Enhancing Stanford Design Thinking for Kids with Digital Technologies A Participatory Action Research Approach to Challenge-Based Learning

Can digital competencies be acquired by solving real problems? The educational intervention MadeByKids called an external educational provider to 17 schools to conduct a series of workshops, having pupils age 7 – 12 solve challenges such as designing the schoolbag 4.0 or the future classroom. The workshops were designed by adopting the Stanford Design Thinking Method for Kids (http://www.ideaco.org) and digital technologies with the goal to “teach” children computational thinking, collaborating in teams, resolving conflicts, presenting, giving/receiving feedback, etc. In this paper, we take a participatory action research (PAR) approach with the goal of exposing significant chunks of the incredibly rich experience. A content analysis of a qualitative survey among teachers and findings from a focus group reflect the teachers’ view. The study indicates that the acquisition of digital competences needs to be backed by personal and social capacities that take time to mature. Furthermore, we learned that the children’s teachers must be included consistently to ensure their cooperation and improve sustainability. Besides providing inspiration for teachers, implications for teacher education are derived and the national project is related to the findings from studies conducted abroad in order to contribute to constructive educational innovations crossing national boundaries.