How Can Kids Benefit from Learning Design Thinking?

When you send your child to school you know they’re learning their ABC’s and the basic curriculum of subjects. But, what else should they be learning to become well-rounded adults who can contribute to society? One of the things that parents should be looking at is Design Thinking.

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is a process that many companies and organizations use, but one that can also benefit kids. It encourages people to focus on those who they’re creating for. What can they use? How can their lives be made better?

This leads to people creating useful things that can change the world. Design thinking is a process used for creative problem-solving.

While there may be variants to design thinking, they all encompass the same principles that were first described by Nobel Prize Laureate Herbert Simon in 1969. These are:

Empathize – You must understand the needs of the people you’re designing for.

Define – Know your user’s needs, their problems, and your ideas on how to solve them.

Ideate – Challenge the current ways to solve the problem and create new and better ways to solve it.

Prototype – Start creating solutions.

Test – Test your solutions to see if they truly work.

While all of those principles exist, they don’t have to go in order all of the time. That’s the interesting part of designing new things…you can do it whichever way you want!

The Importance of Design Thinking for Kids

Design Thinking is an important area for kids to learn because it helps them to use their imagination and think out of the box. In your typical school setting kids are told that there is one correct way of doing things and that if they don’t do it that way, they’re wrong.

With Design Thinking kids can be creative in solving problems. Design Thinking not only teaches them different ways to solve problems but also teaches them to be resilient when things don’t work out the first time. They know they have to keep trying if they want to be successful. This is a crucial life skill they need as they get older.

Design Thinking also teaches kids the value of working with others and getting feedback on their ideas. Working with others is a life skill that kids need to survive. While they may get a taste of this in the classroom, they need to be exposed to it more for it to stick.

At MakerKids, children learn the importance of Design Thinking and how to be creative and think out-of-the-box to solve problems. They learn how to make their ideas become a reality. Through coding, robotics, and Minecraft programs and camps, they learn how to work with other kids and bounce ideas off of one another. To learn more about the programs MakerKids offers, call us at 1-844-MAKERKIDS or visit us online.