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"Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Go Back and Forth. Get Reactions. Rinse and Repeat. There are many ways of looking at the design thinking process. The main premise remains the same though: Take Action and Create Something to Solve a Problem of Some Sort. Below, I describe the most commonly used and taught Design Thinking Process. However, it is not about what the names of the 5 spaces are. Rather, "doing" design thinking is about understanding what each space involves and that the process rarely occupies a single space. In fact, any project will have the designers focusing in one area, but working within the constraints of several spaces. For example, new ideas will occur everywhere along the way to the "permanent" solution, even in the testing stage. And, the process is cyclical - it never ends... There are always improvements to be made."

These are the elements of functional design, the process of responding to the needs or desires of the people who will use an item in a way that allows their needs or desires to be met. Functional design is both an outcome and a process. As an outcome, it describes products that work well to perform their assigned tasks; as a process, functional design is a set of practices guided by the principles that produce that positive outcome.

"User Generated Education Education as it should be - passion-based. Design Thinking Process and UDL Planning Tool for STEM, STEAM, Maker Education leave a comment » Post by Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D. @jackiegerstein and Barbara Bray @bbray27. Crossed posted at http://barbarabray.net/2017/06/08/design-thinking-process-and-udl-planning-tool/. If there is a makerspace in your school, it may be down the hall, in the library, or in another building. If there is someone other than the teacher managing the makerspace or there is a schedule for the school, your kids may only be able to use it once a week or month. Some makerspace activities may be focusing on how to use the resources available and may not be connecting the activities to the curriculum or around a real world problem. If this is how the makerspace is set up in your school, then your kids may not have access to the resources, materials, and tools when they need them, especially for STEM or STEAM. In deciding what resources you need based on the learners you have, you may first need to determine how your learners learn best, what projects you plan to do, how you can set up a makerspace in your classroom, and much more. This is why we decided to create a planning tool for makerspaces in the classroom for you using the Design Thinking Process and Universal Design for Learning®."

" Apple has long touted its device's assistive technology as a powerful tool for the educational development of physically and mentally disabled children. The iPad's touch screen makes it easier to manipulate than more traditional educational tools. For children with autism, "the iPad is not a toy, but a tool that works best when there is a 'team effort' between parents and therapists encouraging its proper use," said Marc Reisner, co-founder of Reach for the APPs. "Our goal is to provide schools with iPads so they can reach every child on the autistic spectrum." Reach for the APPs built their site with an initial donation from Managed Digital. Now, they're seeking out donations of money and/or iPads from both individuals and corporations to propel the program forward. According to reports from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1-in-88 children have some form of autism, up 78 percent from just a decade ago. The demand for augmentative communications devices is growing. But the schools can't meet the demand, so the children are losing valuable time during critical developmental years. Lois Brady, a speech language pathologist and assistive technology specialist, said apps can help develop fine-motor skills, which will in turn make functions like writing and manipulating small objects easier for the students. "I have spent years working with the most challenging students that are considered profoundly disabled," she said. "And I have seen some small miracles when I introduce the iPad into our therapy, as the children have made huge gains in attention, focus, communication, language and literacy skills." Some experts also say that the iPad can lessen symptoms of autistic disorders, helping children deal with life's sensory overload. Brady will be contributing content to the Reach for the APPs website to inform therapists about the latest-and-greatest apps for children all over the autistim spectrum. Apps must be tailor

"s a professional artist, deepening the ways in which seemingly disparate objects and processes are interconnected through locating, and mapping their intersections has been one of the main elements of my studio practice. The Fab Lab tools and working processes create an environment that is well suited to investigating those types of intersections. In an effort to integrate Fab Lab tools centered on craft, and studio-based processes into the classroom, I have been working to implement a Mobile MakerCart at a project-based K-8 charter school. In addition to introducing craft-based physical computing projects to the children, a guiding principle behind the MakerCart is to give teachers the opportunity to develop familiarity with the MakerCart's tools and processes in order to be able to envision the ways in which they might be able to develop their own curriculum for use in the classroom."

"I have been slowly working through a number of different tools and processes to nail down a productivity workflow on my iPad that would actually make me more productive, organized and wouldn't add any additional steps.  I think I have finally found the solution and it is working perfectly.  To make the process even more worthwhile, the entire workflow process transfers and syncs seamlessly with my MacBook which is a basic requirement of any workflow process."

"I will be sharing about our Pinball Machine Mayhem that is happening in our Technology and Innovation class. We started with a brainstorming session on the process this week. We began with the Project Idea phase: This is where we explained that they would be making pinball machines. How they made them or what they used is completely up to them during this process. Next we moved into the Prototype Design students during this phase was given a blank piece of paper about the size of the actual pinball machines that they will make. The goal here was for them to start to apply the different pieces of their pinball machines to this document. What was incredible about this whole process was before we released the students to go work we asked them what subjects do they think will be covered throughout this process. Right away hands went up and students started sharing. Math - Area, Perimeter, Height, Length, Pythagorean Theorem to find the slope of their machine. ELA - Research, Creating a story for their pinball machine Social Studies - History of the pinball machine, Research on different pinball machines Science - Volume, Friction, Gravity, Art - Theme of their board, Creative look of their pinball machine. Tech Ed - Lights, sensors, buzzers Makerspace - Students talked about using little bits, robotic kits, makey makey board, along with legos and Knex's"

"Transformative pedagogies, encourage students to be an equal and active participant in their learning. They are not limited to being passive listeners or mere receivers of information, with instructions on how to process the same. Students are expected to consciously understand their learning, the thought processes intertwined with it, while questioning, exploring, and discovering new realms of learning. This thought process that delves into the concept of thinking, is called Metacognition. Termed by the American Psychologist John H. Flavell, in 1979, it's a combination of two words that best describe its meaning; meta - beyond and cognition - thinking. Going by this conceptualization, simply put, metacognition implies beyond thinking, or thinking about the thinking process."

"In this post, I would like to review a thinking processes that can be applied across the curriculum providing a process for authentic understanding of standards. The cognitive process I am referring to is Computational Thinking (CT). This type of thinking is important not just in high stake testing, but also success in that world after school. Perhaps you have come across the idea of computational thinking in education. The best way to describe computational thinking is to look at the way a computer thinks… or at least runs a program. This is actually the most important concept a student learns through coding and developing computer programs. We must keep in mind that it is not the coding that is important… but the thinking process. After all… one can use a computer, but not actually use computational thinking skills. "

A common challenge for students and teachers is how to develop a great idea for a piece of writing. Too often students struggle with the process of finding inspiration for their writing. They have a vague idea for the story they hope to tell, but all too quickly it transforms into a list of events with little or no detail. The goal here is to provide our students with a process to use during the planning process. The hope is that by identifying the type of thinking required during the early phases of ideation and to focus their attention on details, that the stories our students subsequently compose will be more enjoyable to read. Hopefully, this process helps.

"While John Spencer and I were developing the LAUNCH Cycle, we came up with a few areas that were likely stumbling blocks in the creative (design-thinking inspired) process. One of the keys to the Launch Cycle is taking the time to Look, Listen, and Learn throughout the entire process (that is the L in the LAUNCH acronym). In talking with George Couros about the Launch Cycle we had a good conversation about when it was appropriate to share that learning. The quick answer: all the time. From start to finish you can be learning and sharing during the process. Whether it is students doing a Genius Hour Project, teachers creating their own PD, or school leaders implementing an initiative - the key is to be transparent with that learning process."

"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

"The question of what creativity is and how it works will perhaps remain humanity's most unanswerable - but that hasn't stopped us from trying. On the heels of Neil Gaiman's recent reflection on the subject comes one from filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, founder of the Webby Awards and daughter of the great Leonard Shlain of Art & Physics fame. In this short installment from AOL's The Future Starts Here series, Shlain offers ten steps to the creative process based on her own experience in film and art, expanding, perhaps inadvertently, on Graham Wallace's famous 1926 model of the four stages of the creative process and incorporating other notable theories of yore, like John Dewey's emphasis on hunches and T.S. Eliot's insistence on idea-incubation."

"The Manitoba government says it will review the application process and funding formula for students with special needs, following concerns raised by parents and the province's largest school division that funding was being cut this year. In a statement issued late Tuesday, Education and Advanced Learning Minister Peter Bjornson said there will be a review of the special needs application funding process."

"Stewart Middle Magnet is a STEM magnet school, and part of our curriculum comes from Project Lead the Way, including classes in engineering, robotics and aerospace.  The Design Process is an important part of that curriculum.  It also ties in beautifully with what we do in our makerspace.  So it made sense for me to partner up with one of our Project Lead the Way classes to teach our students about the basics of the design process.  While this was a lesson with a specific class, it could easily work with small groups, after-school clubs, or any group that you bring into your makerspace."

"Digital environments mediate the navigation, length, and complexity of texts, requiring composers to adapt to audience, tone, and purpose in ways that previous generations were never required. Digital environments have disrupted the writing process as we once knew it due to an interwoven combination of traditional narrative sequencing, hyperlinks to other digital sources, infusions of multimedia texts like videos and podcasts, and interactive response fields. A new Digital Writing Process SOARS!"

"When you can get students talking and teaching each other, adding movement or gestures into the process, the students learn and retain more. Whether you call this process "Brain-Based Learning" or "Whole-Brain Learning," the concept is the same. The goal of brain-based learning is to "engage your learners and do it with strategies that are based on real science" (Jensen). Their learning increases because they are engaging more parts of their brain during the teaching process."

"Design thinking is an approach to learning that includes considering real-world problems, research, analysis, conceiving original ideas, lots of experimentation, and sometimes building things by hand. The projects teach students how to make a stable product, use tools, think about the needs of another, solve challenges, overcome setbacks and stay motivated on a long-term problem. The projects also teach students to build on the ideas of others, vet sources, generate questions, deeply analyze topics, and think creatively and analytically. Many of those same qualities are goals of the Common Core State Standards. (What Does 'Design Thinking' Look Like in School?) I use the following activities to introduce elementary students to the design thinking process. The ultimate goal is for the learners to work on their own, self-selected problems in which they will apply the design thinking. Introducing the general design process to elementary student occurs through showing the following video about the engineering process:"

"Individual Education Programs (IEP) can be difficult to put in place at the best of times. IEP's are sometime a source of concern and frustration. The more informed people are about the IEP process the better the IEP can be. Parents will normally work with teachers to develop a plan to help the students succeed in school. The IEP assists this process by describing the goals the whole team sets for a student during the school year, as well as any special support needed to help achieve them. Here are a number of apps that make managing and collecting data for the IEP Process just that little bit easier."

"You ask any teacher about the skills they want their students to develop and critical thinking will be among the first cited skills. So what is critical thinking all about ? Critical thinking is a cognitive process that requires disruptive patterns of thinking, ones that question the status quo of propositions and leads to the creation of alternative lines of reasoning. Defining critical thinking as a process signifies by implication the presence of different elements, stages, steps you name it that constitute and shapes its core. These elements are what I want to share with you today."