Developing a Rubric for Teaching and Assessing Design Thinking Across the Curriculum

After learning how the steps of the design process mirrored the skills a middle school set out to provide its students, an interdisciplinary team of teachers implemented “design thinking” in their lessons across the curriculum, including art, media literacy, and research projects. Using the design process practiced by architects and others in their work as a model, the team of teachers created a rubric to accompany a variety of projects. This rubric described the 12 steps in the design process with the goal that students following the steps would achieve the goals of the standards-based lessons and practice the twenty-first-century skills imbedded in the design process. These skills include creative problem solving, communication, and collaboration, among others. Standards met included those in Language Arts and Literature as well as Art and Design. This paper assesses the positive outcomes and issues that occurred related to the implementation of such a project, with suggestions for further research and improvements.