Betsy K. Lee Verb, Ed.D.
Director of Innovation & ICT

Design thinking is used to enhance the learning experience and outcomes among children. This type of thinking involves a fluid, interactive, and dynamic problem-solving approach. Young children are especially masters of imagination and intuition. They have not been exposed to stereotypes and corrupted knowledge that tends to kill creativity in adults. It is easy to incorporate design thinking into their natural way of learning. Since young learners are creative and curious, they will ask questions beyond their level of thinking.

The basics of design thinking involve discovering, empathizing, experimenting, and producing results (DEEP). The process requires empathy, defining the problem, ideating possible solutions, creating, prototyping, and testing. Teachers should be at the forefront to grow this type of DEEP thinking methodology among young students and make the classroom experience a showcase for innovation, creativity, imagination, and intuition.