The Independent Day School of Middlefield sponsored and hosted the first annual New England Design Symposium (NEDS) this past Saturday, March 10, 2012. Operating around the theme of "Landscape", three teams of middle schoolers in fifth through eighth grades each presented a problem at their school: an inadequate parking lot, a playground in need of an update, and a hallway about to become a high school. The teams then tried solving each others' problems, using the methods of Design Thinking. A panel of accredited designers and architects judged the final presentations, and presented a plaque to the Renzulli Academy of Hartford, a magnet school for gifted students, for the top honors.
The Independent Day School resolved to launch a design competition after IDS head, John Barrengos, visited the iLab at the Nueva School in Hillsborough, CA, and the Stanford Institute of Design usually called “the d.school.” In both schools, one for kids and one for adults, he saw that students who tackled real-world problems learned more, and learned faster, than students who just read books. Their knowledge was more immediately useful, and could be more broadly applied. IDS launched their design thinking program, based in part on the Nueva School model, last spring. This year, they furthered the project by hosting a competition in design for middle schoolers. As Barrengos said, “It’s not enough to have great ideas. You also have to be able to show them to people, and then present them beautifully and persuasively. That’s what this competition is about.”
Design Thinking, a term coined by celebrated American designer Tom Kelley of IDEO, uses the non-linear and hands-on modeling process of designers to learn and master critical thinking skills. Through an iterative process of discovery, creation, feedback, and optimism designers learn quickly from mistakes and move their projects forward rapidly. When this process is taught to children as a method of problem-solving, students make rapid progress in applying their existing knowledge to new ideas, thinking critically, and working with others to meet challenges.
The New England Design Symposium, led by the director of the design program at IDS, Andrew Watt, is planning a second and third competition for the 2012-13 school year. Interested schools and student organizations should contact him at watta@independentdayschool.org