An ASCD Study Guide for Designed to Learn: Using Design Thinking to Bring Purpose and Passion to the Classroom

Chapter 1. Finding Purpose in Learning

1. Think back across the past year of teaching and learning and recall three instances that were the most impactful learning experiences for you and three experiences that were the most impactful for your students. Are these experiences the same for you and for your students? Are they different? What do you notice about these experiences?

2. What are common elements of the experiences most impactful to students and yourself that you've identified above? What was your role in teaching and learning? What was your students’ role in teaching and learning?

3. Which of the elements of design thinking are you most looking forward to trying with your learners? What element do you feel confident that you already include in your daily work?

4. How can you identify critical friends in your professional learning network to share ideas as you embark on this journey? How can you model your professional collaboration for your learners as they flex their design thinking skills?

5. What are some concrete ways you anticipate the practice of design thinking changing the learning in your space?

Chapter 2. Teacher and Student Roles in the Design Thinking Classroom

1. What are some new ice breakers or activities you would like to use to get to know learners in your classroom?

2. How can you include the diverse experiences of your students (mirrors so they see themselves reflected in learning) into the learning you introduce through the lens of design thinking?

3. How can you introduce your students to diverse experiences of others globally (windows into the lives of others) as students enact design thinking in your classroom?

4. In what ways can you incorporate multiple modalities from speaking and writing to performing and drawing in an effort to enhance and deepen learning during design thinking?

5. What are some ways you relate to your students' experiences? What are some ways you do not relate to your students' experiences? How can you keep these areas in mind as you work with this dynamic group of learners?

6. What are some ideas from the chapter you will use to invite students to be co-creators of their roles in the design thinking classroom?

7. How will learners know what their role is in the design thinking process from receiving feedback from you and their peers to sharing their progress in an ongoing way?

Chapter 3. How Not to Recreate the Wheel: Same Objectives, Different Pathways

1. Where is an area in your curriculum where learners are curious, confused, or connected that would be an ideal space to start using elements of design thinking?

2. What is the essential learning in the area you've chosen, and what about this learning will affect students today and in their future?

3. How do students currently demonstrate mastery of these concepts, and how might you revise the demonstration of mastery to encourage cognitive, physical, and social-emotional learning?

4. How can you build in ongoing formative check-ins to ensure students get the support they need to make learning meaningful while also flexing their autonomy, competence, and relatedness as learners?

5. How will you work with your students to locate resources within and outside your learning community to support their designed solutions?

Chapter 4. Understand and Empathize: Stepping Back Before Stepping In

1. What questions from Figure 4.1 "Teacher and Student Questions During Understand" will help prepare learners in connecting content to their lives and then in designing a solution to improve the world around them?

2. How can you address some of the assumptions of knowledge and support perspective taking as learners engage in the element of understanding for empathy that supports their ability to think about their thinking (metacognition)?

3. What are experiences within and outside the learning environment that may help learners connect content to its impact on the world around them?

4. Based on Figure 4.2 "Types of Formative Assessment During Understand," where are there opportunities to provide formative feedback throughout the design thinking experience to support ongoing progress?

5. How will you work with students to use Figures 4.4 "Student Self-Assessment Questions During Understand" and 4.9 "Student Self- and Peer Assessment Questions During Empathize" to foster perspective taking and model opportunities for revised understanding of their knowledge?

Chapter 5. Identify and Research: Symptom or Root Cause?

1. What are some ways to model the distinction between the root cause and the symptoms of issues or problems your students are working to solve while they engage in research?

2. What supports do you anticipate your students requiring as they research the issue they're trying to solve?

3. What are some tools of the trade from this chapter you would like to use to support students in problem identification?

4. How can you use the element of identifying and researching problems to understand student beliefs about knowledge and knowing (epistemology)?

5. Which of the questions from Figure 5.4 "Teacher and Student Questions in Identify" will you use to support learners in identifying the root cause from the symptoms? Why?

6. How can Figures 5.5 "Student Self-Assessment Questions During Identify" and 5.8 "Student Self-Assessment Questions During Research" be used as formative assessment to check in on student learning as they conduct research to identify the root cause?

Chapter 6. Communicate to Ideate: Pulling Together to Design Innovative Solutions

1. What are some strategies from this chapter that you'd like to enact supporting more successful communication during ideation?

2. What are ways you can model the critical friend protocol in this chapter before learners use the protocol with peers during the element of ideation?

3. How will you support learners in developing reflective strategies to improve the way they learn (self-regulated learning) as they communicate to ideate?

4. In what ways can you support learners to identify the metrics they'll look for in determining the success of their designed solution before they begin creating their solution?

5. How can you use the element of communicate to ideate to share ways your curriculum has been enhanced and reignited with colleagues and invite new thought partners into the process of design thinking in your classroom?

Chapter 7. Prototype and Test: The Messy Path Forward

1. What aspects of the Figure 7.1 "Student Self-Assessment Questions During Prototype" model do you anticipate using with your learners as they build their solutions?

2. What opportunities are there in your learning community to support learners in finding resources or materials to design their solutions?

3. In what ways might you invite additional community members to provide support for your learners in designing solutions or prototypes?

4. How will you provide ongoing feedback to students about the way in which their designs connect content knowledge to solving real-world problems?

5. What evidence will you look for to demonstrate your learners are able to assess their work, the work of their collaborators, and the lessons they've learned during the element of building and breaking?

Chapter 8. Iterate and Reflect: Reinforcing the Power of Formative Feedback

1. What outcomes will you look for in student iteration and reflection to demonstrate that learners have demonstrated content knowledge and applied the content in their designed solution?

2. How might the Application-Process-Future model in this chapter be applied in your classroom to help you identify changes in your learners' metacognition (knowing what you know), self-regulation (the skills and wills of learning strategies), or epistemological (knowledge beliefs)?

3. How might you encourage students to reflect on the aspects of their designed solution they might change, revise, or use again in the future?

4. What supports might you need to put in place to support learners in returning to different elements of design thinking if their solution needs additional support or iteration within or outside of the school day?

Chapter 9. Applying Knowledge to Practice: Isn't That the Point?

1. How might you curate and share student work to celebrate the designed solutions and bring in the wider community?

2. What are some ways you could call your colleagues into joining you in rethinking their curriculum with design thinking? What supports might they need and how might their expertise help support your work?

3. After using the lens of design thinking to reframe an area of curriculum how might you and your students answer the following prompts:

   1. If I knew then what I know now …

   2. I used to know … but now I know …

4. What are some areas in which you have grown as an educator as a result of your experience with design thinking?

5. What are some ways in which your learners have grown as a result of their experience using design thinking in the classroom?