Design Thinking in the IB: How Failure Fuels Innovation

As an International Baccalaureate (IB) school, faculty and staff at Glenlyon Norfolk School focus as much on helping students “learn how to learn” as we do on ensuring students have a firm grasp of curricular content.  

Our approach focuses on developing a toolkit of essential skills—communication, collaboration, organization, self-management, reflection, research, creative and critical thinking—in a concept known as Approaches to Learning Skills (ATLs). Introduced and taught during Units of Inquiry in all grades, ATLs consider diverse perspectives and create opportunities for taking meaningful action.  

What Exactly is Design Thinking?

Design thinking develops innovative solutions for real-world problems. It involves gaining perspectives, challenging assumptions, creative prototyping, testing and feedback. It’s a cyclical process that is particularly suited to addressing complex or ambiguous issues. The  International Baccalaureate Design Cycle consists of four stages: Inquiring and Analyzing, Developing Ideas, Creating Solutions, and Evaluating.

All GNS students have the opportunity to learn and practice using the Design Cycle, but MYP Design is a mandatory course for all students in Grades 6 to 10.  

It’s also important to fail. Failure is as important to this process as it is to navigating life. Too often, failure implies breakdown, defeat, misstep, or collapse, but at GNS it’s ‘the moment where learning happens.’ It is an instant where feedback occurs, and what one does with that feedback makes all the difference. Imagine a student testing an original scientific hypothesis, examining a theory, evaluating a product, running a simulation or observing the impact of their performance. These parts of the Design Cycle become exciting occasions for possibility.

At GNS, students are accustomed to anticipating results in Design Cycle stages of evaluation. Watching them eagerly look forward to the moment where failures may or may not occur, is one of the most wondrous aspects of teaching. It is literally the point in time right before the “Ah Ha!” or “Eureka!” moment. This preemptive build-up makes that feedback—when it comes—stick.

This problem-solving process is not just limited to the Design classroom. The image below below explains how Drama 8 applies similar principles to the Gallery of Fame project.  

In one of their units on geometry, Mathematics 8 teachers, Mr. Ollech, Mrs. Parks and Ms. Morris also employ the Design Cycle. Here students create and manipulate symbols that represent themselves and embody their personal values. The application of math concepts to graphics designed for a specific user is a prime example of this transferable process. 

At GNS, the Design Cycle is part of the fabric. The concept is even applied to our timetable. To make programming as effective as possible, exploring the use of our time even made it into our strategic plan, Momentum, as a goal. It has led to Gryphon Time for clubs and co-curriculars at the Junior School, more time for Design, Science and Language Acquisition courses in the Middle School, and adjustments to focused learning time in IB Diploma Programme Standard Level and Higher Level courses to better ensure we meet IB DP requirements and set our students up for continued academic success.

Perfectionism can stifle creativity. When faculty and staff understand the cycle of ideating, creating, testing, reflecting and refining, we model for our students that trying new things is invigorating, failure is an essential part of the process and the understanding that all feedback is a gift. As students practice and get used to going through this cycle of inquiry, they begin to understand that failure is simply a form of feedback; an important step in coming to a working solution, refining an idea or developing the next big iteration of a product. 

In entrepreneurial circles, the emphasis is often on being ‘first to market.’ Waiting until you get something absolutely perfect can be disadvantageous. You may get leapfrogged by a competitor, lose out on even incremental benefits, or miss an important window of opportunity in an industry. When GNS students begin to see learning as a continuous, life-long process, they understand that their ideas and products don’t always have to be perfect —only better than what currently exists— to provide value to a stakeholder. 

When you pair the Design Cycle with the IB Learner Profile Attribute of Risk-taking, students are well prepared for learning and life beyond grade school. Our students get comfortably creative pitching ideas and trying new things. Being empowered to take creative risks and avoid getting hung up on failures means they are at ease in an environment where regular cycles of inquiry come with purposeful evaluations, and challenges can be overcome. Inquiry becomes a lifelong habit—one that develops resilience, perseverance and the pursuit of joy.