Abstract:

This presentation focuses on Zhangde Primary School’s experience in adopting the Design Thinking approach for our Interdisciplinary Project Work (IPW). To nurture confident and self-directed learners, the P1-P6 IPW framework was reviewed to adopt the Design Thinking approach.

Design Thinking was applied to craft lesson packages for the themes, topics, or concepts within the existing scheme of work. Technology was harnessed to integrate design thinking skill sets, media literacy skills and engage parents in our IPW experience.

Integration enabled students to see the authenticity of daily lessons which led to positive attitude towards collaborative work, innovation, and creativity.

The learning objectives are:
1) Attitude: Students would develop positive attitude towards learning and be more engaged in learning.
2) Quality of work: Students would develop greater depth in research and embark on more innovative and creative solutions.
3) 21st Century Competencies: Students would apply critical thinking as they examine the multiple aspects of the problem faced. Students would explore possibilities and generate ideas to respond to an issue/challenge. Students would work in respectful manner with others in a group setting to meet a common goal.

Our education system is always forward-looking and has evolved over the years to meet the demands of the VUCA world. We believe that opportunities should be created for students to be exposed to 21st CC and digital literacy skills for them to be future-ready and IPW is a good platform for this.
One of the approaches in our school IPW framework is the design thinking model. Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation which is anchored in understanding needs during generation of ideas, as mentioned by Tim Brown, Chair of IDEO. This model consists of these 6 main processes which we think are important in developing problem solvers.

Another approach that we use is the creative problem-solving model. This model mentioned that designers could achieve greater insight on the users’ needs and problems as they clarify on the challenges and could at the same time be able to identify possible problems leading to the issue.
This model also allows designers to understand that criteria need to be set to choose the best fit solutions.

Generally, these 2 models are quite similar, but the creative problem-solving model allows designers to break down the design thinking stages further.
Design thinking model is chosen as it is aligned to one of the school values, Empathy. Creative problem-solving model is because of our school VMV, creating innovative & creative thinking individuals. This model involves divergent thinking, which is brainstorming, and this is the core to problem solving where people generate lots of ideas in a not organized manner. Followed by convergent thinking which helps us to set and apply criteria to select, evaluate and refine ideas.
Combining these 2 models, we have developed a progressive IPW framework from P1 to P6, with the introduction of new skills for each level.

Keywords:

Design Thinking, Inter-disciplinary Project Work.