Smithsonian Design Institute by Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Each summer, Cooper- Hewitt, National Design Museum (CHNDM) presents the Smithsonian Design Institute (SDI), an intensive, five-day innovative professional development program that trains K-12 teachers to use design-based learning in their classrooms. Although the Museum is based in New York, we have trained hundreds of teachers from across the country—including Washington, DC, Minneapolis, Minnesota, San Antonio Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana. The program serves as an introduction to design and design thinking as a vehicle for creative problem-solving across curricula, providing teachers with training and resources as a pathway for integrating design-based education in their own classrooms in the academic year. Given that SDI links the design process across curricula, teachers from all disciplines and grades are encouraged to participate. The training also aligns the design process to Math and ELA Common Core Standards and STEM learning. In exchange for participation in the program, teachers are asked to integrate design thinking into their classrooms, participate in evaluation activities, write standards-based lesson plans and lead workshops on design thinking for faculty in their school or district.