Duration
5 lessons
Year Level
Years 7–8
Subject
Technology / All Subjects
Focus
Innovation & Empathy
"Mā te rongo, ka mōhio. Mā te mōhio, ka mārama. Mā te mārama, ka mātau. Mā te mātau, ka ora."
Through listening comes knowledge. Through knowledge comes understanding. Through understanding comes wisdom. Through wisdom comes wellbeing.
This whakataukī stands as its own teaching about listening, understanding, wisdom, and wellbeing.
📋 Unit Overview
Design Thinking is a human-centred approach to innovation and problem-solving developed at Stanford d.school. It combines creative and analytical thinking to develop solutions that truly meet people's needs.
In this unit, students will learn the Design Thinking process and apply it to solve real challenges in their school or community.
Learning Outcomes
- Develop empathy skills through observation and interviewing
- Define problems from a user-centred perspective
- Generate creative ideas through brainstorming techniques
- Create rapid prototypes to test ideas
- Gather feedback and iterate on designs
- Communicate design decisions effectively
🔄 The Design Thinking Process
😊 Empathise
Understand users
🎯 Define
Frame the problem
💡 Ideate
Generate ideas
🔨 Prototype
Build to learn
🧪 Test
Get feedback
The process is iterative — you may loop back to earlier stages as you learn.
🔍 The Five Phases Explained
😊 Empathise
Put yourself in others' shoes. Observe, interview, and experience what your users experience.
Key Activities: Interviews, observation, immersion, empathy maps
🎯 Define
Synthesise your research to define the core problem from the user's perspective.
Key Activities: Point-of-view statements, "How Might We" questions
💡 Ideate
Generate a wide range of creative solutions. Quantity over quality at first!
Key Activities: Brainstorming, mind mapping, sketching
🔨 Prototype
Build quick, rough versions of your ideas to make them tangible.
Key Activities: Paper prototypes, models, role-playing
🧪 Test
Get feedback from real users. Learn what works and what doesn't.
Key Activities: User testing, feedback sessions, iteration
Knowledge boundary: These five English phase names belong to one contemporary design-thinking framework. Māori innovation and mātauranga Māori must be studied in their own contexts and with appropriate local sources; they are not translations or early versions of these phases.
🎯 Design Challenge Ideas
Real-world challenges for students to tackle:
🏫 School Experience
How might we make the first day less stressful for new students?
🌿 Environment
How might we reduce waste in our school cafeteria?
🤝 Community
How might we help elderly neighbours stay connected?
💪 Wellbeing
How might we help students manage stress during exams?
🚶 Accessibility
How might we make our school more accessible for everyone?
🌿 Local restoration
How might we restore native plants in our local area?
📋 Curriculum Alignment
NZ Curriculum — Technology
- Technological Practice: Planning for practice, Brief development, Outcome development
- Technological Knowledge: Understanding technological modelling
- Nature of Technology: Understanding the characteristics of technology
Key Competencies: Thinking, Relating to Others, Participating and Contributing, Managing Self
Values: Innovation, inquiry, curiosity; Community and participation; Ecological sustainability
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga — Learning Intentions
- Students can apply the five phases of design thinking (Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test) to solve a real community problem.
- Students can conduct empathy interviews and synthesise user insights into a clear problem statement.
- Students can generate and evaluate multiple design solutions using divergent and convergent thinking strategies.
- Students can build, test, and iterate a low-fidelity prototype based on user feedback.
- Students can reflect critically on the design process and articulate how their solution serves the community.
Paearu Angitu — Success Criteria
- I can describe the needs of my end-user based on at least two empathy interview findings.
- I can write a "How might we…?" problem statement that is specific, human-centred, and actionable.
- I can generate at least 15 ideas during an ideation sprint and select the most promising using agreed criteria.
- I can build a prototype and conduct at least one round of testing with real feedback from end-users.
- I can explain what I changed after testing and why, using evidence from user feedback.
Teacher Planning Snapshot
Curriculum Alignment
Technology — Te Mātaiaho Phase 3 (Years 7–8), cross-curricular. Primary strands: Technological Practice (brief development, design, evaluation), Nature of Technology (purpose and function). Integrates across Technology, English, Social Sciences, and Arts.
Mātauranga Māori Lens
Keep the contemporary five-phase process and Māori knowledge traditions distinct. Study Māori innovation through bounded, iwi- or hapū-authored examples where possible, and use local concepts or tikanga only with appropriate authority. Do not attach Māori words to generic phase activities or treat mātauranga Māori as a values overlay for the Stanford process.
Entry / On-level / Extension
- Entry: Pre-defined design challenge with scaffolded empathy protocols, visual ideation boards, and prototype templates. Supported group work.
- On-level: Students select from teacher-curated community problems. Full five-phase process with structured milestones and peer critique sessions.
- Extension: Self-directed challenge with authentic community stakeholders. Present the prototype to a panel and evaluate it against explicit technology specifications plus any separately attributed, locally authorised criteria.