On Friday afternoon a panel comes together to discuss ideas for turning schooling into a transformative and long-lasting learning experience. Those on stage are Evan Wang, Youth MBA China, Christiane Bauer, SAP Young Thinkers and Wilhelm Schaffitzel, Hohenloher Spezialmöbelwerk Schaffitzel. Elias Barrasch, Education Innovation Lab - Universität der Künste Berlin takes on moderating duties.

Getting students thinking outside the box to create game changers and innovators in the classroom

Elias Barrasch opens the discussion by talking about his own experience trying to integrate Design Thinking into the Universität der Künste. He says despite these efforts “It’s still not a Design Thinking school,” acknowledging that “schools are difficult systems”. Elias Barrasch then invites Wilhelm Schaffitzel to elaborate on his own experiences.

Wilhelm Schaffitzel first examines the question: Do we still need schools? He says yes – for the foreseeable future. He bases this on evidence that “learning needs personal interaction and relationships” and school acts as a safe organized environment for children to develop their personalities and learn to collaborate. He promotes the use of Design Thinking in schools to avoid a “one method fits all” mindset and suggests “collaboration might be one of the most powerful resources for the future”. Wilhelm Schaffitzel highlights the strong work in this area of the WeQ initiative promoted by fellow d.confestival speaker Peter Spiegel.

Wilhelm Schaffitzel says a major challenge facing schools is getting teachers to adopt Design Thinking methods. Thus, his professional focus is finding how to train teachers in a way that motivates them to move beyond traditional teaching methods.

The next speaker is Christiane Bauer, who explores the benefits of learning with a purpose in mind. She explains how the SAP Young Thinkers Network encourages learning in age-diverse teams, much like a family, with fun and purpose. She assures the audience that people can be young thinkers at any age. Christiane Bauer believes “The fast-changing environment in the digital age requires new ways of thinking, learning, and working together” but says unfortunately “the way we learn in schools is lagging behind”. Christiane Bauer is sure Design Thinking can help close this gap. She adds it is important to learn with real life challenges in spaces outside of school.

Christiane Bauer continues by saying what will be important tomorrow is understanding the difference between the logical and emotional brain. She believes we must move from fact-based learning to include more empathy, intuition and creativity, embodied in how WeQ is pushing away from the IQ focus.

“It’s not about one person being the best, it’s about achieving as a team the best possible result,”

says Christiane Bauer. This, she suggests, can be promoted by learning alongside peers on real-life challenges.

Evan Wang explores teaching methods that allow students to be creative and not afraid of making mistakes. He says he became a Design Thinking proponent after meeting pioneer David Kelley and now works to promote the Design Thinking method in workshops for school children, employing hands-on, in-conversation and sight-based learning. Evan Wang say this allows both extroverts and introverts to use their strengths. He explains that he now runs Design Thinking workshops in China and Germany but has also created an online workshop for kids in rural China.

Evan Wang highlights the three pillars of his workshops: good mentors, personalized study and social engagement. He says these ideas, familiar to anyone acquainted with Design Thinking, are now being brought to schools. Finally, Evan Wang mentions how social media has played a role in allowing his company to spread these ideas to their followers.

To round out the discussion, Elias Barrasch asks the panelists to repeat their main points. Wilhelm Schaffitzel says we need to find the right way to address teachers with Design Thinking methods. Christiane Bauer says the current schooling system is not preparing youth for the future and solutions are needed. Evan Wang emphasizes the question of how to bring the benefits of Design Thinking to more kids.