Future Designers: A Design Thinking Crash-Course for Children

‘Future Designers’ is an interactive and participative crash course that aims to introduce to children the concepts and practice of ‘creativity’, ‘design’, and ‘design thinking’. The course targets multiple learning styles and intelligences, combining various learning approaches and tools. The full course lasts 4-5 hours and can be delivered in a single or two sessions. Up to now, five pilot studies of the course have been conducted over one year period with the objective of assessing the feasibility of the course and the attendees’ satisfaction, as well as obtaining feedback. The outcomes stemming from all pilots are very promising and indicate that ‘Future Designers’ is an engaging and fun experience for people of diverse ages, which can fruitfully engage children (but also adults) in creative activities, and can generate interesting design ideas. Author