Teacher teams will collaborate on interdisciplinary lesson plans, win prizes
Updated: July 31, 2025
The Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association and Design Thinking Hawai’i are launching the Design Thinking Laboratory to empower teachers to incorporate design thinking into their classrooms and develop interdisciplinary lesson plans or units for students to implement.
Design Thinking focuses on the needs of the user using a common framework. It teaches participants how to design a project that understands user needs, brainstorm solutions, and test those solutions to create a final product. It is a human- or problem-based approach to teaching critical thinking and innovation.
Design Thinking seeks to transform Hawaiʻi by introducing innovative, entrepreneurial mindsets and technologies to both teachers and students. The goal is to equip them with the skills needed to face the challenges of an uncertain future. The laboratory brings together teachers who are or want to be practitioners of human-centered design (or design thinking) to collaboratively generate, explore, and create interdisciplinary lesson plans or units designed for classroom use.
In-person course held at HSTA headquarters Oct. 4, 5
Interdisciplinary teams of three to five teachers will engage in a free two-day in-person session using traditional design thinking methods based on the Stanford d-School open-source process.
Interdisciplinary teams will be equipped with practical design thinking skills to develop lesson plans or units for immediate classroom delivery. Participants should bring a notebook, pen, and sample lesson plans. Computers are optional.
In-Person Training:
- Oct. 4 and 5, 2025 | 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
- HSTA conference room
- 1200 Ala Kapuna Street, Honolulu, HI 96819
Teacher deliverables; there are monetary awards!
- Each interdisciplinary team will create a unit using the five steps of the design thinking process.
- Each interdisciplinary team will deliver the developed unit in their classrooms during the spring semester.
- Additional online sessions will be provided to support classroom implementation.
- Each interdisciplinary team will present their unit with student work samples to the Hawaiʻi Foundation for Educators Board, HSTA leaders, and the Design Thinking instructors.
- Presentations will be judged, and monetary awards will be given to the first through third-place units to encourage the development of more interdisciplinary units or projects.
- Presentation sessions will showcase lesson plans and student work on dates to be determined.
How to register
- To participate, you must have a team of three to five teachers
- Team form options:
- All the same content area
- All the same grade level
- Team form options:
- Each team member must register by Sept. 22 through the pd.hsta.org webpage.
- Use code SVB9MAKN for the free option
- Once registered, each team member must fill out the information on this form.