5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process
(1) Empathize: You should always try to solve the problem for another person.
(2) Define: You should define the problem.
(3) Ideate: Coming up with different solutions.
(4) Prototype: Building one solution and getting feedback again.
(5) Test: Test out the prototyped solution until you get it right.
Design Thinking is a design methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems.
1978 Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon
outlined one of the first formal models of the Design Thinking process
in his classical 1969 text The Sciences of the Artificial with
7 major stages
(Define, Research, Ideation, Prototype, Choose, Implement, Learn).
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design,
commonly known as the d.school, is a design thinking Stanford institute.
Their 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process
is outlined above. Hasso Plattner is a co-founder of SAP SE.
He's a successful and innovative businessman with a net worth of $13.1 billion, so his design thinking is worth studying,
I've not met Herbert Simon or Hasso Plattner (SAP), who
initiated the stages of Design Thinking.
However, when reading about its definition, came across Robert McKim's
Experiences in Visual Thinking (1972).
His wife Virginia McKim
drove me to Mount Shasta (July 1989) for Medicine Walk with journal instructor Nina Holzer.
We went to Sweat Lodges conducted by Native American Shaman Red Hawk.
I read my journal entries to Robert McKim when Virginia & I came home. I met Mark Finnern
(SAP Evangelist) at Stanford's
2004 Accelerating Change Conference.
Mark invited us to SAP Labs (3110 Hillview Ave, Palo Alto),
where we heard Doug Engelbart lecture on
Interactive Computing,
and another SAP talk on Data Mining a month later.
Doug Engelbart lunched with me at
2004 Stanford Conference, and drove me to Chef Chu for dinner later. Didn't know he invented Computer Mouse,
Hypertext, and
Networked Computers,
until he was introduced at the Conference. Fortunate to have met so many creative people.
(1) Empathy is Characteristic of the Sage
Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, Chapter 49:
"The sage has no fixed heart; in the hearts of the people he finds his own." teaches me
that the enlightened master puts his egocentric desires aside to care for others. This is
illustrated in
the Ten Oxherd Drawings by
Kakuan Shien
(12th century Chinese Zen Master).
He saw the last drawing "Empty Circle" symbolizing enlightenment as the goal of Zen,
and felt it incomplete. So he added two more drawings,
the 9th "Returning to the Source"
abiding in the flow of Nature, and 10th "Sage In the Marketplace" helping others.
When I asked Paul Bruntion (PB) in 1972 at his home in Montreux why he had tankas of four Chinese sages (Lao Tzu,
Confucius,
Chou Tun-yi,
Wang Yang Ming) on his walls but not a single Hindu sage,
he told me that the Hindu mystics were too speculative, absorbed
in their inner visions. Chinese sages were more practical and engaged
in the world of everyday life. That's why he admired them more. |
.jpg)
10th Oxherd Drawings:
"In the Marketplace" |
(2) Defining the Problem
Since Rudy's assignment was "What is Religion?", the problem was well defined.
Emailed Rudy, 1-14-2018, 1:13 pm, Los Altos Library—
If you can't access OED online, go to the reference shelves at Sunnyvale Library,
and consult 26 volumes of OED, Read Volume with "R" on definitions of religion.
Also note the source and date of usage. After several trials, I was able to get definitions
on "Religion" online from the Oxford English Dictionary
(OED) at Los Altos Library—
(http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/161944?redirectedFrom=religion#eid) |
.jpg)
OED |
religion, n.
1. A state of life bound by religious vows; the condition of belonging to a religious order
1225 (1200) Vices & Virtues 43 (MED) Do oe oese swikele woreld habbeo
forlaten and seruio ure drihten on religiun, hie folzio Daniele, oe hali profiete.
4a. A particular system of faith and worship.
1791 Thomas Paine Rights of Man i. 75 If they are to judge of each others
religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is right.
4b. fig. A pursuit, interest, or movement, followed with great devotion.
1849 H. W. Longfellow Kavanagh xvi. 78 The memory of that mother
had become almost a religion to her.
7. fig. Strict fidelity or faithfulness; conscientiousness; devotion to some principle. Also: an instance of this.
1597 Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet i. ii. 90 When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintaines such falshood, then turne teares to fire.
1616 Shakespeare As you like It (1623) iv. i. 187 Ros... Keep your promise.
Orl. With no lesse religion, then if thou wert indeed my Rosalind.
P4. orig. U.S. to get religion: to be converted; (in extended use) to take matters seriously,
to give proper attention to an issue.
1993 N.Y. Times 26 Mar. a 28/1 The White House spokesman said the formal plan
may not be ready for another few weeks, so it's still possible his boss may get religion.
2001 Time 22 Oct. 73/1 The Bush Administration..has suddenly got religion about
tracking down terrorists' assets... and an array of other tools on law enforcement's wish list.
|
(3) Ideate: Coming up with different solutions
.jpg) |
Another question in Rudy's assignment "Is Religion in the Brain?"
In my January 14, 2018 email at 12:37 pm, wrote to Rudy—
You checked out this book from Mountain View Library—
Andrew Newberg & Mark Robert Waldman,
How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain (2016)
that we were going to discuss together.
But you never read a single page from the book,
and returned it after two months.
I hoped that you read this book, since they discussed
Enlightenment not via religious or philosoohical
viewpoints, but based on neurological findings
from MRI brain scans.
Perhaps you could check this book out again,
to have ammunition in your class discussion
on religion & the brain.
I typed highlights from this 250-pages book,
if you have no time to read it. |
While I admire Dr. Andrew Newberg's innovative MRI brain scans of various groups engaged in meditation, prayer, and esoteric arts,
I have reservations on their marketing enlightenment for profit.
|
(4) Prototype: Building one solution and getting feedback again
Emailed Rudy on January 14, 2018, 5:03 pm, Los Altos Library
On your query about "Religion", I want to let you know what the
Enlightened Masters had to say on religion.
Brought three of Paul Brunton books to
Los Altos Library today at 11:40 am,
and for the last five and
half hours, typed quotes from these books of a sage to share with you.
*******************************************************************************************
Paul Brunton, Discover Yourself, E.P. Dutton, New York, 1939, Chapter III: A Sane Religion (pp. 36-52)
.jpg)
If you examine the definition of the word "religion", you will find that it is derived from the
Latin word meaning "to bind". To bind with what? Obviously, to bind with God. Obviously, that which
binds man with God is religion. As you look around at the state of orthodox religions in the world today,
would you say that they have succeeded in binding mankind to God? If you are frank and honest,
you must admit that they have failed to do that. And since they have filed, let us try to see why.
First, you must understand how religion develops historically. Religions originally center around
one man, one personality who receives in some way a revelation or an illumination from God.
Then he either writes this revelation or gives it out by word of mouth to people. He finds a few
who understand him, and those few constitute his disciples and his apostles. The others,
or the masses, are merely his followers. (p. 36)
First of all, religion must be a personal thing— a relationship between yourself as an individual
and God the Infinite Spirit— not between you and any organized institutions. The latter are man-made
things, and they are not God.
God is a spirit, so you must find God as spirit; it is something that
needs no external demonstration. No church,
no temple is necessary. You can find it inside your
own heart and in the secrecy of your most intimate feelings.
It is not something to argue about
or to discuss with other persons. They cannot help you. The only way in which religion can be
established is by worship, not by argument or discussion. You must worship God in your own private
apartment; you must set up a certain attitude of thought and emotion towards the Infinite Spirit.
What better attitude can you adopt and to feel as a little child in the presence of that Great Being
who is the Supporter of the Universe. Humility, therefore, is the first step, not only in religion,
but in every study that is worthwhile. As soon as a man thinks he knows all about a subject, or even
half of it, he puts that much limitation between himself and the attainment of his goal. But if he
adopts the attitude of a child who knows that it knows nothing, then he is reachable and it is
possible for him to learn something. (pp. 40-41)
Let go of your dearly-held dogmas, enter into the sublime Silence, and wait for the dawning of Light.
It is useless to use verbal prayer, excepting under stress of great emergency; ordinarily your worship
must be conducted in silence. This is true worship which will bind you to God, and because it binds you
to God, it is real religion… Religion is intended to loosen man from is material desires, to cause him
to work not only for material things, but for super-physical things. When the real religion has been
found, everything else will only be a substitute and even a degradation. Real religion will bind you
to God, and that is the true essence of worship. (p. 47)
If you realize what the essentials of religion are you will find all that you need to know. If you
must play your part in society, or go through the rituals of orthodox religion, you may do that.
But the real religion is beyond these things. It is only real but sane, because it demands nothing
from you which intelligence cannot accept. It demands no blind adherence to dogmas which even the
merest schoolboy senses to be untrue, nor does it demand allegiance to customs and habits which
are antiquated, futile, empty, and unreasonable. Therefore it is sane and rational, practical religion.
Something within us is unsatisfied and calls for a higher existence. We must seek our own spiritual
experience instead of living on the results of others. We must pray, not for more truth, but for
more will to live out the truth we already have; not for God to love us, but for ourselves to love
God more and to help Him by letting Him act through us, through our bodies Within the heart dwells
the supreme divinity; often we are made to know that in reigns supreme; but unless we live out
the will of that divinity in our daily outward lives we are not true disciples of it.
Paul Brunton, A Message from Arunachala, Rider & Co., London, 1936, Chapter VII: Religion (pp. 61-72)
.jpg)
Religion, which in ancient times instructed men in truth and gave them vital spiritual sustenance,
broke down before the developing intellect of man and could not meet his reasonable criticisms.
If the doctrines which in their mixture pass as religion today had been 100% true, religious
leaders would have had nothing to fear from the progress of science. (p. 61)
Five different religions are simply five different ways of talking about the same God. (p. 66)
Four and a half centuries ago a man arose from his highest spiritual trance and taught India the
Truth. 'There is no Hindu and no Mussulman.' And he told the Brahmins that 'a real priest is he
who knows God'. Then he, Guru Nanak, born among Hindus, went to Muhammedan Mecca and
said to Sheikh Farid: "Allah is ever the subject of my efforts, Allah is ever my object." (pp. 66-67)
Paul Brunton, Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, Rider & Co., London, 1941,
Chapter III: The Religious (pp. 52-69)
.jpg)
Religion may briefly be defined as belief in a supernatural Being of Beings. Each religion in its origin
was certainly entitled to be called a revelation, for it was an appeal to the faith and fancy rather
than to the critical reason of man. Most important and most significant of all religions was the
consequence of an attempt by a truly wise man, later turned by history into its titular leader,
to share his knowledge with illiterate masses in the only way that they could grasp his instruction—
by feeding them with symbolic beliefs and simple fables rather than with straightforwardly expressed truths.
Such men have crossed the orbit of our world-fate but rarely. We need not
turn them in imagination into superhuman beings, as their followers generally do, yet we have
to recognize that a deep destiny has
allotted an unusual importance to their personal lives and spoken words. (pp. 52-53)
Take the instance of religion. A religion has to establish its authority by congealing its views
into formal assertions and fixed dogmas. It has to announce these doctrines as supernaturally revealed
"sacred" truths, not as arguable human ones. The moment it is willing to discuss its tenets on any other
basis than that of given and infallible revelation it has opened a door to numerous schisms and to slow
but sure weakening of its entire position. Continuance of such weakening wll one day lead to its collapse.
Therefore religion prudently offers its knowledge to man as something received from a higher source,
from a higher being or a higher world, which he must piously accept on unquestioning faith and reverently
maintain as an unquestioned tradition. (p. 150)
|
(5) Test: Test out the prototyped solution until you get it right
Emailed Rudy January 14, 2018, 1:34 pm, Los Altos Library—
Just remembered my reading about Jiddu Krishnamurti on
"What Is a Religious Man" from Laura Huxley's
This Timeless Moment (1968).
Los Altos Library & Mountain View Library does not have this book.
Laura Huxley (1911-2007), aged 96
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), aged 90
I was so impressed by Jiddu Krishnamurti's answer,
as was Laura's husband
Aldous Huxley,
that I typed up the passage from the book
to share in my
"Wisdom Stories" on my web site available on
Internet Archive: Wayback Machine—
KRISHNAMURTI:
ON WHAT IS A RELIGIOUS MAN
Laurel Huxley asked Krishnamurti: "What is a religious man?"
Krishnamurti changed his tone and rhythm. He spoke now calmly, with incisiveness.
"I will tell you what a religious man is. First of all, a religious man
is a man who is alone— not lonely, you understand, but alone—
with no theories or dogmas, no opinion, no background. He is alone and loves it—
free of conditioning and alone— and enjoying it. Second, a religious man must be
both man and woman— I don't mean sexually— but he must know the dual nature
of everything; a religious man must feel and be both masculine and feminine. Third,"
and now his manner intensified again, "to be a religious man, one must destroy everything—
destroy the past, destroy one's convictions, interpretations, deceptions— destroy all
self-hypnosis— destroy until there is no center; you understand, no center."
He stopped. No center? After a silence Krishnamurti said quietly,
"Then you are a religious person. Then stillness comes. Completely still."
|
.jpg)
Paul Brunton (PB)
(1898-1981) |
Commentary: Unlike science that is objective, religious views are subjective, so there's no right answer.
However a sage's viewpoint is more reliable than
opinions of those who are not awakened. Paul Brunton books have been translated into 17 languages.
There are websites in Czech and
Portugese on PB.
His Search in Secret India is ranked #250 in "Literary & Religious" on Amazon.
62 books of Jiddu Krishnamurti
are listed with links to Amazon.com for purchase. Amazon has
listing of 20 top-selling Krishnamurti's books.
Krishnamurti's Think on These Things (1989)
is ranked #81 in books on "Religion & Spirituality". PB's
The Religious Urge (Vol. 12
of Notebooks, 1988) is
online, and is an exhaustive study on religion. PB told me (1979) when in New Zealand,
he met the Maori Queen and found her enlightened. Like meeting |
.jpg)
Jiddu Krishnamurti
(1895-1986) |
(6) Discussion: How could you use Design Thinking with project-based learning?
How could you use it in your genius hour project?
Google Scholar
lists 97,300 academic articles on
"Design Thinking & Project-Based Learning"
Edutopia has article
"Design Thinking and PBL"
(by Beth Holland, 2-25-2016)—
Design thinking & PBL can bridge what we know &
how we innovate. Try combining these
two practices as an instructional framework for teaching 21st-century skills.
Buck Institute for Education (BIE) has a PBL Blog
"Design
Thinking for Creating a Students Rebuild Project"
(By Shayla Adams-Stafford, 11-13-2017)—
In their "Advocates for Peace" project, students went out into their community, conduct surveys,
analyze data, & draft a policy proposal. During Ideation stage, get out as many ideas as possible
and then prioritize the best ones. In Prototype stage, get reactions and feedbacks from teachers.
Since Design Thinking has 5 stages, it provides a guide-line for students to keep on
track with their projects. Because "Empathy" was listed as the first step of Design Thinking
"solving the problem for another person", I've selected an actual event of Janurary 14, 2018—
listing 4 emails sent to my friend Rudy, answering his 1/13 query "What Is Religion?" Using
Design Thinking on my "Genius Hour" Project— "Mountain with the Λ Shape Image",
I hope to answer the overarching question "How the Soul is related to the triangular shape Λ
of the Mountain?"
My above research on "What Is Religion?" indicates there is no definitive answer,
likewise answers concerning
the "Soul" are not scientific and subjective in nature.
Nevertheless, I'll continue the quest, recalling Robert Browning's
"Andrea del Sarto"— "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?"
|
|
.jpg)