Using Design Thinking in an Interdisciplinary Inquiry

          I have been fortunate enough to work on a teaching team who brought in a wonderful approach to inquiry, in the shape of ‘Shift Lab’, undertaken during professional Development with the Telus Spark Science center.

         This new form of learning is shaped around the idea of ‘Design Thinking’. In short, and inspired by professional engineers, architects and designers, Telus Spark developed a philosophy around solving problems through empathetic collaboration and hands on design.

Collaborative Rigor

         We integrated this approach into a recent inquiry around European Renaissance, managing to incorporate both the disciplines of science, language and humanities. While students experienced various critical thinking activities around the development of the Renaissance, and its key figures, they also began to go through a rigorous ‘design thinking’ process, with the goal of creating a device that would cause disorder. This looked like brainstorming sessions, asking students to work together to define disorder, and how it could be brought into our everyday lives. Students then went through an iteration process, refining their focus towards a chose design. Multiple feedback cycles, during the design process, helped students understand issues with their design, and build on what they had created, seeing what worked, alongside seeing what needed improvement.

Curriculum Integration 

         For the end result we asked students to showcase their understanding for assessment, in the form of a Powerpoint, Keynote or Quicktime video. Meeting the curriculum outcomes regarding mechanical systems, students shared their scientific understanding of their device, such as the subsystems it incorporated, and how the design had a mechanical advantage. Students used the annotation app Skitch to accurately label and describe the mechanical elements of their work. Students interconnected their scientific thinking with the Renaissance outcomes for social studies, by sharing their knowledge around a key Renaissance figure of their choice, and speaking to their influence over the development of humanist thinking.

Inquiry Goal - What we wanted our students to know

         As a team our overall goal was to have students consider the concepts of truth, order and disorder, and how, within a complex and developing society, each follows the other in turn. Students were able to get a better sense of our working environment, and how a modern classroom is based on Humanist thinking, while also developing their skills in knowledge sharing, and understanding that working towards one goal is a step towards understanding what your next goals will be on the journey of your learning.