9 Making Connections: Potential for Teaching Design/Design Thinking in a Classroom

 

1. In my digital stewardship I created two 2d graphic design lessons, one for middle school students and then other for grad school students. These lessons could be adapted for various age groups. In the middle school lesson plan, Invisible Ideas: Abstract Shape Design, students would explore how works of art can communicate ideas that cannot be directly seen (such as emotions, movement, energy etc.) through abstract visual elements. Using the online design platform Canva, students would create a digital composition using shapes, color, and arrangement to express an idea or feeling. In the grad school lesson plan, Designing Identity: Personal Logo Creation, students would create a personal logo representing themselves as artists and educators. 

2. I believe that the elements and principles of art and design can be woven into the classroom organically, rather than taught through isolated lessons that ask students to explicitly demonstrate them. Instead, these concepts can emerge naturally through the making process and later be identified within students’ work. In this way, the elements and principles become integrated vocabulary that students use in discussion and critique, rather than rigid concepts applied on demand.

3. I looked more into design thinking after our last class and realized my previous understanding of design was fairly narrow, mostly centered on graphic design. Google Gemini defines design thinking as “a human-centered, iterative, and non-linear process aimed at solving complex problems through empathy, experimentation, and testing” (“design thinking definition”).

The video we watched highlighted that teachers already engage in this process in student-centered classrooms by constantly adapting to meet students’ needs. In the art classroom, this could translate into a lesson where students identify a problem with a common object and design a prototype to improve it—for example, redesigning a backpack for comfort or a chair for better support. This encourages creativity, empathy, and problem-solving while applying design skills.

Reference

                   "design thinking definition" prompt. Gemini, March 28 version, Google, 28 Mar. 2024,                      gemini.google.com.