Centro Educativo de Design Thinking

¿No sería increíble que todos quisieran ir a la escuela todos los días?

Student and Teacher re-engagement through school-wide adoption of Design Thinking!

CEDDT is a not for profit program focused on applying design thinking principles and practices to education. Its purpose is to promote innovation and creativity in education through the use of design thinking. Read about the value of design thinking in education here.

The CEDDT team works with educators, administrators, and students to apply design thinking to a variety of educational pathways, including curriculum design, teacher professional development, and student engagement. It offers a range of programs and services, including workshops, coaching, and consulting, to help educators integrate design thinking into their practice.

The center also conducts research on the effectiveness of design thinking in education and shares its findings with the broader education community. By promoting the use of design thinking in education, CEDDT aims to improve student outcomes and prepare students for success in a rapidly changing world. More detail about our program can be found on the Programs page.

Partners:

Organizations we are thrilled to have as our partners!

UPR Bayamon

Puerto Rico Education Initiative

Fundacion Cortes

ECHAR PA'LANTE

Latest News:

Educator Fellows Cohort #3 Launched Saturday March 1st, 2025

March 1, 2025: The third cohort of CEDDT's Educator Fellows launched on Saturday, March 1st. This cohort includes 18 graduates of CEDDT & UPRB's Design Thinking in Education certification program. And for the first time, a few graduates of CEDDT, PREI and the Puerto Rico Department of Education's Leadership Academy. This year's cohort will deeply explore Design Thinking in education through the lens of the mindsets commonly associated with Design Thinking (Bias to Action & Radical Collaboration, for example). The first Saturday was anchored with a walking tour and exploration of Santurce: Un Libro Mural was led by renowned Puerto Rican artist Rafael Trelles.

Academia de Liderazgo Educativo #2 Launches

September 27, 2024: Today we launched the second Academia de Liderazgo Educativo with the Puerto Rico Department of Education and PREI. The year-long program was kicked-off by the Secretary of Education Yanira Raices and the CDTIE team lead the afternoon Design Thinking session. The Academy meets for a full day, once a month over the rest of the school year and includes 40 leaders and school directors from each of the seven regional offices (OREs)...

EntreSesiones #3 Launches at AES

October 3, 2022: The Design Labs this fall are "Re-designing your School" & "d.Circular". The first one focuses on finding an opportunity for positive change in your school. The focus for d.Circular is designing for sustainability in your community. We are excited to welcome Holberton School (see other post below) back for their amazing coding Exploracione. And we are, once again, partnering with Asles - American Sign Language Educational Services and Asociación De No Vidente Luz de Amor to offer a braille and sign language class. Our other Exploraciones include "Vida Saludable" & "Ciencia lo es Todo". Welcome back!!!

New DTEA Headquarters at UPRB

June 23, 2022: The chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico in Bayamón announced today that they will be providing space for CDTIE to move it's headquarter offices onto the UPRB campus.

Get Ready for Teacher Certification!!!

June 14, 15, 16, 21 & 23, 2022: DTEA, UPR Bayamon and the Puerto Rico Education Foundation will be launching our joint teacher certification in Design Thinking. This 30 hour program, taught by local teachers, will help participants to implement Design Thinking in their classrooms. The summer version of the program spans five days and multiple locations where Design Thinking theory and practice will be shared by teachers, students and community members. Attendees will receive a Design Thinking kit (textbook, stoke deck, prototyping materials, etc.) for their classrooms. Register your interest HERE...

EntreSesiones #2 Launches at AES

February 14, 2022: After a five week "Omicron" delay, we are back at it with a full two-week Entresesiones at AES. The Design Lab this time is "Hecho en Puerto Rico". The focus is on designing a change to family behaviour around local product purchasing and consumption in your own home. We have a very exciting new Exploracione class that has launched with Holberton School (see other post below). Additionally, we are partnering with Asles - American Sign Language Educational Services and Asociación De No Vidente Luz de Amor to offer a braille and sign language class.

Braile & Sign Language

Art w/ Animals

Coding w/ Holberton

Student Leadership Program: Fieldtrip!

September 9, 2021: We took our students on a fieldtrip to Fundación Cortes! They learned about the rich history in this chocolate factory and how, through the generations, they remembered and remarked the importance in all kinds of art in Puerto Rico.

How do you see yourself as a leader?

Teacher Training in AES: Day Three

September 3, 2021: Diving deep in Design Thinking (D.T) with this one! We had the opportunity to give a six hour long Teacher Training session. In which we provided material, rubrics, guides, and more, to facilitate the upcoming Entresesion in October. We also took the teachers through each step of D.T with the 'Design Your Classroom' challenge to better prepare them.

Empathy!

Ideation!

30 circles challenge!

Teacher Fellows Program: Update!

August 21, 2021: Storytelling is an important part of any project. Especially in Design Thinking; it is a part of the first step, Empathy. This is what we demonstrated to our teachers in our follow-up meeting as our program leaders paired up with them and storyboarded the process of their Capstone Projects in Education. We thank our guest Alberto Baco, who told his own story regarding his new project in renovating an abandoned building to be a hotel that tells the rich history of Santurce.

Taking in the amazing view of Puerto Rico!

Student Leadership Program

August 17, 2021: As we began working with our first private school to implement the first Entresesion in October. We began a new program to prompt student leadership to prepare them for the world outside of school through one hour Design Thinking classes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Teacher Training in AES: Day One

August 30, 2021: Today we had our first day of teacher training! We started off with the Mask Challenge to begin mentoring them in Design Thinking in preparation for the first Entresesion in Academia Espiritu Santo (AES).

Teacher Fellows Program

June 19, 2021 - July 12, 2021: Through a comprehensive six day design thinking course, we provided an immersive experience to a group of dedicated teachers, exposing them to a new mindset to bring back motivation to their classrooms. We would like to thank our various community partners for their hospitality: Holberton, Base, Fundación Cortez, 787 Coffee, La Isla, 100% HP, Neeuko and UPRB.

UPR in Bayamon Signs a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

June 23, 2021: We are happy to announce that UPR in Bayamon has enthusiastically signed an MOU with us. We will be collaborating to explore the world of Design Thinking for schools in Puerto Rico as well as educators.

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Design Thinking at Holberton School PR

May 7, 2021: Our organization was very happy to have had our first in-person Design Thinking workshop at the Holberton School. Our team provided a Design Sprint that was focused on teaching the participants user-centered design.

United States Department of Agriculture Puerto Rico!

March 31, 2021: DTEA provided an introductory workshop to the NRCT. Here a design sprint challenge was presented where the participants began the practice of the design thinking steps. The purpose of this design sprint was to familiarize the participants with the idea of DT without explicitly going in-depth into any specific step. This challenge focus on a do the first mindset where the participants learned through doing. The participants went step by step through the design thinking process. Starting with empathy they interviewed each other on their environmental practices of one another to try and understand what they thought they could have done better environmentally. They then quickly defined what their partner wished they could have done better and worked on finding as many solutions as they could. Then they presented the best of their ideas and why their partner said they needed this specific idea.

Walkabout Bronx High School EntreSesion Launch

January 25, 2021: In this difficult time for education, a partnership dream, two years in the making, has come true! Walkabout Bronx High School, having just opened in fall of 2020, has had its first EntreSesion (InterSession). Representatives of Walkabout first embedded in the DTEA program in Puerto Rico in May of 2019. And now we have helped them to bring the program to NYC. Walkabout students were eager to showcase virtual learning prototypes that they created in their Design Labs and would like to implement into their own school. Students enjoyed a variety of exploration classes led by professionals from all over the globe (including San Francisco, Puerto Rico & Austria). The also participated eagerly in small group "Mentoria" experiences to start each day.

We need your help!

January 2020: DTEA is asking for everyone to help out nuestros hermanos de Guayanilla! The recent earthquakes in the south of Puerto Rico really took a toll of the people in the devestaded community, especially the students who can't attend school.