DTH Design Thinking &

Humanities

By Jennifer White & Kim Saxe

A Thesis Design Experiment– Students need to navigate the difficult

process of creating a thesis statement so

as to write a draft (prototype) of their

essay.

– Students need to design good thesis

statements quickly so as to avoid the

academic and psychological pressures of

a slow writing process.

What is a thesis statement?

A concise summary of an argument that has– Focus– Risk– Detail– Compelling significance

Pitfalls/potholes:– Too broad or vague– Too observational, summative– Too preachy

First prototype of a thesis builder and tester

Last prototype

User testing of last prototype

• Students tried this out first as a

brainstorming worksheet for a new

essay. Students filled out multiple

copies—one for each thesis idea.

• They also used it as a testing

worksheet on an old essay they

needed to revise for their portfolios.

Student Example: Vetting an Idea

Student Example: Testing A Finished Thesis

Hands-on Learning: Can you Reverse Engineer this Thesis?

Results

Student feedback

– Roughly 85% said it was useful

– Roughly 10 % = unsure

– Roughly 5 % percent said it was not useful

Teacher feedback

– 100% effective. All theses improved after using this tool.

Going forward

– New design that has them try multiple versions of a thesis

statement (larger center box)

– Digitize the tool

– Form a DTH student and teacher interest group at Nueva and

beyond to share ideas and prototypes. Email me at

jwhite@nuevaschool.org

Thoughts

My DT Touchstones are

Needs statements

Flare and focus (multiple times)

Iteration (multiple times)

Holding ideas loosely

Visual Thinking