Design thinking is a great thing to integrate into a classroom lesson, but if you don’t change the audience, the experience falls short. You can empathize with your classmates, sure. But it’s far more valuable to experience something new, empathize with strangers and hear stories you could have never imagined.
A real audience changes a learner’s posture. You don’t need to convince students to care when they own a project that will be presented to community leaders and business professionals.
The next frontier is the real audience. The next frontier means students are solving real world problems as part of their education. It makes it more real for everyone involved. The only thing left to complete that picture is deliberate reflection.
Real problems and audiences push students to try hard, but that doesn’t translate to learning unless someone is there to create the space for reflection.
Push for progress. Present to professionals. And create space for learning to emerge.