| dc.description.abstract | Abstract Before the mobile revolution, the father of educational technology Seymour Papert declared, “[T]he computer's true power as an educational medium lies…in the ability to facilitate and extend children's awesome natural ability and drive to construct, hypothesize, explore, experiment, evaluate, draw conclusions -- in short to learn -- all by themselves” (Papert, 1999). And yet today in the age of ubiquitous technology and mobile devices, kids (and adults) are buried in the infinite, mindless scrolling of the screen, both at home and at school (Turkle, 2011). In contrast to the increasingly distracted world we live in, the practice of design thinking has shown in both professional and educational arenas that practicing the skills designers use on the job can help students develop skills such as collaboration, empathy, creativity, and problemsolving (Soleas, 2015), as well as help teachers create effective, interdisciplinary curricula to meet the demands of the 21st century future-ready, tech-driven classroom (Design thinking for educators, 2011). The action research study outlined here explores the implementation of design thinking across digital and physical interactions among educators. Using qualitative methods of inquiry and data collection, the research gathered here illustrates, at least in a small corner of the educational sphere, that teachers and students alike are passionate to learn as Papert described, but they have also become weary of the technology overload (Cuban, 2015). This study investigates how using the action research methodology of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting led to several iterations of implementing the design process, each time learning more about educators’ perspectives on design and technology. The study concluded with a series of guiding principles and a recommendation for a framework to introduce educators to utilizing design thinking in the classroom. | |
