How can the Design Thinking process be used to create, connect, and collaborate?

Discovering The LAUNCH Cycle

I stumbled on the book, "Launch", by AJ Julliani and John Spencer somewhere in my massive web of the Twitter PLN world. When I read the description outlining a framework to follow for Design Thinking it caught my attention. Design Thinking was a term I had heard about through a few blogs/tweets, but I really didn't understand it. However, it seemed to have a lot of value for learning. I'm a lover of someone giving me a framework to get started. Some may feel like you shouldn't follow a system for Design Thinking, that it should be more organic, but this makes sense to me and was what I needed. I think it is a great place to start as an introduction for teachers to use the LAUNCH cycle in the classroom to introduce Design Thinking.

As mentioned in the book, "We live in an era where test scores are mistaken for learning." However, we also realize that there is so much more that students need such as critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity skills to name a few. Creating opportunities to foster these skills by creating makerspaces, project based learning, and the use of Design Thinking are great ways for any teacher to enhance these skills in the learning experiences they create. The LAUNCH Cycle provides a flexible framework to get started. The cycle includes the following phases:

• Phase 1: Look, Listen, and Learn
  
• Phase 2: Ask Hard Questions
• Phase 3: Understand the Process or Problem
• Phase 4: Navigate Ideas
• Phase 5: Create a Prototype
• Phase 6: Highlight and Fix
• Phase 7: Launch to an Audience

Getting Started

Maybe you have already embraced the the idea of students designing, making, tinkering, creating. This framework brings some guidance to it, and allows it to be more focused and thoughtful. The students can move in and out of the phases even repeating them as they design. You can start small with a quick 20 - 45 minute design challenge and introduce the LAUNCH Cycle, or push further into a project that uses the LAUNCH cycle over several days or weeks. I have found ways in my own life both professionally and personally to use the LAUNCH cycle phases even when not designing a physical item, but when creating plans, blogs, and tackling work projects.

The authors of LAUNCH, created a Global Day of Design slated for May 2, 2017 for this current year. It is the second annual event to bring awareness to the importance of Design Thinking and allow a day to focus on using the process to create. Classes are encouraged to use that day or any day that works for them to include Design Thinking in their process of learning. Their website provides a wide variety of challenges to choose from that covers several curricular areas.

I saw an opportunity for classrooms across the globe to connect and collaborate on what they are designing and the process they are going through. As a Skype Master teacher, I created a Skype Collaboration on the Microsoft Educator Community. Teachers can first sign up for the Global Day of Design and then move to the Skype Collaboration and connect with a school to share in the following way:

• Option 1: Share a final product created using Design Thinking as a part of the Launch to an Audience
• Option 2: Share a phase of the LAUNCH Cycle and possibly ask for feedback
• Option 3: Create a Design Thinking challenge to complete together as a class during the Skype call, or a portion of the challenge.
• Option 4: Any other ideas you can think of…just connect, collaborate and create!

To get started, check out the Skype Collaboration below for all of the resources you need to get started.

Resources

Access the Skype Collaboration below:
Design Thinking and Global Day of Design Skype Collaboration

The following Sway is included in the Skype Collaboration, and includes additional resources for a successful Skype collaboration and Design Thinking experience.