Designed to Learn: Using Design Thinking to Bring Purpose and Passion to the Classroom

by Lindsay Portnoy

Students become attentive, curious, and passionate about learning when they can see its relevance to their lives and when they're empowered to use that learning to solve problems that matter. Regardless of the subject or grade level you teach, you can infuse your instruction with the meaning students crave by implementing design thinking. Design thinking prompts students to "I've learned it. Now what am I going to do with it?"
In Designed to Learn, cognitive scientist and educator Lindsay Portnoy shares the amazing teaching and learning that take place in design thinking classrooms. To set the stage, she provides easy-to-implement strategies, classroom examples, and clear tools to scaffold the processes of inquiry, discovery, design, and reflection. Because formative assessment is crucial to the process, Portnoy includes sample assessments that measure student learning and ensure that learners take the lead in their own learning.
As the author guides you through the five elements of design thinking (understand and empathize, identify and research, communicate to ideate, prototype and test, and iterate and reflect), you'll learn how to support students as they


- Use the content you teach to solve a problem in their community or in the world around them.

- Isolate a concern for their designed solution to address.

- Communicate ideas and provide valid reasoning for potential solutions.

- Prototype a solution and test it.

- Revise their design for maximum impact and reflect on the process.
Equipped with the strategies and supports in Designed to Learn, teachers will be able to ensure that learning in their classrooms is visible, student-centered, and measurable—by design.

Genres: Teaching, Education, Nonfiction

234 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 19, 2019

About the author

Inspired by the science of learning, Dr. Lindsay Portnoy draws from her work as a classroom teacher and university professor to level up learning by inviting purpose and passion to the classroom.

Portnoy lives in New York with her two sons, husband, and a rotating zoo currently consisting of three cats, two dogs, and whatever stray critters come out of the woods.

She currently serves as Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern University.

Reviews

[Kevin McKenna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I wasn’t the target audience, but I felt that this book lacked practical application. There were a couple of good ideas here and there, but it was just way too fluffy.

[Amy Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Portnoy provides a flexible and dynamic process for educators to tap into - activating engagement and inspiring authentic learning. Welcome to the next level of teaching and learning!

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 at best, but I'm going to round up on this one. I think it's a book I might end up reading again, and one I would recommend to teachers. Overall, it's a pretty good book for educators. It's smart, and can help a teacher understand how design thinking can form the framework for his or her teaching. It's a bit of a dense read, and the pace is plodding even though it's short; there are a lot of charts and the book just feels slow.

The book is organized into the steps of the design process, and links each of these steps to ideas and techniques that teachers will find familiar and comfortable. Portnoy consistently links the idea of design thinking to other goals to which teachers can relate, like formative assessment and SEL. In this way, it's slotted to fill a gap in thinking about *designing* an approach to teaching. Rather than just giving you cheap 'techniques,' DTL is really trying to get you think about how and why you do what you do in the classroom. This approach could be really meaningful to a lot of teachers. Particularly, for many, this approach will intuitively make sense with what they already do, and get them to think about their classes in a new context.

I guess my biggest complaint about this book is something that's become symptomatic in education writing - the shotgun approach of splattering references to many different teachers, grades, classrooms, and subjects in order to demonstrate how 'my book addresses everything!' It feels shallow, and at times I felt like the examples skipped over exactly what the book is meant to explain: the process! We go from 'teacher so and so explored his kids' interests' and then ended up 'with a full-blown unit on avionics,' or some such stuff. I'd much, much rather a focus on how one or two teachers used the process, and how they might take a traditional lesson and transform it into something more design-oriented. How did those teachers get there? What did they have to change, and how did they change it?

Showing only the successful results of teachers with really ambitious projects is a bit like taking somebody to a highway overlook, waving your hands at them, and saying, "that's how you drive."

[Kathy Dyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Portnoy’s Designed to Learn is a good read. It makes solid and easy to follow connections between design thinking and student-directed learning. Her plans are solid, and the guiding questions are great. Each chapter – each aspect of the design process is set up the same way and includes topics like learning with purpose, checking for understanding (teacher questions plus self- and peer assessment examples), building a foundation, and notes from the field.

It was interesting to make the connections to what I’d done in my classroom over 15 years ago and find it was design thinking.

[Rachelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Designed to Learn... pushing the boundaries in STEM curriculum by encouraging students to create their unique classroom experience and innovate in ways that help them establish better understanding and knowledge of concepts like robotics, coding, and circuits. Effective strategies of learning and suggested conversation starters with students are included for teachers.

[Melinda M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Designed to Learn: Using Design Thinking to Bring Purpose and Passion to the Classroom by Lindsay Portnoy. Lindsay Portnoy suggests easy to follow and to use plans. The sample assessments show how the students learn. This contents helpful information whether homeschooling or teaching in a traditional setting.

[Majesta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great resource for educators and parents alike. Dr. Portnoy gives both personal and cited examples on how to engage students while allowing them to be creative in practicing what they've been taught. The end pages contain a study guide to help the reader soak in and remind what each chapter discussed as well.