Teachers are designers: Addressing problems of practice in education 

Recently, a great amount of attention — both scholarly and popular — has been focused on implementing design thinking in schools (Norton & Hathaway, 2015). A recent piece in The Atlantic, for example, notes that “design” has become a buzzword in education (Lahey, 2017), even though many teachers remain unsure what it means or how to apply it. In this article, we provide an overview of design thinking, and we share some examples of ways in which teachers have used it to reconsider their own practice. 

In brief, “design thinking” refers to a strategic approach to analyzing and finding solutions to messy real-world problems. By thinking like a designer — that is, by looking at how students actually experience the curriculum, classroom activities, assignments, and other aspects of life in school, much as an industrial designer might look at how consumers actually use products — they can better analyze problems and identify promising ways to move forward.  

We do not advocate for a specific model of design thinking — it’s an overall approach to solving problems, not a particular technique or set of steps; there are many design thinking models in circulation; more than could be described here (Plattner, Meinel, & Leifer, 2010). Rather, we share some insights from teachers about their takeaways from using a design process, and we consider how design-based approaches can shed light on the kinds of problem solving that teachers engage in regularly as they navigate the challenges of the profession.