How to apply Design Thinking in a school project

June 16, 2026

A design thinking school project on Class2Class moves through 5 clear phases. See exactly what each phase looks like and what you do on the platform.

Your students have chosen a problem they care about. Now what? A design thinking school project gives you the answer — a clear sequence of five phases that moves a class from “we noticed this” to “here is our solution.” This guide walks through each phase in plain language and shows you exactly what you will find on the Class2Class platform when you open your project board.

Diverse group of five teenagers sitting on school stairs, laughing and collaborating — representing international student teamwork in a design thinking school project

What Is a Design Thinking School Project on Class2Class?

Design thinking is a way of solving problems that starts with the people who live the problem — not with the solution someone already had in mind. Five phases give the work its shape: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Share & Improve. You can read a fuller explanation of the methodology in What Is Design Thinking in Education, including why the process works for classrooms of any age and subject.

On Class2Class, a design thinking school project is a Create Solutions project — one of the three types of international collaboration the platform supports. Two classrooms in different countries work as partners: they investigate the same real problem, build ideas together, and present a shared solution at the end. Every activity on the platform falls into one of four categories — Icebreaker, Working in Class, Presentation, and Reflection — and the five design thinking phases map naturally across them.

Here is a quick look at each phase of a design thinking school project and what it asks of your class:

Empathize — observe and listen before proposing any solution.
Define — agree on one clear problem statement with the partner class.
Ideate — generate as many ideas as possible before evaluating any of them.
Prototype — build a simple first version of the best idea.
Share & Improve — present the solution, collect honest feedback, and decide what to improve.

The Project Definition Assistant on the platform helps you set this up. You describe your topic, choose your grade level and language, and the assistant builds a draft plan with activities and a session timeline. You can edit everything. The setup takes about fifteen minutes. And because Class2Class is free, there are no costs to consider — just your students and their question.

Phase 1 — Empathize: Your Students Listen First

The Empathize phase is about observation and curiosity. Before your students propose any solutions, they spend time really understanding who is affected by the problem — and how.

In the classroom: Students observe the space where the problem lives — the school cafeteria, the garden, the street outside. They interview classmates or community members, or document what they see with photos, notes, or drawings. The goal is to collect real observations, not assumptions. What students often discover is that the problem they assumed they understood looks quite different once they listen.

On the platform: This phase happens inside an Icebreaker activity — one of the four activity types the platform uses to organize the project. The Icebreaker is specifically designed for that first moment of contact: both classes introduce themselves and share their initial observations with each other.

Both teachers can see what each class uploaded. What gets shared here becomes your initial connection evidence — the record of how both classes first met and what each one noticed about the problem they chose to study. It is often a short video, a photo gallery, or a voice note.

A tip from teachers who have run a design thinking school project: the Empathize phase surprises students. They come in with one idea of the problem and finish with a richer, different one. That surprise is often a gift from the partner class, who describes the same problem from another country’s perspective.

Phase 2 — Define: One Sentence, Agreed Together

The Define phase of a design thinking school project turns a pile of observations into one clear problem statement. This step is harder than it sounds — and that difficulty is productive.

In the classroom: Each team reviews the observations from the Empathize phase and asks: what is the real, underlying problem here? Groups share their ideas, challenge each other gently, and work toward one sentence the whole class can agree on. One sentence is usually enough. If you find yourself writing five, you likely have five different problems — and a project with five problems will pull your class in five directions at once. Naming one thing gives both classes a shared target to aim at together.

On the platform: This is a Working in Class activity — the activity type designed for the substantive collaborative work of the project. You will find it in your project board, in sequence after the Icebreaker. Your students write their problem statement and share it on the shared board.

The partner class does the same. Then both classes discuss, compare their two statements, and agree on a shared version. You upload the final agreed statement as evidence — this is your first piece of collaborative work evidence, the documentation of real exchange between both classes. In the activity card, you can see both classes’ contributions side by side.

A shared problem statement across two countries is harder to write than a local one. It asks students to consider whether the problem looks the same from a classroom in Colombia and a classroom in Poland. Very often, it does not — and that difference sharpens the final solution considerably.

Phase 3 — Ideate: Every Idea Counts

The Ideate phase opens the floor. In a design thinking school project, the rule is simple: quantity before quality. Students generate as many ideas as possible before anyone evaluates them.

In the classroom: Use sticky notes, a shared whiteboard, or a simple table — one column per student, as many ideas as they can produce in ten minutes. Then each group presents their list. The class clusters similar ideas and identifies the ones with the most potential. At this stage, the student who says something “strange” may be pointing at the best idea in the room.

On the platform: This is a second Working in Class activity in the sequence. Students share their top ideas on the project board and read what the partner class produced. Together, through comments and video calls if time zones allow, both classes discuss which ideas are most promising and why. The combined list becomes the input for the next phase. This collaborative design thinking school project step builds the Collaboration & Teamwork competency and often Creativity & Innovation at the same time — students see directions they would not have imagined alone.

One practical note: the Ideate phase works best when the teacher does not filter ideas before students share them. Trust the process and let the students do the evaluating together.

Phase 4 — Prototype: Build Something Real

The Prototype phase is where a design thinking school project becomes tangible. Not a perfect product — a first version. The goal is to build something that exists and can be reacted to.

In the classroom: A prototype can be almost anything: a poster, a simple model from recycled materials, a short video, a written plan, a diagram, or a paper mock-up. The format does not matter. What matters is that both classes build their version and can compare them. Students who have never built anything for an audience before often surprise themselves here.

On the platform: This is a third Working in Class activity, or it can be set up as a joint evidence upload on the project board. Both classes photograph or film their prototype and upload it. This becomes your final product evidence — the tangible output both classes built together. The activity card includes a reflection prompt alongside the upload: what choices did you make, and why?

One moment to anticipate: when two classrooms prototype the same idea and then see each other’s versions, they almost always find that the designs are different. The reasons are fascinating — different available materials, different school contexts, different interpretations of the shared problem. That comparison generates some of the richest conversation this kind of collaborative project can offer.

Phase 5 — Share & Improve: Show, Evaluate, and Iterate

The Share & Improve phase is where the design thinking school project meets its audience. They show it to a real audience — the partner class, the school, the community — and ask honestly: what works, and what should change?

In the classroom: Each class presents their prototype to the partner class, to their school community, or to both. They collect feedback through questions, short surveys, or live conversation. Then they decide as a group whether to improve the prototype or document what they learned. The process is honest: good feedback is not agreement. It is useful.

On the platform: This phase uses two activity types. The Presentation activity is where each class shares the final product with the partner — it is designed for results: each class publishes its work to the shared project board, and both teachers can access it.

The Reflection activity that follows is designed for the student’s voice: students answer guided questions about what they designed, what feedback they received, and what they would do differently next time. What they write becomes your student reflection evidence — the group’s own account of what they learned, what worked, and what they would change. It is often the most revealing evidence in the whole project, because it shows the learning behind the product, not just the product itself.

When the project ends, you and your students receive a certificate of completion. The evidence collected across the five phases — from the first Icebreaker upload to the final Reflection — gives you a documented record of what each group did, discussed, and decided. That record is yours to use: for assessment, for reporting, or simply to show students what they built together.

Your Next Step: Start Small and Grow

A design thinking school project does not require a redesigned syllabus or a room full of special supplies. It fits into a normal block of five to six sessions, uses whatever materials your students have access to, and comes with a partner class and a ready-made activity plan already included.

The public Discover Page has project ideas already structured around common real-world problems — sustainable school spaces, clean water, food waste, green design — and ready for you to adapt. Many of them were built by teachers in their first year on the platform.

A 2024 meta-analysis published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications found that design thinking positively affects student motivation, engagement, and problem-solving ability — with the strongest effects precisely in structured, collaborative settings like these. And as the OECD Learning Compass 2030 argues, giving students real agency over real problems is one of the clearest paths toward the kind of learning that sticks.

When you find a project idea that fits, you open it, adapt the timeline to your calendar, and start the first activity with your class. The structure is already there — the phases, the activity sequence, the evidence prompts, the partner class. What you bring is your students and the problem they want to solve.

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