PUTTING DESIGN INTO STUDENTS' TOOLKITS

In line with this, INDEX: now has launched a new educational pilot program, created to bring design thinking to into the course work in high schools.  This new program is in testing and evaluation stages now at three Danish high schools – Ordrup High, Niels Brock Business High and the Profession High School of North Zealand.

An online portal for the pilot project has been launched by DesignToImproveLife.dk (in Danish only for now), and is available here. 

"Really what this is about," says Lise Vejse Klint, INDEX: Director of Programs and Events, "is wanting to engage not only designers and design students, which we've done for years now, but also to engage a broader range of young people.

"As (INDEX: Juror) John Heskett says, design is the human capacity to come up with better solutions. This isn't emphasized in many school programs. So we're introducing the methods of design.

"There are so many national design policies out there," Vejse Klint says, "emphasizing various nations' focus on design and creativity and innovation. But it's not in the educational programs. This is about how to show the students how to tap into their innovative sides."

Vejse Klint says that a "business as usual" mentality can easily affect many parts of modern societies, which can be at least one factor in education programs that overlook the importance and usefulness of design thinking.

The pilot project being rolled out and evaluated in the three Danish school settings follows the four fundamental phases of design:

• Preparation, in which a challenge or problem is identified;
• Understanding, in which the need or desire is looked at from many angles, so that a deep analysis is in place before efforts to address it come into play;
• Designing, in which efforts to respond to the challenge are formulated, tried and tested; and
• Implementation, in which a design solution is utilized and put into action.

One aspect of the basic phases Vejse Klint finds particularly interesting – and notes that this is carefully explained to the high-school students – is that there can be frequent reversals. You might need to go back to the Understanding stage, for example, from the Design stage, if you realize that more research and comprehension of the issue is needed.

"And in between each of the four phases," she says, "there's an important pause when you get the big picture again, make sure you have the goal clearly in mind.

"What this curriculum does is provide students with very specific tools. They need to know 'what do we know, what do we think we know,' and they need to seek that knowledge in non-traditional places. For instance, if you're doing a project about health, you might want to work with someone in fitness."

A key element of the program is that the goal is not necessarily to promote design professions, but to offer young people the tools of design for use in all walks of life.

"At the business high school," Vejse Klint says, "we introduced this program and now see students starting to apply these processes in fields they've never used them in before, such as marketing.

"They tell us they love it because normally when they do their projects, they focus on the outcomes. With design thinking, they focus on the process. And that makes a better outcome."

The three schools are experimenting with the structure of teaching the program, too. In one case, the curriculum is covered in a week. In another setting, it's done in an intensive three-day approach.  In still another, the material is delivered over several weeks, the students getting part of it on one day each week.

Major evaluation points are set for late December and again in January, so that teachers, students and INDEX: program staffers can assess the program's first test stages and develop the next moves. It's hoped that eventually a design-thinking curriculum for schools can be translated into languages beyond Danish and offered as part of the global strategy of INDEX: Design to Improve Life.

The educational pilot project is sponsored by the European Regional Development Fund, with more information available here.