What is design thinking?
Quick answer
Design thinking is a structured way to solve problems for real people: understand them, define the problem sharply, generate options, build a rough prototype and test it with users.
Every NASCA project starts with a user, not a device, and ends with feedback from that user.
In context
The discipline is in the first two steps. Students who rush to build usually solve a problem nobody had.
Prototyping cheaply and testing early is what keeps a project honest, and it is a habit that transfers well beyond technology.
In a NASCA classroom
Every NASCA project starts with a user, not a device, and ends with feedback from that user.
Related terms
Project-based learning
Project-based learning organises teaching around an extended, real task that students complete and present, with content taught at the point it is needed.
STEAM education
STEAM education teaches science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics as one connected practice, usually through projects where students design, build and test something real.
Computational thinking
Computational thinking is a problem-solving approach built on four moves: break a problem down, spot the patterns, ignore what does not matter, and write a repeatable procedure.