Designed to Learn: Using Design Thinking to Bring Purpose and Passion to the Classroom

Students become attentive, curious, and passionate about learning when they can see its relevance to their lives and when they're empowered to use that learning to solve problems that matter. Regardless of the subject or grade level you teach, you can infuse your instruction with the meaning students crave by implementing design thinking. Design thinking prompts students to consider: "I've learned it. Now what am I going to do with it?"

In Designed to Learn, cognitive scientist and educator Lindsay Portnoy shares the amazing teaching and learning that take place in design thinking classrooms. To set the stage, she provides easy-to-implement strategies, classroom examples, and clear tools to scaffold the processes of inquiry, discovery, design, and reflection. Because formative assessment is crucial to the process, Portnoy includes sample assessments that measure student learning and ensure that learners take the lead in their own learning.

As the author guides you through the five elements of design thinking (understand and empathize, identify and research, communicate to ideate, prototype and test, and iterate and reflect), you'll learn how to support students as they

- Use the content you teach to solve a problem in their community or in the world around them.
- Isolate a concern for their designed solution to address.
- Communicate ideas and provide valid reasoning for potential solutions.
- Prototype a solution and test it.
- Revise their design for maximum impact and reflect on the process.

Equipped with the strategies and supports in Designed to Learn, teachers will be able to ensure that learning in their classrooms is visible, student-centered, and measurable—by design.

Lindsay Portnoy, PhD, is a cognitive scientist working to translate research-based practices in teaching and learning to improve curriculum, assessment, and the intentional integration of emerging practices and tools. A former public school teacher, Portnoy is a faculty member at Northeastern University's Graduate School of Education and is cofounder and chief learning officer at Killer Snails.