Mmm - thinking out loud to get my head around this! Design Thinking - 21st century skills - NZ Inquiry models

Currently researching, reading, trying to synthesise information and make sense of it all for me so that I can add to our Literature Review on:

How can Design Thinking be used to enhance 21st Century Skills for New Zealand Primary Schools?

I am currently up to how are teachers engaging in Design Thinking and there is plenty of research of where it is happening overseas. Thank you to Philippa Nicoll Antipas - eodysseyblog your blog with your reflection, research and valuable information has been a godsend.

One of our sub-questions is:How are teachers engaging in Design Thinking to promote and incorporate 21st century skills?

Questions which keep coming up for me as I research are:

If Design Thinking is so fantastic why is it not being used more in NZ schools?

If Design Thinking naturally incorporates all the 21st century skills within the design process - why are we not using it instead of our Inquiry model, or problem based learning?

21st century skills -

I have read: Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching a NZ perspective - from this report which is now 4 years old, I get the impression that NZ educators are now referring to them as Future Focussed Education - with 6 emerging principles for 21st century education system:

• personalised learning
• new views of equity, diversity and inclusivity
• a curriculum that uses knowledge to develop learning capacity
• changing the scrip: rethinking learners' and teachers' roles
• a culture of continuous learning for teachers and educators leaders
• new kinds of partnerships and relationships:schools no longer siloed from the community

Narrowed down to a future vision: what could it look like?

• Diversity
• Connectedness
• Coherence

A question I am pondering is:

Do any of the following/existing models of inquiry eg: Spiral of Inquiry model; problem based learning; project based learning totally encourage and encompass totally the 21st century skills/themes, eg: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity?

• collaboration
• knowledge construction
• self-regulation
• real-world problem solving and innovation
• the use of ICT for learning
• skilled communication

Are these inquiry models getting deeper learning for us as educators and for our students?

Or would the Design thinking model be a better fit?

Thanks Philippa this explanation has helped me clarify some of my thinking - a bit.

"After thrashing around in the dark for a fair bit, I decided I needed to come back to first principles – those of the design thinking mindsets. What I realised/remembered was that empathy is key to design thinking – it’s actually what separates design thinking from other inquiry or problem-based learning models. Design thinking is user-centred design; it is a deeply human process." https://eodysseyblog.wordpress.com/

Interesting Design Thinking is incorporated in Core's Ten Trends 2016

Student voice - a 2 day redesign an aspect of learning at school

The video below is taken from iLearn blog where the focus was on student voice and was put together over a 3 day period where students were allowed time to think about and interact with others about how they learn and come up with some recommendations. 

I relate this back to our context where student leaders from our school are about to embark on a series of Youth Leadership workshop's with other student leaders and teachers from our school cluster to promote leadership and to also support and encourage student voice.

iLearn - A community of learners focused on revolutionalising learning

LASD Student Ed-Con 2013: Learning Rocked and Redesigned!

Literature Review How to

This video looks at what Literature Review is not but what it is. In short it is a snapshot of major research, on a narrowed down topic to share concepts, points or outcomes. It shows the relationships between the peer reviewed research. It needs to be put into a timeline where the just the major elements are extracted. The purpose is to:
1. improve understanding, build background knowledge
2. demonstrate this knowledge
3. update the reader, - analogy of when old friends meet, they update each other of events etc.

Published on Jun 28, 2010

Take the mystery out of this academic assignment with these simple formulas.

Published on Jun 28, 2010

Take the mystery out of this academic assignment with these simple formulas for writing your literature review.

Teaching as Inquiry

An example of inquiry project (but it's a complete quantitative research using pre-test and post-test)



According to Sharon Freisen Teaching as Inquiry is based on strong inquiry work to gain a deeper understanding for both students and teachers. It is a matter of teachers adding experience, added information, creating knowledge which leads to deeper understanding. Inquiry is knowledge, assessment, learners - teachers and students all at the center. The end product is awakening new questions.

Sharon Freisen talks about inquiry being a disposition cultivated during teaching and learning, rather than a process that “gets done” by students. She talks about successful inquiry leading to deep understanding, giving examples from her own experiences.


Graeme Aitken has made on teaching as inquiry

Teaching as Inquiry - Be Curious and creative!

Stay Curious: Technology in the classrooms

Published on Jan 29, 2014

Technology is advancing faster than we can comprehend. We have unlimited access to knowledge at our fingertips. This is the 21st century of education. We are the leaders of the future.

Curiosity fuels creativity

As Chris Wire says in this presentation is to not let google be the first step in answering questions. Rescript how we use technology, some of his key points were:

• don't let google be a reflex 
• don't be a passive consumer of information
• be an active creator
• ask questions, invite curiosity, wonder into daily routine
• think about how things could or should work first
• then go to google it
• we mustn't neglect the power of our minds

Published on Feb 22, 2014

Chris Wire is an innovator who has been infusing the world with creative ideas since 1993 as the "fearless leader" of Real Art, headquartered in Dayton. Under his leadership, the company has grown from a small design shop to a full-service digital/physical creative agency serving a growing roster of the world's top brands. Today, Real Art has three office locations plus a development lab, where the team experiments 

A little bit of fun - surviving and thriving

This was my assembly presentation that staff are required to share with the school to model ideas, what we think on inquiry theme, presentation ideas etc in Term 1.