In her doctoral paper Loraine Rossi de Campos explores the use of Design Thinking in a school district for a 4-5 grade school.
In the conclusion Rossi reports that 14 of the 18 participants interviewed, believed design thinking to be an important process to the design and function of the DDT. Of those 14 respondents, nine explicitly referenced design thinking as and important “philosophy,” “critical principal,” or an “important process.” Five of the 14 members interviewed, tied the importance of design thinking to its usefulness as an approach in the classroom. Refer to page 162 onwards for the conclusions of the study with respect to the usefulness of design thinking in their design process. Those DDT members that viewed design thinking as a key principal or approach to the work of the team often cited the connection between design thinking and innovation as highly valuable to the work of the team. i.e. in terms of continuous improvement, collaboration and a user centered approach to designing.