Educational Design Thinking: awakening creativity and innovation potential from the classroom to educational policy. Photograph: © Eva Isberg Kohli, 2018

Eva Isberg Kohli, what is Educational Design Thinking?

In these rapidly changing times, we must develop strategies to cope with growing complexity. Design Thinking is an effective tool for finding creative solutions. Its basic principles are collaboration, empathy, thinking in terms of options as well as building and testing prototypes. Applying this method in the educational context is called Educational Design Thinking.

Innovation tasks, as a form of classroom teaching, offer every age group manifold learning opportunities. The results are always open-ended and individual. This action-oriented approach awakens inventive potentials and promotes key competencies such as cooperation, critical thinking, creativity and communication. Educational Design Thinking is also a work culture that teachers can practise at meetings and in project groups. The joint design process is fun and efficient. In terms of school development, this approach enables critically questioning existing structures. It opens up a thought space. What would happen if there were no more grades or syllabus? And what does an inspiring place of learning look like? Prototypes help visualise and test such spaces.

Educational Design Thinking aims to initiate a culture change in education. From kindergarten to adult education, adopting an active, exploratory attitude towards learning is important. This approach enables us to responsibly embrace the challenges of our society.