Abstract

The current state of economic development of Chile requires human capital with thinking skills such as, analytical thinking, creative problem solving, and collaboration; all skills deployed extensively during the design process. At the primary and secondary school level, this problem is not solved only with curricular changes, but requires teacher training and support. There is empirical evidence that the international application of design thinking has been successful in education among students and teachers. However, directly importing such models may not be effective given the particularities of the Chilean education system. This paper reports a research project that sought to identify opportunities for design thinking in Chilean education by developing and testing a training program for 20 teachers and managers. During extended design thinking training a range of resources were used to collect, systematize and analyse the information generated by participants (practical exercises, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, arrays, etc.). This paper gives an account of the context of the study, the variables chosen for an analysis of the training programme and preliminary results.