In my last blog post, I discussed cultivating a classroom culture deeply rooted in the essential principles of design as a methodology for applying the process to teaching and learning. The post was prompted by a desire to expand upon the concepts introduced in my book, "The Design Thinking Classroom," and to provide a foundation for getting started with design thinking in an effort to create a transformative classroom experience.
Building upon the principles of the first post, I'd like to introduce an additional approach that can be used to build the culture necessary to support a classroom-based application of design. This approach involves a deliberate focus on the process of inquiry, a critical component of the use of the design process.
It's crucial to recognize that inquiry is no newcomer to education, as you are well aware. It has long been an integral component of both the learning process and the inherent curiosity that defines us as learners and inquisitive individuals. However, the extent to which the inquiry process impacts the daily student learning experience can vary significantly from one school to another and from one teacher to another.
While we can observe instances of problem-based learning, challenge-based learning, and other inquiry-based methodologies in schools, it is abundantly clear, based on the current educational landscape (and what I continue to see in my work with schools), that there remains substantial untapped potential to enhance the richness of the student learning experience by applying inquiry to the processes of teaching and learning.
Consider the typical high school classroom setting, where the educational experience is traditionally structured into lessons and units. Learning opportunities are planned by the teacher, who determines what is taught, how it's taught, and where the experience takes place. This is not to undermine the effectiveness of such an approach, as students can indeed learn within this framework, and inquiry can certainly find its place within it.
However, can we envision something more profound and impactful? Can we pivot the classroom experience more towards an inquiry approach that is essential for the creation of a classroom design culture?
Imagine if classroom learning revolved around thought-provoking challenges that foster understanding and meaning rather than just acquiring subject-specific knowledge. Picture an educational landscape where the focus is on exploring questions and the diverse pathways that emerge from their answers, including the formation of new questions and passions that can direct the next steps of inquiry. Envision a learning environment where students are empowered to make choices that enable them to determine their own unique direction for addressing the original question. Envision, too, this experience yielding tangible outcomes, solutions, and products that bring significance to people's lives, both locally and globally. And, what if these learners were guided and mentored by seasoned learners who connect them with the requisite resources and individuals required for their learning exploration?
These shifts require a transformation from a teacher-directed learning experience determined for students towards a classroom experience co-created through a dynamic teacher-student partnership.
For educators, leading an inquiry process in the classroom becomes an art of constructing meaningful challenges, furnishing the context for students to formulate and explore their own multifaceted questions, linking them with resources, and fostering their efforts in response to these challenges. This approach suggests a different expectation and role for both the student and teacher (described in my book as an educator-designer). While this can certainly take place within a traditional lesson-to-lesson, unit-to-unit course design, I’m wondering how the fundamental use of inquiry can reshape the classroom experience and lead to the development of a learning culture that can support teaching and learning through a design-thinking approach.
You can learn more about the attributes of the design thinking process in my book, The Design Thinking Classroom.
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