Design Thinking for Students

John Spencer’s (2016) LAUNCH Cycle is a great framework, centered in design thinking, for  guiding both teachers and students to take an idea and seeing it through to a final product in a classroom. His LAUNCH Cycle is not formulaic and does not require teachers to teach one step before another. Instead, it is a cyclical process that makes “creativity an authentic experience” in classrooms (Spencer, 2016, p. 24).  Design thinking in a classroom is more than implementing STEM or a new technology; “it’s more a way of solving problems that encourages positive risk-taking and creativity (Spencer, 2016, p. 52).  The key to creative collaboration is to understand that we are all makers and innovators and inventors and entrepreneurs.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.