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that schooling and assessment are implemented into new
is all about learners memo- contexts, and then organised
rising facts and regurgi- and scrutinised. It could
tating them as the sole be argued that this is the
determiner of their dream – empowering
abilities. This 20% students to start with
is also in line with easily accessible facts
contemporary ac- and then process
knowledgement of them in a way that
the role of technol- helps them make
ogy in knowledge sense of the ever-
acquisition. In to- changing and
day’s world, knowl- expanding nature
edge (and facts) can of their current and
be accessed through future micro- and
the swipe of a screen, macro-environments.
and fact delivery, The question that can
memorisation and re- be asked, however, is
tention can no longer be how to facilitate this leap.
prioritised in classrooms, It is commonly assumed that
because, quite frankly, they are the new generation of school-
also not prioritised in the world of going young minds are digital
work either. natives and are adept at sourcing
There is, however, in the culture of the information and then applying it. This,
Design Thinking classroom, a defined currently engaged however, is a false assumption. Without
and important place for recognising, in. By developing background knowledge the types of skills needed to conduct any
interpreting, and comparing information, and gathering inspiration, they can use sort of sophisticated quest for primary
and the first and second level of Bloom’s their developing understandings as a information, the learners in these
align with the first phase of the Design springboard into the next phase of skills classrooms often lack the ability or the
Thinking process. development. confidence or the motivation to realise
During this phase, students look, listen, Level 3 (application) and 4 (analysis) that any knowledge that they require, is
and learn. The goal here is awareness. It of the Bloom’s Taxonomy focus on the at their fingertips. They do not necessarily
might be a sense of wonder at a process ensuing stage of cognitive processing. It is know how to seek requisite information,
or an awareness of a problem or a sense proposed that 40% of teaching, learning, or what to do with it once they have
of empathy toward an audience. They can and assessing occurs at these levels, and found it. Perhaps this is due, in part, to
conduct research into existing examples it is within this phase that knowledge and a tradition of education, where learners
of the type of knowledge that they are facts, once remembered and understood, and parents have grown too used to the
delivery of facts and knowledge through
a neatly packaged collection of lessons,
textbooks and notes. And thus, learners,
who are used to being receivers of
information, do not even know where to
begin sourcing, processing, and applying
what should be a growing understanding
of the world.
Here again, the Design Thinking
process leaps to the rescue. Within the
next corresponding phase of this process,
interpretation, and analysis step forward.
Here, learners ask questions, exhibit
persistence, and develop a growth mindset
that seeks answers. By defining a point of
Explain ideas or concepts view, and analysing what problems need
Classify, describe, discuss, explain, identity, locate, recognise, report, select, translate to be solved, early suggestions can then be
made using the first phase research that
was conducted. The advantage of viewing
Recall facts and basic concepts
define, duplicate, list, memorise, repeat, state this as a process is that the presumptions

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