Ingenuity, the design-thinking child

DESIGN-THINKING IS A KEY LEARNING SKILL SET when mixed with wonder

Ingenuity is the designer in us. It has a practical and visual mind. An avid student of techniques and frameworks, Ingenuity loves solving puzzles and mysteries.

Connecting ideas, combining frameworks learned using visual metaphors and projections, Ingenuity takes all knowledge available and puts it to the test. Building, connecting, zooming in and out, expanding and contracting, simplifying… Ingenuity uses many techniques to design creative solutions. This is one of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen, and a great example of how ingenuity works:

Ingenuity at work! It's a tough job.

Ingenuity is, indeed, the essence of design-thinking, but without an open mind and a strong heart, it can’t make effective and impactful changes. In teaching design-thinking, we should start with the pillars beneath it.

LEARNING PYRAMID FOR THE DESIGN-THINKING CHILD

Imagine Creativity as the combination of Ingenuity, Curiosity and Wonder, based on core values that allow the creative child to be emotionally prepared for creation.

Elements of Creativity - Learning Pyramid

Acting with honesty and no fear, Ingenuity has to be a good friend of failure.

The ingenious child knows that a good dose of mistakes and misconceptions are normally needed to find the way.

Practice and patience (play) are other core values of the ingenious mind.

Ingenuity needs the presence of the Fairy Curiosity to help the child reach eye-opening moments of learning. Curiosity comes with an open mind, while Ingenuity brings in the practical mind. Whereas Curiosity suggests the possible way(s), Ingenuity brings the design tools to manifest it.

This learning pyramid is not meant to be a perfect theory of how to develop a creative mind, but rather a visual note of the importance of building ingenuity (design-thinking skills) on top of creative experiences where kids can practice creative self-expression, exploration, curiosity, and other such skills and practices beyond the realm of design-thinking.

Want to see how we foster ingenuity in children? See what we have coming up here!