Design Thinking
Igniting Innovation Through Design Thinking
Master user empathy, brainstorming, and prototyping frameworks to guide students through real-world creative design challenges.
Workshop at a Glance
School teachers, coordinators and academic leaders
One day, 4.5 hours
Discussions, examples, reflection activities, collaborative Design Thinking challenge, prototyping and classroom application
No prior knowledge of innovation or Design Thinking is required
Everyday prototyping materials, worksheets and selected digital tools where appropriate
Firsthand experience of the complete Design Thinking process and a practical plan for creating an innovation opportunity in the classroom
About the Design Thinking Workshop
This workshop is part of Creya Learning's Maker in Teacher Workshop Series, a professional-development initiative that enables educators to experience learning as makers, designers and problem-solvers. By combining practical skills with Design Thinking, experimentation and reflection, the series helps teachers build the confidence to facilitate hands-on, inquiry-led learning in their classrooms.
The Design Thinking workshop brings this maker approach into everyday teaching by helping educators understand innovation as a mindset, not merely an invention, activity or use of technology. Through discussions, examples and an immersive Design Thinking challenge, teachers explore how curiosity, empathy, experimentation and reflection can turn familiar classroom or real-world problems into opportunities for meaningful change.
Participants experience the complete process of defining a user-centred problem, generating possibilities, creating a simple prototype, gathering feedback and improving the solution. By the end, they understand both why innovation matters and how Design Thinking provides a practical, repeatable process for enabling it across subjects and grade levels.
Experiential Learning Guarantee
Every participant builds, tests, improves and leaves with a classroom-ready artefact or working prototype, backed by a structured reflection model.
Core Learning Pillars
The fundamental pedagogical and technical skills educators develop during this session:
Innovation as a Mindset
Understand innovation as the process of creating meaningful improvement, not simply inventing something new or using advanced technology.
Curiosity and Opportunity Recognition
Notice unmet needs, question familiar routines and identify situations that could be improved.
Empathy and User Understanding
Examine a challenge from the user's perspective and distinguish genuine needs from assumptions.
Collaboration and Creative Confidence
Share ideas, listen to different perspectives, make team decisions and develop the confidence to experiment.
Classroom Application
Create opportunities for students to practise innovation through everyday lessons, projects, Maker Spaces, STEM activities and real-world challenges.
Teacher as Innovator and Facilitator
Experience the innovation process firsthand and learn how to guide student inquiry without prescribing the solution.
Understanding the Design Thinking Cycle
Frame a clear, user-centred challenge; generate multiple possibilities beyond the most obvious solution; turn an idea into a simple, testable prototype; gather feedback and refine the solution using evidence; and reflect on how the thinking can be applied to other contexts.
4.5-Hour Workshop Schedule
A carefully balanced cadence of inquiry, guided builds, team prototyping, and reflection:
Why Innovation Matters in Education
Explore why innovation is increasingly important for teachers and students. Examine how changing learner needs and real-world challenges require curiosity, adaptability, collaboration and creative problem-solving.
Understanding Innovation
Distinguish innovation from invention, creativity and technology. Explore how meaningful innovation begins with a need and creates value through purposeful improvement. Identify examples of innovation in everyday life and classroom practice.
Design Thinking: A Process for Innovation
Explore the five stages, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Evaluate and Reflect, with empathy and user understanding embedded within Define. Examine the purpose of each stage and the questions that guide the process.
Collaborative Design Thinking Challenge
Work in teams on a real-world challenge. Understand the user and context, identify the underlying need, frame a clear 'How might we?' question, generate multiple ideas, select a promising solution, build a simple prototype and gather feedback.
Evaluate, Improve and Share
Use feedback to identify what worked, what did not and what should change. Improve the prototype and present the user, need, proposed solution, testing evidence and key modifications.
From Workshop Experience to Classroom Practice
Translate the Design Thinking experience into classroom opportunities. Identify how an existing lesson, task, routine or project could provide greater scope for student choice, investigation, creation, testing and improvement. Record one practical classroom experiment to try.
Why Attend This Workshop?
Actionable outcomes and mindset shifts teachers take directly into their classrooms:
Understand what innovation really means
Move beyond the idea that innovation must involve a major invention or advanced technology.
Experience Design Thinking firsthand
Participate in the complete process instead of learning the stages only as theory.
Turn problems into opportunities
Learn how observation, empathy and questioning can reveal meaningful challenges.
Think beyond the first idea
Use structured ideation techniques to generate and compare multiple possibilities.
Make ideas tangible
Build simple prototypes that enable ideas to be discussed, experienced and tested.
Learn through feedback
Treat evaluation as an opportunity to learn and improve rather than as a final judgement.
Strengthen collaboration
Practise listening, idea-building, shared decision-making and constructive feedback.
Build creative confidence
Develop the willingness to experiment, learn from unsuccessful attempts and try again.
Apply Design Thinking across subjects
Use the process in Science, Mathematics, Social Studies, Languages, Arts, Entrepreneurship and interdisciplinary projects.
Create everyday innovation opportunities
Redesign familiar lessons and classroom routines to include more student inquiry, choice, creation and improvement.
Support student innovation
Gain the confidence to guide students without deciding the problem or solution for them.
Grow through the Maker in Teacher Series
Develop an innovation mindset and facilitation skills that complement the technology and making experiences offered through other workshops in the series.
Expected Impact
After the workshop, teachers will understand innovation as both a mindset and a purposeful practice. They will be able to explain and facilitate the stages of Design Thinking, frame user-centred challenges, support collaborative ideation, guide rapid prototyping and use feedback to encourage improvement.
By participating in the Design Thinking workshop, teachers gain more than a framework for occasional projects. They learn how to transform everyday lessons, tasks and classroom routines into opportunities for curiosity, empathy, experimentation and reflection. As part of the Maker in Teacher Workshop Series, the experience strengthens their capacity to create classrooms in which students confidently identify problems, explore possibilities, make their ideas visible and improve solutions through evidence and feedback.
Explore Other Workshops in the Series
What is Truly Integrative STEM
Beyond Semantics
Tackle hands-on integrated STEM challenges and map systems to design meaningful, interdisciplinary learning experiences for the classroom.
Generative AI
Harnessing the Power of AI Tools
Harness generative AI tools to craft differentiated lesson plans, rich assessments, and dynamic classroom learning resources.
Build with AI
Applications Using AI Tools
Build functional AI-powered educational apps and personalized tutoring tools using modern visual development platforms.
App Development for Higher Grades
Figma
Design interactive mobile app prototypes and wireframes in Figma, solving real problems through user-centered digital design.
Bring This Hands-On Experience to Your Educators
Empower your faculty with the mindset and tools to nurture real-world problem-solvers in your school.