Monday, May 05, 2014

How Design Thinking Can Empower Young People

"When you think about applying and teaching design thinking to really anyone, and especially kids, it's again kind of getting to the heart of empowerment in my mind. And giving them tools and processes internally that they can use to impact the world around them. And instead of running into a wall and deciding that they can't go any further, because they don't have that brainstorming tool, or that problem solving tool, they can think of different ways that they can move past that hurdle, move past that obstacle, and kind of get on to the next thing in their life."
Minneapolis-based People Serving People is a non-profit whose mission is to provide services to assist families experiencing homelessness in becoming self-sufficient and reconnected with their community. People Serving People established a D3 Lab (Dream It, Design It, Do It) in 2012 for teens. The D3 Lab challenges young people to be problem solvers, innovators, risk-takers, and makers as they develop projects that are meaningful to them. Very interesting.
"You need to challenge students because they'll rise to the occasion. They'll rise to the challenge you set forth. And by putting students in the context of a business environment, or real world, you are requiring them to rise to the challenge and you're setting a high expectation of how they're going to perform, how they're going to behave. The output that they're going to produce."
-- from Edutopia



No comments: