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Understanding the Phases
The first two phases of design thinking involve understanding the problem
or challenge and understanding the user. Design thinking redefines problems as
challenges rather than seeing every issue as a problem. Design thinking differs from
traditional problem-solving because the process starts with “What if?” rather than
“What’s wrong?”
One common way to frame design challenges is by asking “How might we”
questions that help define the issue. These questions should be broad enough to Dr. Amie Cieminski
allow for possibilities and narrow enough to focus on the issue at hand. Educators is currently an
can use the design-thinking process for numerous challenges, including associate professor
in educational
• How might we incorporate new technology into our courses? leadership at the
• How might we build strong student-student relationships in an online course? University of Northern
• How might we be more student-centered in our approach to student advising? Colorado. She has
• How might we support new faculty, especially faculty of color? been a Spanish
• How might we retain the most talented teachers in our school? teacher, elementary
• How might we reimagine our teacher workroom to encourage collaboration? principal, and director
of professional
• How might we engage students in solving issues within our community? learning in addition
• How might we engage parents from diverse backgrounds in our school? to holding other
• How might we rethink our traditional projects to get better results? leadership positions
A key to designing solutions with potential is understanding the users. Users are within K–12 education.
the people who will benefit from the innovation, such as students, teachers, parents, She is passionate
clients, group members, or community members. There are many ways to understand about educator
and leadership
the users and their needs. Activities in the empathize phase include reading first-hand development. A
narratives, conducting focus groups, asking experts, visiting analogous settings, member and current
conducting empathy interviews, and observing the users. For example, designers president of Delta
might interview children before designing new playground equipment or observe Chapter in Colorado
hotel guests registering and checking in before redesigning the registration process State Organization,
at a high school. One powerful approach is the empathy interview. Designers listen to she initiated a
chapter project
the users to gain a deep understanding of their needs, wishes, feelings, motivations, to support early-
and desires while putting their own assumptions aside. In empathy interviews, career educators in
designers explore issues through open-ended questions about users’ best and worst a local elementary
experiences, asking them to explain more. school. Cieminski
Once designers better understand their users and their challenge, they are ready is an optimist and
to generate solutions through ideation. Ideation is usually a fast-paced part of the a maximizer who
is always looking
process. Designers use techniques such as brainstorming, mind mapping, sketching, for ways to make
and storyboarding so that the team members can generate ideas quickly, build on teaching and learning
each other’s ideas, and refine ideas. Team members share multiple and diverse more effective.
perspectives that create synergy and unique solutions. Nobel Prize Chemist Linus
Pauling stated, “The best way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the amie.cieminski@
gmail.com
bad ones away” (Pauling, n.d.). This principle can guide a team as they encourage
wild ideas, go for quantity of ideas over quality, and think, “Yes, and” rather than
“No, but.”
In prototyping, designers hone in on a few solutions that they want to explore
more thoroughly and flesh out. They may combine several of the ideas from the
ideate phase. Designers do not worry about getting all the details correct in rapid
prototyping. They make their ideas tangible by creating simple mock-ups and models
from craft supplies, role-playing, or writing out their ideas in more detail. They often
share their emerging solutions with other designers and users to get feedback before
finalizing their plans.

Changing Perspectives on Teaching and Learning 7