about Ms. Becker's APT grant experience.)

Theresa Cullen Hill, SSSAS JK-12 dean of faculty and innovation, global studies and learning coordinator, explains the importance of implementing this concept at our school: "Design thinking is a 21st century skill and is critical to the planning, creating, and design process in all aspects of school and life. In our efforts to embrace STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art/design, and math) across all grades and departments, design thinking is a natural fit because it is possible in every classroom, at every grade."

Ms. Becker's third grade project is just one example of how SSSAS has implemented the design thinking approach in recent years. Our teachers have integrated the concept across all disciplines and in all divisions. In the spring of 2013, for example, eighth grade science students used the design thinking method to test buoys that gathered water quality data for the Chesapeake Bay. Robert Davis, Middle School science teacher and department coordinator, said, "This was really a multi-

faceted project. We want to give our students the skills to solve any problem. In this project students had to be able to calculate, design, draw, and be able to communicate their ideas in a team setting. We asked them to really do an adult-like project."

In the Upper School last spring, AP psychology students worked on a design thinking project to develop games for Lower School children, so they began by interviewing our youngest students of various ages about their favorite games. The History Department also created two projects, a video-based art/architecture analysis project for underclassmen and an oral history project for upperclassmen (see article on page 10.) Our administrators gained hands-on experience with this concept during a recent team exercise where they broke into teams and were challenged to build a game for each other using the Imagination Playground set. (Imagination Playground is an innovative playground equipment system that that encourages learning, collaboration, creativity, social development, and movement.)

Mrs. Cullen Hill explains that a major component of design thinking is to understand the meaning of failing and trying again. "The grit, determination, and tenacity it takes to recreate a prototype and try over and over until something works is at the core of design thinking," she said. "They say, 'fail fast and fail often.' This is a life skill and one that is necessary in all aspects of life—work, sports, theater…basically any time you take a risk."

While Ms. Becker's third grade students built fictional prototypes of things like a tea station, a wrist guard, or an air shield for their project, the 21st century skills of interviewing, collaboration, research, testing, brainstorming, and observation they learned were very real. They are skills our students will take with them and apply throughout their years at SSSAS and well beyond.

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