K12 Lab Network Resource Guide

1. Ways to Connect

• Sign up for the K12 Lab Network mailing list here: All events and opportunities to be involved with the K12 Lab Network are announced here. You can also email us directly at [email protected].
• K12 Lab Network program page: The best place to learn about the latest and greatest at the d.school’s K12 Lab Network. Includes upcoming events, opportunities, stories and links to resources.
• d.school Website: A great place to learn about all that’s happening at the d.school as a whole. Includes information about the public tour of the d.school.
• Join the K12 Lab Network Facebook page. Another way to get connected with educators who have been to an event that the K12 Lab Network has hosted.
• Design Thinking in Schools: In partnership with IDEO we created this map of schools all over the world integrating design thinking into their curriculum. Please join if you are using design thinking in your classroom.
• #DTK12: A twitter hashtag where the twitter-verse goes for all things design thinking in education. Related: #DTK12chat, a weekly twitter chat on design thinking in K12 education, held on Wednesdays from 6-7 PM PST.
• Follow @K12lab on twitter for invitations and information about the latest goings on and workshop offerings.

2. K12 Lab Projects & Initiatives

• School Retool is a professional development fellowship that helps school leaders redesign their school’s culture using small, scrappy experiments called “hacks.” Hacks may start small, but they’re build on research-based practices that lead to Deeper Learning, and can create the kind of big changes school leaders strive to create.
• The Shadow a Student Challenge is a call for school leaders to deeply immerse themselves in empathy for their students by shadowing a student for an entire day, from bus stop to bus stop. The tools and materials are available for download on the website.
• Liberatory Design is the result of our collaboration with the National Equity Project. We created an equity-centered design thinking framework focused as well as design cards.
• Our Deeper Learning Puzzle Bus is an experiment in how we might apply the international craze of escape rooms to the educational imperative of helping students get better at crucial deeper learning skills.

3. Previous K12 Lab Projects & Initiatives

• d. home team was work we supported with Bay Area schools incorporating design thinking into their curriculum and practices. Its innovative teacher professional development tools are open source for your use.
• Our work to Reimagine High School has included work with d.tech high school, creating the DSX model, and Project Wayfinder.

4. Toolkits & Curricular Resources

There are multiple resources and collections of design methods out there. Not all of these are specifically designed for education, but they are all useful when exploring and using design thinking.