Design Thinking Cards- Get Empathy Into the Classroom Quick & Easy

Empathy Warm Up

Empathy is a key piece to successful design thinking AND a desired skill for everyone, students, teachers and admin. To start off our intro to design thinking, ask participants to turn and talk to an elbow partner about an event that had gone awry. The listener then has to repeat the story back to the storyteller. This is a great warmup for design thinking and empathy, since it puts the listener into the shoes of the storyteller, when s/he repeats it back. Roles can then be switched so that each partner experiences both roles.

Mock Up Cards

A second activity for design thinking can use Mock Up cards. These decks are split into User, Constraint and Need, with each group tasked to brainstorm and create a solution for the User's Need. For example, Ancient Egyptians (User) need a way for children to play outside (Need) that is waterproof (Constraint).

Each group has a unique set of three cards, paper to brainstorm on, and aluminum foil for prototyping. Interested in trying it out in your classroom? 

Buy Mock Up Cards

Some Additional Resources

• My first grade lesson on empathy using Inside Out (side note the students were studying biomimicry so that played into the design of the lesson!)
• Breaker.org (I got to take a few people to this two day design thinking workshop and am excited to see how it is helping to shape some design thinking classes at the middle school level.)
• City X Project
• Stanfords D School in How to Kick of Crash Course in Design
• Design Thinking with Minecraft and Lego